By Tony Bellissimo
The top-seeded and undefeated Bulldogs trailed second-seeded Garden City by two goals in a defensive struggle on the rain-soaked turf at Hofstra's Shuart Stadium. They were in dire need of a spark.
That's when senior All-American Max Seibald took matters into his own hands. He won the opening faceoff of the fourth quarter against Trojans specialist Justin Lynch and, like a battering ram, worked his way toward the cage and bounced a shot past goalie Bradley Horn as he was leveled by defenseman Kerry McCormick, another All-American who was in Seibald's hip pocket all evening.
Seibald would beat Lynch on the next two draws, ultimately leading to sophomore Alfredo Lamanna's acrobatic game-tying goal 1:45 later and senior Jon Baron's eventual title-clincher with 9:34 left. Both shots beat Horn just under the crossbar.
The three-goal outburst gave the Bulldogs a thrilling come-from-behind 5-4 victory and their first county championship in nine years of existence. They took a 19-0 record into the Long Island Class B title game against Huntington at SUNY-Stony Brook on Tuesday night, after press time.
"This has been a total team effort since the first day of practice, and I can't say enough about these kids and the coaching staff," Coach Chris Passuello said. "We knew it would be a dogfight. There were a lot of great teams in the B tournament. I thought seven or eight had a legitimate chance to win it. We've had a magical run."
The weather was similar to what Hewlett and Garden City endured in their regular-season meeting. The Bulldogs came from three goals down to win 8-7 as Seibald, Baron and sophomore Josh Larris had two goals apiece.
But coming from behind to win a championship, on a slick field, against a perennial county powerhouse that scored 50 goals in three playoff victories, was an entirely different animal.
Unlike the April 23 game in which the Trojans (18-2) scored five unanswered goals in the second quarter to take a 5-2 lead at the half, the teams were locked in a 2-2 deadlock at the break. Garden City's Brian Holman opened the scoring, but Seibald and Lamanna scored late in the first and early in the second, respectively, to give Hewlett a 2-1 lead. Terry Kennedy retied it.
"We really liked the pace of the game, because they can be deadly in transition," Passuello said.
The only two goals of the third came off the stick of Garden City's Robert Engelke, who beat senior All-County goalie Dan Goldberg (nine saves) with 31 seconds left in the quarter to put the Bulldogs in a hole they wanted no part of. "In the huddle before the fourth quarter, we talked about how huge the next goal would be," Passuello said. "If we fell behind by three, we would have been forced out of our game plan. Max told everyone he'd win the faceoff and score, and that's exactly what he did."
The main hurdle was Lynch, a faceoff specialist who won all five draws in the opening half. But Seibald turned the tables in the final 24 minutes, winning all but one of the next eight scrums. That, combined with the outstanding defensive efforts of seniors Dominick DeNapoli and Eytan Saperstein, juniors Randy Platnick and Sam Wiener, sophomore Steven DeNapoli, freshman Nick Mastronardi and Goldberg, was the difference.
Though the Bulldogs controlled the tempo down the stretch, Garden City had chances to send the game into overtime. In fact, for a split second the Trojans thought they had the equalizer with less than a minute remaining, when Tim Hay's shot rippled the net. But it was the outside of the net.
"I heard the crowd roar but I didn't know what happened," Passuello said. "It was a relief to learn it didn't go in."
Photos by Rebecca Lopatin/Herald
