'Frustrating': Suffern stalls for 10 minutes to defeat Wappingers in lax section final

The Suffern Mounties are the 2024 Section 1 Class A girls lacrosse champions.

Consider them also unofficial Section 1 keep-away champs.

In a game that started out like it would be a Suffern rout but changed into a one-goal contest, the Mounties dared upstart Wappingers to get the ball from them.

They deked. They stood still. They passed short. They passed long.

They ran around.

And around.

And around.

But they didn’t risk losing the ball by shooting.

Not for the last 10-plus minutes of the fourth quarter as they clung to the ball and clung to a 7-6 lead.

And Wappingers, as much as it pressed and tried to force the Mounties into a turnover minute after minute, ultimately had no answer.

It got the ball back with about 10:20 left in the game but promptly turned it back to Suffern, which then went into what seems like a historic stall.

“Frustrating,” Wappingers senior Mackenzie Velsmid later said.

But legal.

That is until next year when it’s anticipated a 90-second shot clock will be instituted.

Longtime Mounties coach John Callanan said the stall wasn’t a plan but rather a reaction to one of his best offensive weapons, junior and D-I commit Molly Mitchell, being booted from the game for committing two fouls after she’d registered a goal and an assist.

The second foul, coming with 3:11 left in the second quarter and Suffern up 5-2, might have been a bit ticky-tack, but, no matter.

The call might not have changed who won the game, but it ultimately changed its character, even if Wappingers kept its displeasure muted.

The Titans had been down this road – although not quite as long a road – before. Velsmid, who’ll play for Endicott College next year, noted North Rockland employed a long stall against it in last year’s semifinals.

Sean Rowan, head coach of Wappingers, which exacted some sense of satisfaction over that by beating North Rockland by a goal in this year’s semis, said Suffern’s stall was the longest he’d seen.

“It’s the first to be an entire quarter,” he quipped, exaggerating only a little since Suffern’s Michaela Fay had taken a shot that hit the side of the net in the quarter’s opening minute.

But Fay, who scored a game-high four goals, had gotten her own rebound and no shots were taken after that.

Rowan put blame on himself for his squad’s inability to take the ball back.

“They had cleaner sticks,” he said, referring to Suffern. “They took advantage of a rule. It’s on me as a coach. I should have had them practice (for this).”

The scoring

It would have been nearly impossible to envision the ending of the game in the early going.

The opening minutes belonged exclusively to Suffern, in particular to Fay.

Less than a minute into the game, Fay had her first goal.

By the time four minutes and five seconds had elapsed, she had three.

Before the quarter ended, Charlotte Ullman, who later made a huge play getting a loose ball before it went out of bounds for a turnover during the keep-away, scored off an 8-meter free shot. And by that time, Suffern also had hit a post and Wappingers netminder Emma Martin had a nice save.

Mitchell expanded the Suffern lead to 5-0 on an 8-meter free shot in the first minute of the second quarter.

But Martin made two excellent saves, including one on Fay, and Wappingers appeared to get a spark from that.

In fact, it scored the next four goals to cut Suffern’s lead to 5-4 at the half.

Ava Feliciotto got things going, scoring with 8:56 left in the quarter after a long run with the ball.

After Martin stopped a fast, low, sidearm shot (she was credited with five saves in all), freshman Haley Washall, who had a huge offensive year for the Titans, scored the first of what would be her two goals.

Then, with Mitchell out of the game, Sade Reyes recording a steal and Wappingers hustling for both balls off the draw and other loose balls, Alex Cazzorla and Avery Reimer scored.

The only thing preserving Suffern’s one-goal halftime lead was a Jillian Terlizzi save on a Velsmid shot late in the second quarter. (Terlizzi would be credited with three saves for the game.)

The second half started in some ways like the first with Suffern looking strong early, then Wappingers coming back.

Nevin Sullivan scored off a nice Ullman feed and Fay ripped an ankle-high eight-meter shot into the net before Velsmid sprinted down the field after a Suffern turnover and fed Washall, who scored.

Reimer, who also had an assist, closed out the scoring with 4:16 left in the third quarter after losing her defender with a turn-around move right by the left post.

Quotables

Velsmid linked her team's improvement to a change in approach, saying Wappingers had suffered from “a lot of nerves” the first several minutes of the game, but Rowan had given a motivating pep talk that stressed focusing on possessing the ball and patience once it got it.

While unhappy with how the fourth quarter played out, reaching the final — which Wappingers had never done before — left her "pretty happy," Velsmid said. She called beating North Rockland “No. 1 on my bucket list. “

Fay, who called the game’s final quarter, “crazy,” said Suffern might have gotten thrown off its game and lost momentum due to the calls against Mitchell and by being “a little cocky” after grabbing its early lead.

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Wappingers ended its season 15-4.

Suffern, 15-3, will play in a Class A state regional semifinal Wednesday at Lakeland High.

Of her team’s approach to that game, Fay said, “We just have to play our game and focus on us and have as much fun as possible. You never know when it could be the last game.”

Nancy Haggerty covers cross-country, track & field, field hockey, skiing, ice hockey, basketball, girls lacrosse and other sporting events for The Journal News/lohud. Follow her on Twitter at @HaggertyNancy.

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Girls lacrosse: Suffern scores early, stalls late in Class A title win