Girls lacrosse: Bronxville returns to state Class D title game, beating Cold Spring Harbor
CORTLAND — The Bronxville girls lacrosse team dropped three consecutive Class D girls state lacrosse championship games before COVID ended the state championships for two years.
Now, the Broncos will finally get another shot.
Despite a phenomenal performance by Cold Spring Harbor freshman goalie Maya Soskin, who stopped 21 shots, Bronxville defeated the Section 8 champions 11-6 Friday at SUNY-Cortland in a state Class D semifinal game.
What it means
With the win, Bronxville, now 20-1, will play Section 3 Skaneateles, a 15-3 winner over Section 5 Palmyra-Macedon.
That game will be Saturday at 4:30 p.m.
Cold Spring Harbor finished the season 10-9.
Player of the game
Kiki Tormey, who was a freshman varsity player when Bronxville dropped its third consecutive state final, helped ensure her team has gotten another shot.
Tormey, who'll play for Brown University next year, had a game-high five goals and took top game honors.
Included among her scores were three in the first half, when Bronxville twice came back from a goal down to ultimately take a 6-4 lead.
Tormey scored Bronxville's seventh goal just 41 seconds into the second half on a beautiful play that saw her fake a shot, move, fake a shot, move and fake a shot and then fire from a three-quarters arm angle.
On her final goal, she drove right, then shoot back hard left to put the Broncos up 9-5 with 13:42 remaining.
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By the numbers
Catherine Berkery had five points for Bronxville on two goals and three assists.
Two of her assists were perfect feeds on Bronxville's fifth and sixth goals.
But it was Berkery's goal that knotted the score at 3 that should be remembered as one of the prettiest and most impressive scores of the season.
Moving to the net, she took a quick feed from Megan Krestinski and in one motion flung the ball behind her back and into the goal.
Krestinski also had a huge game.
She had two goals and two assists and scored the game's first goal, whipping in an 8-meter free shot.
Bridget Finley and Caroline Ircha had the other Bronco scores.
All of the above would have had more goals if not for Soskin.
She victimized Krestinski multiple times with highlight-reel saves.
Never afraid to use her body, she stopped a Krestinski 8-meter free try with a knee, made a sliding, charging save on a low Krestinski shot and not only stopped her late 8-meter try but then came up even bigger, robbing Krestinski after Krestinski got her own rebound and shot on net behind her back.
But, for all that, the Seahawks couldn't must much offense.
Ryan Reynolds led them with two goals.
Franny Donohue, who got her team's sportsmanship award (Anna Becker won Bronxville's), scored once, as did Kelly Callaghan, Jenna Kessler and Hannah Van Son.
Ava Tighe, who had nearly 70 goals this season, was limited to two assists. Meghan McGloin and Donohue each had one assist.
Shinsato had five saves and an interception. Her saves included a beauty on a Tighe laser.
Quotables
Bronco coach Joe Haven wasn't surprised by Soskin's performance, saying, "We knew that she was excellent."
He said his team did everything it was asked and reflected on how the score could have had a lot more goals.
"The girls stuck to the game plan. They had a lot of great shots that hit the pipe or the goalie made a great save."
Tormey, who praised Ircha's play after replacing her on the draw, looked back on her freshman year and said, "Honestly, we've wanted to be in this moment for three years. We've put in the work for this moment. We executed perfectly."
Nancy Haggerty covers cross-country, track & field, field hockey, skiing, ice hockey, girls lacrosse and other sporting events for The Journal News/lohud. Follow her on Twitter at both @HaggertyNancy and at @LoHudHockey.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Girls lacrosse: Bronxville bests Cold Spring Harbor in state semis
