Memorable Mondays: Exciting endings

Welcome to MSGVarsity.com's Memorable Mondays, a summer-long series that looks back on the top players, games and moments from the past season and gazes ahead to 2012-13. As the summer goes on, we'll compile all the lists and post them here: www.msgvarsity.com/mondays. New lists will be posted every Monday morning.

In Week 4 of Memorable Mondays, we look at five of the best excting endings across Long Island.

Wahl scores two goals in final 6.1 seconds to lift Dalers over Lynbrook

Farmingdale 5, Lynbrook 4 - March 27, 2012

When March lacrosse is this exciting, you know you're in for a good season.

Farmingdale, then the defending NYS Class A champions, was looking for its first win of the season against Lynbrook in a late March showdown. In what was a defensive-wait-and-see-showdown, the Owls of Lynbrook took a 4-3 lead heading into the fourth quarter. As both teams played the first 11 minutes of the final frame without a goal, Farmingdale went to a set play that earned itself a late goal to end the first half. That play would bear fruit yet again as Travis Wahl evened things up with 6.1 seconds in which everyone though the game was going to overtime.

Everyone except for Wahl, that is.

“The referee came up to us (at the faceoff) and put the ball down and said ‘let’s get this to overtime,’” Wahl said. “I thought to myself, ‘there’s going to be no overtime.’”

Wahl won the ensuing faceoff, made a mad-dash down the center untouched and fired a shot past the Lynbrook keeper sending the crowd and his team into a frenzy for lacrosse's most improbable win of the year.

Vargas, Calhoun walk off with Long Island Championship

Calhoun 6, Connetquot 5 - June 5, 2012

What's better than a walk-off hit to end a baseball game?

A walk-off hit to win the Long Island Championship.

Calhoun's Alex Vargas did just that, as he propelled his Calhoun Colts to the NYS Final Four in walk-off fashion over Connetquot in the ninth inning of the Class AA LIC. But it didn't look like it was going to go that way.

Connetquot looked poised to be crowned the victors as it took a 5-3 lead heading into the bottom of the ninth inning. But Calhoun wouldn't quit jus becuae the scoreboard said they should. A wild pitch cut the lead to 5-4 and brought runners to second and third.

Then came Vargas' time to shine. The Calhoun pitcher drilled a fastball over the Connetquot leftfielder to give Calhoun the 6-5 win and ended one of the most exciting bseball games in the tri-state.

Wallace beats the buzzer as Friars crowned NYS CHSAA hockey champs

St. Anthony's 4, St. Francis 3 - March 4, 2012

Chris Wallace was the lynchpin of the St. Anthony's hockey team all year. And when the Friars would take the ice at the Nassau Coliseum in an attempt to win the program's first state title, Wallace would come up big yet again.

St. Anthony's looked poised to capture that elusive crown by taking a 3-1 lead into the first intermission. However the Red Raiders would erase that advantage as St. Francis leading scorer Tyler McTigue evened things up on the power play with 3:42 left to play.

As the final period wound down, St. Anthony's found itself with a faceoff deep in its zone with 10 seconds left. Overtime was in the cards.

Not quite.

Mike Marnell won the faceoff and darted down the left wing with Wallace flanking him down the center. Marnell crossed the red, the blue and fed a centering pass to the Long Island player of the year, and deflected the pass behind the Red Raiders netminder with just one second remaining on the clock to give St. Anthony's the 4-3 win and its first CHSAA state championship.

Karl, Sayville sweat it out at the hot corner

Sayville 3, Rocky Point 2 - April 9, 2012

Call this the game that solidified Sayville's status as state title contenders.

In an early-season matchup against Rocky Point, the Golden Flashes fought back from 2-0 down to take a one-run lead in the bottom of the sixth. However, the Eagles were threatening and put runners on second and third with no one out in the top of the seventh. Surely a run would cross the plate to even things up.

Not if Sayville 3B Kira Karl would have anything to say about it.

Karl singlehandedly provided three defensive gems to keep Rocky Point off the scoreboard and give her Sayville team an improbable 3-2 win. Her defensive prowess also made this game MSGVarsity.com's No. 40 game of the 2011-12 school year.

East Meadow dethrones Freeport

East Meadow 34, Freeport 33 - November 19, 2011

The Jets of East Meadow were looking to dethrone the three-time defending Nassau County champions, Freeport High School. With the Red Devils down by a point, they were faced with a 1st and goal situation with 2:46 remaining.

After three failed attempts to find their way, the Red Devils found themselves with a decision to make on 4th and goal from the 9-yard line: go for the field goal, or let Isaiah Barnes pull something out of his bag of tricks and go for the end zone. Freeport coach Russ Cellan elected to go big and let Barnes take the ball. Barnes' pass however was just out of the reach of Evan Lapice's hands to give East Meadow the ball with 2:16 left.

The Jets weren't out of the woods, however. They needed a first down in order to kneel it for the rest of the drive.

With 1:25 left on 3rd and 11 from the 6-yard line, Dylan Curry scrambled and found little-used Billy Koebel wide open. Koebel caught the pass, crossed the first-down marker and in what Carl Reuter described as one of the smartest plays he's seen at the high school level, simply took a knee, sealing East Meadow's first county title since 2006.

Join us throughout the summer as "Memorable Mondays" brings you more top 5 lists:

July 23: Top five heartwarming moments from 2011-12
July 30: Top five favorite venues from 2011-12
Aug. 6: Top five coaches from 2011-12
Aug. 13: Top five most memorable games from 2011-12
Aug. 20: Top five teams from 2011-12
Aug. 27: Top five teams to watch in 2012-13

Find them all at www.msgvarsity.com/mondays.

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