The Mineola Mustangs fell to the Cold Spring Harbor Seahawks, 16-8 in the Nassau Class C boys lacrosse championship game at Hofstra University’s James Shuart Stadum on May 26.
The Mustangs had advanced to their first championship game since 1961 six days earlier after a victory over Locust Valley in the semifinals but fell short of a conference championship during Tuesday’s finals.
Despite the loss, head coach Glen Cocoman is proud of the team for bringing Mineola lacrosse back to the forefront of the conference.
“I think we had an excellent season,” coach Cocoman said. “It was a huge accomplishment for these guys. I know they’re disappointed now but they accomplished so much. They transformed lacrosse for Mineola.”
It was just three years ago during the 2011-12 year that the Mustangs were just 5-9 and one of the weaker teams in the conference. Cocoman started several seniors like James Gerstner, Peter McCormick, Chris Lockwood and John Clancy when they were sophomores and Mineola immediately became a winning program. During their first year, they brought Mineola lacrosse back to relevancy with a 9-7 record, as juniors they increased their win total to an 11-5 record and this year they lead the Mustangs to their first championship game in over fifty years as seniors.
When the championship game began, Mineola fell into an early hole as the Seahawks were led by a first half hat-trick by sophomore attackman Ian Laviano and goals by sophomore defenseman Matt DeGennaro and senior attackman Colin Burke, that put Cold Spring Harbor up 5-0 with just 3:08 remaining in the first half.
The Mustangs seemed to get into a groove late in the second quarter junior attackman, Colin Renner scored Mineola’s first goal and Gerstner added another to make the deficit just 5-2 at halftime. Unfortunately for Mineola, the Seahawks came out with an 8-0 run in the third quarter that put Cold Spring Harbor ahead 13-2 heading into the final quarter of play.
Mineola outscored the Seahawks 6-3 in the final quarter, but never caught up. Gershner finished his last game with a hat-trick. Both McCormick and Lockwood had two goals in their final game for the Mustangs.
Cocoman’s group of seniors will continue playing lacrosse at college. Gerstner will play at Stony Brook, Lockwood at Molloy College, Clancy at SUNY Brockport and McCormick at SUNY Oneonta.
The team finished the season with an impressive 14-4 overall record and an 8-2 record in the conference and coach Cocoman believes that these Mineola accomplishments can have a lasting effect for the remaining members of the team next season.
“I think just the fact that they see success now,” Cocoman said of the conference championship game berth helping next year’s team. “Just that they got there shows that if you put it the work, you can get there. It got to rub off on them a little bit.”
