Lady Golden Flashes Win Eighth Straight, Clinch Playoff Spot

The Sayville varsity girls soccer team (6-0, 8-1) won its eighth straight game and clinched a spot in the playoffs with a 4-2 win over Shoreham-Wading River (1-3, 3-5) on a rainy Monday evening at the Greeley Avenue soccer fields.

The Golden Flashes wasted no time getting on the scoreboard when, just 40 seconds in, Amanda Famularo's cross slipped off the hands of a diving Kelly Wynkoop in goal to the feet of Kim Marra, who banged it into a wide open net for the score. Sayville scored again at the 17:09 mark when Madison Hoon ripped a shot from the left side past Wynkoop and into the right side of the net.

After winning their past seven games by a shocking combined score of 34-0, it looked as if the Golden Flashes would be on their way to yet another easy win. However, the Wildcats would make it interesting when, at the 27:38 mark in the second half, Meghan Seabrook got loose on a breakaway and scored the first goal off Sayville since its first game of the season. Suddenly, the Golden Flashes found themselves in a game.

"We've been winning a lot of games by big scores so this might be good for us," coach Joe Nasta said. "In a close game we had to dig a little deeper… and we did so that's a positive."

Sayville scored its third goal of the game, the game-winner, when team captain Dariann Sellitti scored off a cross to make it 3-1. The Wildcats answered right back when Amanda Welischar broke past the defense and beat Sayville keeper Olivia-Coley Bishop. It was a one-goal game again until, with less than ten minutes left, Emily Meier sent a perfect corner to Marra who put it in to make it 4-2 and seal the victory.

"Overall it was a good [performance], not great," Nasta said. "We did a lot of things well... we had about 40 shots so we should've converted more. We let it be a close game when it probably should not have been. We were playing a solid team but had a million opportunities which is kind of the way we've been going this season."

Despite already clinching the playoffs, the team returns to action right away when it faces Westhampton on Tuesday, Oct. 5 at 4 p.m. After that game, the Golden Flashes have a week off before traveling to Miller Place to take on the second place Panthers.

"I expect us to play well and hopefully we can put more [goals] in…just kind of play the game no matter the competition," Nasta said. "We try to play a possession type of soccer with a strong attack and we're going to keep doing that. We have to do what we have to do…we have some things we need to work on and we're not looking past any teams but we're definitely going to be facing some strong teams in the playoffs so we have to make sure we still do things correctly."