By Mxitch Abramson
For Walter Glenn, the turning point came a little more than midway through the fourth quarter. The Tottenville boys’ lacrosse team was beating Cardozo 8-6 in the city championship match when attackman Kelvin Leung followed the ball as it rolled toward Tottenville’s goalie Andrew Babajko.
Just as Leung was about to reach the ball, Babajko, a football player going to Bryant College, blindsided him and cleared the ball to Benjamin Stein, who shoveled it to Matthew Micciulla, who ran in and scored to put Tottenville ahead 9-6 with 9:09 left in the quarter.
“The whole complexion of the game changed after that,” said Glenn, Cardozo’s 72-year-old first-year coach, who turned around a team that went 3-4 last year. “That was the turning point. We went flat in the fourth quarter.”
Led by Micciulla’s four goals, the Pirates took command of a contest that was tied at 6 heading into the final quarter and went on a scoring spree to win their second straight PSAL crown, 12-8 June 2 at New Dorp High in Staten Island.
Tottenville (11-3, 8-2) trailed the Judges 6-4 early in the third quarter, but that was before the rain began to pour and the conditions were still dry and the players were still performing with a certain elegance and finesse.
Cardozo (17-5, 8-2) went up 4-2 after the first quarter behind three goals by senior Brian Kenny, who led the PSAL in points scored with 40. Tottenville rebounded to tie the game at 4-4 before the half, but trailed by two points on goals by Leung and John Hattenrath with 9:50 left in the third quarter.
Once the conditions deteriorated, the Pirates stepped up the intensity level and Micciulla took charge, scoring three straight goals to put Tottenville ahead 10-6 with 7:22 left in the game.
The loss was Cardozo’s third championship loss in four seasons and left Kenny unfulfilled, wishing that there was one more quarter to settle things.
“We played hard and we gave it all we got. We just broke down, and there’s nothing we could do about that,” said Kenny, who accounted for half of Cardozo’s offense with four goals and is headed to St. John’s. “I came out here to play hard and to bring home that championship that I worked hard all year for. Once they got the lead, we fell apart. It was all mental.”
It also had to do with the cat-like reflexes of Babajko, who saved 10 shots, including two in a crucial 30-second interval late in the fourth that was punctuated by a dazzling kick save.
Mitch Gootnick, one of 22 juniors returning for Cardozo next year, was also watertight in goal, stopping 18 of 30 shots, but he couldn’t account for what happened at midfield, which Tottenville dominated. The Pirates also won the face-off battle in the fourth by a 5-2 margin.
“Our midfielders didn’t play in front of their guys,” said Glenn, who coached Jamaica for 16 years before spending seven as an assistant with Cardozo. “Tottenville’s guys would dodge them and the midfielders would be behind the mand then our defense was playing flat-footed. They were lunging at them.”
Cardozo did reach a milestone in the semifinal, beating Midwood in Brooklyn for the first time in 20 tries.
Reach reporter Mitch Abramson by E-mail at TimesLedger@aol.com or call 718-229-0300 Ext. 130.
