{"id":175198,"date":"2026-02-12T16:45:06","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T16:45:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/175198\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T16:45:06","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T16:45:06","slug":"long-beach-wins-nassau-ice-hockey-time-in-double-overtime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/175198\/","title":{"rendered":"Long Beach wins Nassau ice hockey time in double overtime"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Time was running out for Long Beach on Wednesday night. Just\u00a0five minutes left on this sheet of ice to rally from two goals down or be forced into a winner-take-all Game 3 against defending champ Bellmore-Merrick in the Nassau boys hockey finals.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe did not want to play that team again in a third game with them having the momentum of beating us tonight,\u201d Marines coach Rob Carson said.<\/p>\n<p>It showed. Long Beach scored twice in 26 seconds to force overtime.<\/p>\n<p>Liam Young then finished the two-game sweep for the second-seeded Marines in the rematch of last year\u2019s finals. The junior forward scored 1:19 into double overtime, giving Long Beach the title with a 5-4 win over No. 2 Bellmore-Merrick\u00a0at Town of Oyster Bay Ice Skating Center in Bethpage.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis team\u2019s battled for years, going down in the state final [last year], county final,\u201d Young said after Long Beach\u2019s 13th consecutive victory. &#8220;We play with more of a purpose, playing for that No. 2 on our chest for <a class=\"nd-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.newsday.com\/long-island\/nassau\/nassau-boces-student-hurt-hicksville-collision-lxj0a77t\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Gerrin [Hagen]<\/a>. So to win for him, win one for the city, it feels great.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Hagen was an 18-year-old Long Beach captain when he died in 2023 after being hit by a car while traveling on his skateboard.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s our first time winning the championship since that tragedy,\u201d Carson said. \u201cSome of these guys played with him. \u2026 So to finally get over the hump is huge.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Cody Pichichero, who scored twice, fed Young down low after a turnover in the three-on-three second OT.<\/p>\n<p>Young\u2019s backhander sent the Marines to the Long Island championship game <a class=\"nd-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.newsday.com\/sports\/high-school\/ice-hockey\/st-anthonys-suffolk-hockey-champs-qo63nr46\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">against St. Anthony\u2019s<\/a> on March 14 at Northwell Health Ice Center in East Meadow.<\/p>\n<p>Long Beach (17-2-1) and Bellmore-Merrick (15-3-2) will first head to Binghamton for the state tournament, which begins Feb. 27.<\/p>\n<p>After trailing, 1-0, the Bulldogs outscored Long Beach 4-1 in a wild first 4:56 of the third period. Lucas Lucchi scored the last two.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe didn\u2019t really respond in periods one and two,\u201d Bellmore-Merrick coach Patrick Braglia said. \u201cFor lack of a better term, I guess I stuck my finger in their chest a little bit and challenged them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But Michael Calvi scored with 4:37 remaining in regulation and Pichichero followed with a wraparound goal \u2014 4-4.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI felt like we had more heart in this team,\u201d Pichichero said. \u201cWe were all together and no one was too low and no one was too high at the right moments.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\n\tBrian Heyman covers high school, college and pro sports. He joined\u00a0Newsday\u00a0in 2021 and previously worked as a sportswriter for The Journal News in White Plains and The Hudson Dispatch in Union City, New Jersey. His work has appeared in\u00a0The New York Times, MLB.com and Baseball Digest magazine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Time was running out for Long Beach on Wednesday night. Just\u00a0five minutes left on this sheet of ice&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":175199,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[951,34797,4629,131,133,132,34755],"class_list":{"0":"post-175198","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-long-beach","8":"tag-high-school","9":"tag-hs-gamer","10":"tag-ice-hockey","11":"tag-long-beach","12":"tag-long-beach-headlines","13":"tag-long-beach-news","14":"tag-mepham"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175198\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/175199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}