Early season classic
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- April
- 4
Chris Latino made this save against Manhasset in last season’s 9-8 triple-overtime win. He’ll need to be great on Saturday night to help John Jay beat Manhasset, the No. 3-ranked team in the country, again. (Dave Kennedy/Journal News file photo)
For the first time since its classic 11-10 overtime win over Huntington, then the No. 1 ranked team in the nation, last season in the state semifinals, John Jay heads back to Long Island.
John Jay (1-0) , currently ranked eighth in the country by Inside Lacrosse, meets Manhasset (2-0), the No. 3-ranked team in the country, at 7 p.m. Saturday night.
Yeah, it’s a big game.
John Jay beat Manhasset 9-8 in triple overtime last season. Kevin Stockel, who has graduated and is now playing at Drexel, had the winner.
Obviously, this game has no bearing on sectional seeding, but it’s a great early season matchup to give an indication of how good John Jay is right now.
Outside of a late-season matchup with Yorktown, John Jay doesn’t figured to get tested much within Section 1.
This game is an early- eason barometer for the chances of a state title — similar to the way the first Huntington game was last year — though these teams can’t meet again because John Jay is a Class B school, and Manhasset is in Class C.
Ultimately, winning a state title is how John Jay’s season is going to be judged. That’s just the way it goes after winning section titles the last two years, and making it to the state final last year, without winning the ultimate prize.
A similarity between John Jay and Manhasset is the community support.
In the two schools, the top athletes excel in lacrosse, and most have been playing since they were young. It isn’t often in either school that one of the best athletes will play baseball instead of lacrosse. It really isn’t much of a choice.
Players go to elite lacrosse colleges, and the programs know they’re getting kids from the best high school programs.
I lived on Long Island the last three years in a neighboring town to Manhasset, and was in Manhasset every now and then.
Often, kids as young as 6 or 7 would be walking on the sidewalk with lacrosse sticks in their hand. Lacrosse is their sport and they take it extremely seriously.
(Interesting tidbit for those of you who don’t know, NFL legend Jim Brown is a Manhasset graduate, and he’s widely considered to be one of the greatest lacrosse players of all time.)
I haven’t spent much time in Katonah or Lewisboro, but I’d imagine it’s pretty similar.
You can’t have a great team ever year if there isn’t a pipeline of talent from the youth programs.
Once you start to get good, it becomes a community event, and all the kids want to participate.
The star power in this game is pretty strong.
John Jay’s Chris Bocklet and Kevin Drew, ranked 11th and 29th respectively in the Sports Illustrated/takkle.com lacrosse rankings, and Manhasset’s Connor English, ranked 51st, will all be counted on for huge games.
Bocklet and English will be future teammates at UVa; Drew is going to Syracuse.
John Jay is going to need a big game from goalie Chris Latino and its new starting defense with three different starters than a year ago.
Anyway, it should be a great game.
Manhasset always has a huge crowd, so John Jay will need to travel well to have any presence in the stands.
Here are directions to the game:
(Mapquest estimates driving time is 1 hour, 6 minutes, but tells you to take the Throgs Neck Bridge. I personally think the Whitestone Bridge is much easier, so that’s what I’ll put here. The official address for the high school is 200 Memorial Place, Manhasset, 11030):
Take 684 South to Hutchinson River Parkway South. Take Hutch to Whitestone Bridge. After going over bridge, take the Cross Island Parkway South. Take the Cross Island Parkway for approximately 2.5 miles to Northern Blvd. (Route 25A). Take Northern Blvd. for approximately four miles. Turn left onto Plandome Rd/P.O. Joseph Coote way. Turn left on Memorial Place.
So that leaves one thing … PREDICTIONS.
Predict the final score and describe one key sequence that you think will happen.
This entry was posted
on Friday, April 4th, 2008 at 3:35 pm by Jeff Gold.
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My prediction: 9-8 either way. Comes down to last posession. No OT.
What I'm Calling: John Jays underrated attackman, H Jones, will have a break out game.
I am thinking this is a high scoring affair. Low scores in Q1 as the teams shake their nerves and figure each other out. Expect an explosion of offense in Q3. John Jay uses size and athletes to win by two goals: 14-12.
Interesting preview. I'm in Put Valley where Somers leads 6-3 at halftime in its opener. Joe Marasco has three goals for the Tuskers. Kieran Donohue has two goals.
Joe,
How deos PV look? What do u see for their next game against pleasantville?
Somers wins 11-4 in what was a day of debuts for the Tuskers. It was John DeVito's first game as head coach, three Tuskers scored their first varsity goal and first-year starting goaltender Chris Longo enjoyed a strong performance. I'll be back with more shortly. Erik – Pleasantville will be a big test for Put Valley, which definitely needs a win real badly right now.
JOE ANY UPDATE ON THE EARLY GAMES PLAYED TODAY? ANY UPDATE ON THE YORKTOWN GAME?
Bill – Just got off the phone with Yorktown coach Dave Marr.
The 'Huskers lost 15-5. I will be posting more info on a separate thread.