Showtime
-
- June
- 12
Stars such as John Ranagan have Yorktown thinking a state title is possible. Yorktown plays Long Island champion Syosset at 3:30 p.m. today at Hofstra in a state semifinal. (Photo by Matthew Brown/Journal News)
I might be writing these same words on Saturday, but today represents one of the biggest days in Section 1 boys lacrosse history. In fact, it might be the biggest ever.
“Beatdown Thursday,” what the state semifinals could have easily been called a couple years ago, seems like a thing of the past. Today is the day of the state boys lacrosse semifinals. And all the games should be fascinating.
Yorktown, John Jay and Rye head to Long Island with a legitimate chance of beating the Long Island champions and going to a state final. If you asked me to even say who the favorites are in these three games, I couldn’t even tell you. All three games seem to be even matchups.
Two years ago, when I worked at Newsday, I drove up from Lancaster, Pa. (after covering Juan Gonzalez’s disastrous non-debut for the Long Island Ducks) to West Point and covered the state semifinals. Let’s just say, I didn’t exactly see great games.
I saw Cold Spring Harbor easily beat Rye 11-6. (Postgame comment from Brian Dooley: “We’re here,” Dooley added, placing his right hand midway to the ground before raising it to eye level and saying, “and they are up here. So we are not supposed to play with those guys.”)
I watched West Islip absolutely obliterate John Jay 13-1, and it could have been much, much worse. (Postgame comment from then-junior attackman Kevin Stockel: “We played our hardest. They have a lot of firepower. When you play a team with the kind of capabilities they have, it’s very tough.”)
And then to cap off the night, I saw Huntington and the Bratton twins toying with Somers en route to a 20-5 win.
These quotes are the best:
Former Somers all-America goalie Mike Novosel: “They are just ridiculous. Most kids from around where we play, to get an accurate shot they have to get some time and space to get an accurate vision. These guys are tough to play against and it’s tough to come up with a strategy when you are not used to that in your section.”
And this one from former attackman Dan Werney: “Best I’ve ever seen.”
So you get the point. It was ugly. They weren’t lacrosse games. They were assaults. They were one step removed from Section 1 against Section 9.
Two years is a long time.
Things changed last year for sure with John Jay’s unforgettable upset of Huntington. No longer did a “great” Westchester team only have a chance against a “subpar” Long Island team. Rather, Westchester’s best beat Long Island’s (and the country’s) best.
Today, the Westchester teams go to Long Island thinking they can win, and frankly, I think, expecting to win.
To me, anything is possible. I think Long Island could sweep. I think Westchester could sweep. (I mean, can anyone imagine what Joe Lombardi’s reaction is going to be on one of his video blogs if that happens?) And it could go 2-1 either way.
A preview of the three games is above this post.
This entry was posted
on Thursday, June 12th, 2008 at 12:25 am by Jeff Gold.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Share and Enjoy: Digg Google StumbleUpon Technorati Yahoo! | 
Print This Post
| 
Email
Again with the Section 9 reference. Must be what the one poster mentioned is close to the truth – about not just the other posters but the author hating on others – or maybe just 9 as just yesterday the B and C games against section 2 were about the same. The point in the article could have been made without that reference. Maybe some sect. 9 players will see this and use it as motivation.
They know how to read up in Section 9?
JUST JOKING!!!!!!