Long Island Lacrosse

BY CHRIS MASCARO

Hey everyone, I stole my title tonight from my favorite segment on Channel 4 every month with Len Berman. Here's a YouTube clip of the first-ever Spanning the World (can you believe they've been doing it since 1987? And that Al Roker was relatively skinny?).

Anyway, onto what you came here for, which is girls lax. We've got a lot to do.

First off, here is this week's insider by Marc Jimenez about the Martello sisters of Carle Place. The squad is in the mix for the top spot in Conference III, and should be a threat come playoff time.

Speaking of playoffs, we're about three weeks now, and everyone's jockeying for position. With that said, here are this week's rankings:

Nassau Top 10

1. Garden City
2. Farmingdale
3. Manhasset
4. Massapequa
5. North Shore
6. Wantagh
7. East Meadow
8. Cold Spring Harbor
9. Syosset
10. Carle Place

Suffolk Top 10

1. West Babylon (9-2, 7-1 Division I)
2. Northport (9-1, 7-1 Division I)
3. West Islip (8-1, 6-1 Division I)
4. Shoreham-Wading River (11-0, 10-0 Division II)
5. Rocky Point (9-2, 9-1 Division II)
6. Bay Shore (6-4, 5-2 Division I)
7. North Babylon (8-2, 6-2 Division I)
8. Lindenhurst (8-2, 6-1 Division I)
9. Eastport-South Manor (8-2, 7-2 Division II)
10. Sachem East (6-2, 5-2 Division I)

**Quick note here: West Islip beat West Babylon, 15-10, yesterday afternoon, but I left West Bab in the top spot because they played the entire second half without All-American Shannon Smith, who suffered a sprained ankle minutes before halftime. West Babylon was up 8-6 at half, but came apart without Smith in a 9-2 West Islip run in the second half. No knock on West Islip, which is a great team and may steal the top spot in the Class A playoffs with this win, but I think with West Babylon is the better team with Smith at full strength.

According to West Babylon head coach Paul DiGiulio, Smith is day-to-day and didn't practice with the team today. She isn't likely to play tomorrow at Floyd. DiGiulio is targeting Tuesday's game against East Islip for Smith's return.

"If it's up to me, I'd like to get her back to 100 percent first," the coach said.

...Okay, and now onto the new Long Island rankings:

1. Garden City
2. West Babylon
3. Northport
4. Farmingdale
5. West Islip
6. Shoreham-Wading River (we'll come back to SWR in a second)
7. Manhasset
8. Rocky Point
9. Massapequa
10. North Shore

Okay, I said I'd get back to SWR, so here we go. Yesterday, the Wildcats defeated Rocky Point in overtime, 11-10, in what has become the annual battle for the Division II title. (It was also our Suffolk game of the week.)

In each of the past two seasons, Rocky Point has handed SWR its only Division II loss. In 2004, SWR beat Rocky Point for the Suffolk Class B title, and in '05 defeated them for the Small School crown.

Now though, the teams meet only in the regular season, as SWR is in Class C and Rocky Point is a Class B squad. Although the game doesn't mean much other than division bragging rights, SWR coach Bob Vlahakis admitted that he took this game more seriously than he generally does because of SWR's relatively weak schedule thus far, save a non-league win over Bay Shore.

"We approached it a little differently this year," he said. "We really saw this as a critical game to judge where we're at."

But he added: "We don't have much time to enjoy this because we have Garden City on Saturday." (See more below.)

That game will be a battle between two defending state champs. Should be fun.

Normally Vlahakis rotates his entire team into the game, but he played tighter to the belt earlier today, as Michelle Verbeeck played all 50 minutes in goal. She rewarded Vlahakis with a season-high 11 saves, including two from point-blank range in the first overtime.

"She really stepped up her play today," Vlahakis said.

It seems from the numbers that the junior goalie outplayed her All-American counterpart Brianne LoManto, who made just six saves. LoManto has 89 saves on the season.

-And finally, on to the flip side of SWR and Rocky Point in Division II — winless Southampton — which forfeited to Copiague last Thursday in a non-league game because it couldn't field a full team over the spring break.

Athletic Director Darren Phillips said that the lack of players has been a problem all season, and that the team takes things "day-by-day."

The Mariners did play against East Hampton on Tuesday, but they've had to endure playing with very few subs (even playing down a couple of games) and kids going on vacation during school breaks (hence the forfeit).

"We've been trying to hold on as long as we can," Phillips said.

Southampton most likely will be able to finish out the season, but this situation brings up interesting differences in the athletic departments of smaller schools. Southampton is the second smallest school in Suffolk County to field a girls lacrosse team to Babylon (the enrollment numbers can be found here), so it's reasonable that the team struggles to get players.

But Babylon (with 30 fewer students this school year) has remained competitive, and teams like Glenn and Mount Sinai (the next two larger schools) have also thrived.

Why the lack of enthusiasm in some schools but not others? I'm interested to hear.

-Moving on, just one more thing (I promise) before I go...this week's Suffolk game of the week is...Ward Melville at Lindenhurst tomorrow (Friday) night at 6 p.m.

Why? Because Ward Melville (2-5) can't afford many (if any) more losses, or it'll miss out on a playoff spot for the first time in team history. And because Lindenhurst (6-1) is in the hunt for the Division I crown, but hasn't really beaten a top-flight team yet.

...Also, don't forget these three excellent non-league matchups on Saturday at the PAL complex in Holbrook:

5/3/08 8:00 PM Rocky Point @ Northport
5/3/08 6:00 PM Farmingdale @ North Babylon
5/3/08 4:00 PM Garden City @ Shoreham WR