Hey girls lacrosse fans, here is a quick recap of the first round action in Suffolk Class A (in which there were two upsets in three games) and Class B (where it was all chalk):
Class A: No. 8 Lindy, 13 -- No. 9 Smithtown East, 9
No. 10 Floyd, 10 -- No. 7 Sachem East, 8
No. 11 Ward Melville, 18 -- No. 6 East Islip, 17
In Thursday's quarterfinals at 4 p.m., Lindy visits top-seeded West Islip, Ward Melville travels to No. 3 Bay Shore, Floyd heads to No. 2 Northport and No. 4 West Babylon will play host to No. 5 North Babylon.
During the regular season, West Islip won at Lindy 15-13, Ward Melville lost a home game to Bay Shore 13-9, Northport crushed Floyd at home 21-2, and West Bab edged North Bab 19-16 at home.
In Class B: No. 3 Sayville, 17 -- No. 6 Islip, 12
No. 4 Hauppauge, 9 -- No. 5 Deer Park, 5
No. 2 Eastport-South Manor, 15 -- No. 7 Kings Park, 9
So tomorrow afternoon at 4 p.m., Sayville will travel to ESM, while top-seeded Rocky Point will play host to Hauppauge.
Also tomorrow is the Class C semis, which pair No. 4 Babylon at No. 1 Shoreham-Wading River, and No. 3 Mount Sinai at No. 2 Bayport-Blue Point.
In other news, the Northwestern women's lacrosse team won its fourth straight national title with a 10-6 win over Penn on Sunday night at Towson University. Why is this significant to Long Island?
Well, four Long Island seniors were recruited by coach Kelly Amonte Hiller and will attend Northwestern next year. These four girls—Shannon Smith (West Babylon), Lacey Vigmostad (Northwestern), Brianne LoManto (Rocky Point) and Jessica Russo (St. Anthony's)—will be expected to bring Northwestern four more titles in as many years.
I spoke to Russo for this story in Sunday's paper, and spoke to her about expectations at Northwestern next season (which you can read below):
“It’s a lot of pressure, but it’s still a game," she said, adding that the four girls have talked about the pressure of playing for the four-time defending champs. "It’s not the end of the world [if we lose]. We play for fun, and when we do that, we play our best.”
She added: “Kelly [Amonte Hiller] has seen us play for four years. She definitely recruited us as a package. We play off each other really well. We’re girls that play with heart and with hustle.”
Russo said she was comfortable with Northwestern because she had visited her oldest brother Peter (now 31 and an actor) when he was going to school there.
"In middle school I wrote a book about going to Northwestern," she said. "I love Chicago, it’s like New York City, but clean. It was a little bit of a comfort level there."
On her academics: "My grandpa always knew Northwestern was the right fit for me. Whenever I got a report card, he wanted to see it. It wasn’t always about lacrosse. It was about school, too. He’d help me with my homework all the time.”