Smithtown East High School boys varsity lacrosse team (11-4) defeated William Floyd (7-7) in a 16-2 matchup this afternoon in the first round of the Conference A playoffs. The Bulls’ offense had eight different goal scorers while their defense held the Colonials scoreless for the last three quarters of the game.
Following today’s win, Smithtown East will advance to round two of the Conference A playoffs, where they will play Northport High School, which is currently 11-3, on Friday afternoon.
The first quarter carried most of the competition. It started when junior attacker, Andrew Donato, opened the game with back-to-back goals and earned a hat-trick within his team’s first four goals of the game.
“We knew they were going to come out hot, but we just came to play for a full four quarters,” Donato said. Donato ended the game with five total goals, adding to his tally of 12 goals and 8 assists prior to the postseason.
For William Floyd, all of the action took place in the first 10 minutes of the game. Face-off specialist and middie, Jeyzad Hall was responsible for gaining most of his team’s possessions, although their offense struggled to take advantage. And Colonials’ senior attacker and one of Suffolk’s leading scorers, Julian Duque, scored both of his team’s only goals of the game.
Meanwhile, the Bulls closed out the first quarter 5-2, with goals by Marcus Wertheim and Delaware commit Owen Carroll, in addition to Donato’s three goals.
The Bulls’ definitely shared the love on offense this afternoon, allowing for goals by eight different scorers including Chris Cappelman, Matt Terrana, Matt Amzler, Hunter Strcich and Garrett Mangels. Coming close to Donato, Carroll collected four goals today, while Wertheim also had a hat-trick and a handful of assists.
The boys tried to describe their offensive strategy throughout today’s game. “We play 1-4-1, so we like to dodge from the wing and move it backside to try to get the shot on the wing,” Carroll said, and Donato elaborated, “we try to get the shorties on the wing to dodge and draw a slide.”
The rest of the game seemed to be smooth sailing for the Bulls as their offense went on a 12-0 scoring run throughout the rest of the game. William Floyd hadn’t scored a single goal since the last 3 minutes of the first quarter. Smithtown can credit their defense, and especially their junior goalie, Nick Matthes, for a three-quarter shutout.
The Bulls finished the game with a landslide win of 16-2 and plan to look just as sharp when they face off against Northport this Friday at 4PM.
