West Islip High School advances to the second round of Conference B playoffs following their 10-6 home win over Eastport-South Manor this afternoon. The Lions went on a 6-0 scoring run in the middle of the game before ESM scored three unanswered goals to bring the final score within four.
West Islip entered the postseason with a 10-4 regular season record, while ESM clinched with a record of 6-8. These two teams last met up earlier in the season when the Lions defeated the Sharks in a 15-6 win on May 14.
West Islip held their lead for the entirety of the game, beginning with their 2-0 lead in the first quarter before ESM’s senior attacker, Jake Jurgensen scored in the quarter’s last 35 seconds. Jurgensen then brought the Sharks to their only tie of the game (2-2) early in the second quarter.
West Islip then secured back-to-back goals in succession, interrupted by ESM’s Daniel O’Dell. Shortly after, the Lions closed the first half with a 7-3 lead when Maritime commit and senior attacker, Parker Reilly scored with a minute left in the first half.
“We usually play our best games in the fourth quarter,” Reilly said. “Usually we come out a little slower, but today we got it done— thankfully.”
West Islip’s offense went on their scoring run starting at the end of the first half with goals by multiple different scorers, including Joe Constantino, Lucas Brophy and Ryan Behrens.
To close the game, ESM brought the final score to 10-6 when they scored the last three goals of the game— ESM hadn’t scored since the last five minutes of the first half. But ESM senior, Nick Toscano, changed that when he scored with 3 seconds left in the third quarter to end West Islip’s 6-0 scoring run.
And just a minute later, Toscano opened the last quarter with a consecutive goal with an assist by Lehigh commit Peter Theodoropolous. Theodoropoulos tallied another assist with a perfect feed to Jurgensen, who then earned a hat-trick with the final goal of the game. Jurgensen’s hat-trick brings him to a total of 35 goals this year.
In the end, West Islip secured their 10-6 victory. The Lions improve to 11-4 and advance to the second round where they will face-off against East Islip on Saturday afternoon. East Islip (7-7) defeated Hauppauge (9-5) with a 9-8 victory on Wednesday night in an intense matchup where the final score was decided within the last seconds of the game.
This East-West matchup last took place just a week ago— the Lions had a 13-7 win over their neighboring opponent. However, Reilly says he’s not quite worried about the upcoming second-round playoff game since there’s no prevailing rivalry between these two Islip teams. “We had a great game against them before, so hopefully it will be another good one,” he said.
