Week 5: An Inside Look at the Sachem North Lacrosse Team

It's been another week full of games and happenings on the Sachem North varsity lacrosse team. We had four games since I wrote last, two of them against nationally ranked league opponents.

The first of the games was against the Smithtown West Bulls. Smithtown is one of the most talented teams in the country. A few of their players are headed to big time colleges in the next couple of years. Unfortunately, we fell behind early allowing the first four goals. Playing catch up with a team with that much fire power is near impossible.

At the end of the game we were down three goals so we attempted to get the ball back by pulling the goalie and sending a double team. They broke down our defense and scored 4 late goals ending the game with a 15-8 victory. The 7-goal margin did not truly display how the game went.

As always, the coaching staff emphasized coming back strong and taking it to the next team we played. In Suffolk county Division 1, you can’t let one loss affect you. The team came out fast against East Islip a few days later. Our offense had one of its best games of the year and we took a 7-goal victory over the Red Men.

However, we did take one major loss from this game, we lost another one of our captains to injury. Mike Andreassi hurt his elbow and was declared ineligible for the Ward Melville game. This was a huge hit to the teams morale, but just like Jakes injury, we used it as motivation.

We came out firing in the showdown with our rival. We went up 1-0 early, and from then on battled back and forth. We went goal for goal the entire game. We were the first team to put in double-digit goals on the Patriots. In the end, we full short, giving up a few garbage goals at the end. Suffering another three-goal loss, we took the positives from the game. The game proved that we could keep with any team on the island, and we just need to finish better. We had a rough week, with back-to-back games, the second being against West Babylon. We came out slow and lethargic, but opened it up in the second half taking the win 12-4.

As a side note I’d like to send out a couple of thank yous. First, Coach Falco always makes our home stadium feel like a college stadium. He gets the team pumped up with music before the game. He also makes announcements after every goal, and always starts the game with the national anthem. Not many schools pay the necessary respect to our country like Falco does before each and every game.

I would also like to thank the two younger players that help us out on the sidelines. Slats and James are always smiling, always there to tell you that you did a good job and always there to get us water. We all love having the little guys on the sidelines.

We have a huge week coming up. We have four league games heading into the playoffs. The first game being our senior night on Tuesday against Lindenhurst.