Week 6 Preview: Sachem East vs. West Islip

The story lines are becoming cumbersome for Sachem East this season. Adversity, check. School spirit regrowth, check. Erasing the past, check. Learning from the past, check.

Here's a new one to tackle: Playing the best team on your schedule at your own homecoming after losing to a rival in Week 5 by one point in the final seconds. Let's call that beating the odds.

Sachem East will host West Islip on Saturday afternoon. West Islip (4-1), who is playing in Suffolk County's Division I for the first time since the 1980s, was seeded No. 10 to open the season, but is playing like a top-four team at this point, only losing one game, 25-14, to Sachem North (5-0).

Considering Sachem East lost to Patchogue-Medford (2-3) last week, another loss would hurt its power ranking and knock the Arrows towards the bottom of playoff contention, but will most likely make it as a 6, 7 or 8 seed if they finish 6-2 or 5-3 to close out the regular season. With a win, however, it would do wonders for its power ranking because West Islip is ranked high thanks to a 4-1 record presently. We'll play more of the playoff numbers game after this week on Patch.

Match-up: Sachem East (4-1) vs. West Islip (4-1)

Time/Venue: Saturday, Oct. 15 at 3:30 p.m. at home

In game battles: West Islip can run and pass fluently and has a roster filled with athletes, many of whom will go on to play high-level college lacrosse in a year or two. Sachem East will need to be prepared to attack whatever is presented to them. The Lions will try and take away the ability of Steven Casali, but no one has succeeded yet. Good luck with that, Lions.

Next up: Sachem travels to Lindenhurst for Week 7, Saturday, Oct. 22 at 2 p.m.

Stay tuned to Sachem Patch for complete coverage of the game.