3 Photos
East Hampton junior Melina Sarlo. DREW BUDD
East Hampton junior Emma McGrory grabs a ground ball off a faceoff at a scrimmage in Southampton on Monday. DREW BUDD
Emma McGrory works the ball around Bonac's offensive third. DREW BUDD
There was a change at the top for the East Hampton/Pierson/Bridgehampton/Ross School girls lacrosse team over the offseason. Joe DiGirolomo takes over as head coach for Jessica Sanna, who is now coaching at the middle school level.
DiGirolomo is no stranger to the team or some of his players: he’s been the girls varsity soccer assistant coach with Cara Nelson the past five years and has been a physical education teacher in the district since 2018. A 2007 graduate of Sachem East High School, DiGirolomo’s background is more in soccer, having played collegiately at SUNY Cortland, where he graduated in 2012, but he played lacrosse in middle school and briefly as a freshman in high school, and has also coached the sport at Mattituck and Great Neck.
DiGirolomo is taking over a program that has won a handful of games each of the past few seasons, but has had a hard time keeping up with some of the more established programs up the island. With what is returning to the team this season, DiGirolomo thinks it can pull out a few more wins than last year.
“Our goals for this year are to prove to every team we play that we are not going to ever quit. We will not be a rollover win for anyone,” he said. “We are hoping to improve our 3-11 record from last season by at least three games. We have a young team that can make a lot of noise if we work together and never quit on each other.”
Key returning players that make up the team’s core include East Hampton junior midfielder Melina Sarlo, East Hampton sophomore midfielder Ava Tintle, East Hampton junior midfielder Emma McGrory, East Hampton junior attack Lola Garneau and Pierson junior defender Eva McKelvey. New to varsity this season are Pierson sophomores Greylynn Guyer (middie/defender) and Cali Wilson (middie) and East Hampton junior attack Nezi Crandall.
The Bonackers will continue to compete in Division II as a Class B school. Fellow “B” schools this season include Bellport, Comsewogue, Deer Park, East Islip, Eastport-South Manor, Hauppauge, North Babylon, Smithtown West, West Islip and West Babylon.
East Hampton opens the season this Thursday, March 23, at Elwood/John Glenn at 4 p.m. and will play at Babylon this Monday at 5 p.m.
