A Highly Motivated Westhampton Beach Boys Lacrosse Team Picks Up A Big Win Over Islip

Motivation.

It has the ability to give players and teams that extra force to come through when needed, and the Westhampton Beach boys lacrosse team certainly had plenty of it for many reasons heading into Friday’s game with Islip.

The Hurricanes needed to defeat the Buccaneers, not only in order to stay in playoff contention, but to finally grab a win this season over an opponent that was maybe slightly more favored going into it. On top of that, many of the ’Canes, if not all of them, had their travel coach, Joe Morgan, in their thoughts all game. Morgan, a coach within the East End Elite, also known as E3 travel lacrosse program, underwent successful open heart surgery just prior to Friday’s game.

All of those factors seemed to help push Westhampton Beach to a much needed 8-6 victory over Islip in what was a rain-soaked affair from the start. While head coach Drew Peters couldn’t definitively say his team clinched a postseason berth with the victory due to the uncertainty of the power-point system. The ’Canes went on to defeat host West Babylon, 11-6, on Monday to help further their playoff case. They play their season finale this Thursday, May 12, at home against Port Jefferson at 6 p.m.

With 10 teams in Suffolk County’s Class B this season, five teams qualify for the postseason. As of Tuesday afternoon, Westhampton Beach (8-5 in Division II, 10-5 overall, 124.60 power points) sat third behind Smithtown West (10-3 in Division II, 12-3 overall, 155.36) and Comsewogue (9-4 in Division II, 11-4 overall, 143.83) and ahead of East Islip (7-6 in Division II, 8-7 overall, 120.18) and West Islip (7-6 in Division II, 7-8 overall, 117.11).

“We’d been telling the guys, so far we’ve won the games that we went into the season that we’re supposed to win, and any games that we kind of circle — like the Smithtown West game was a close one but we lost, Sayville earlier in the year would have been a good one to take — and both were one-goal games,” Peters explained. “So the games that we’re supposed to win we have so far this season. It was kind of that question mark game that we hadn’t won that, hey, if we could take it, it would help us out certainly for power points trying to get into the Class B playoff.”

The ’Canes held a 4-3 lead at halftime of Friday’s game then things seemed to shift in their favor early in the third quarter. A goal by senior Chris Koltzan put Westhampton Beach up, 6-3, and increased its run to 4-0 from back in the second quarter. Even when Islip scored five minutes later to end that run, the ’Canes continued their strong play and went up as much as 8-4 thanks again to Koltzan with 4:23 remaining in the game.

The Bucs, to their credit, mounted a bit of a comeback, scoring the final two goals in the game’s final three minutes, but Westhampton Beach stood tall and held on to the hard-fought victory.

Koltzan and junior Chance Brindle each finished with three goals apiece, while junior Morgan McEntee scored a pair of goals.

“Right from the get go, we knew what we had to get done,” Koltzan said. “We practiced this all week. We wanted this more than anything. It was so great how well we worked together and this one was for coach Joe Morgan. He was our E3 lacrosse coach, East End Elite, and he was with us all last summer. Throughout the whole summer season he was our mentor, the guy to hype us up before the games. He taught us so many things and this is what he would have wanted.”

“We brought his energy into the game and I think that’s what led us to the win,” senior defender Liam McMunn added.

Jake D’Agata made a number of key saves and was credited with 11 total, a few in the game’s final minutes.

“I knew going into this game that we needed to get a big win,” he said. “We wanted to make sure we were the ones to decide our playoff fate. If we lost this game, it’d really be up to other people, so we wanted to go into this game and really cement a win.

“We needed a big win there for morale for everyone, because we know how good we are, but we haven’t really proved anything this year, and that game was really one that we could prove it and hang with anyone.”

Peters agreed that Friday’s victory was probably the team’s biggest win so far this season, with Monday’s game against West Babylon looming.

“We’ve kind of been harping on getting ready from the first whistle to the last whistle, and not coming out in these types of games with the tension and the tightness,” he explained. “Like, this is a game I think Islip is supposed to win, so let’s come out, let’s play loose. The further we get into the game and keep it close, that kind of plays into our favor, and I think they took to it today and obviously the scoreboard at the end went in our favor over a good Islip team.”