Rongo, King Lead Westhampton To Win Over West Islip

Reese King and Olivia Rongo helped deliver the win the Westhampton Beach girls lacrosse team needed, and at the right time.

The pair recorded nearly more goals than all of West Islip’s players combined in the Hurricanes’ 10-8 win Friday. Rongo had four goals, three assists and six draw controls, while King added two goals, one assist and had four draw wins.

Westhampton (3-1, 2-1 in Division II) was up, 7-3, at the end of the first half, with Rongo recording a hat trick and King securing both of her goals over the 25 minutes. The duo scored back-to-back-to-back to close it out.

“Scoring unanswered and being up by as much as we were gave the whole team a confidence boost,” Rongo said. “I find that against a lot of our opponents, staying spread out on offense and waiting for lanes and good, clean cuts to appear instead of forcing — waiting for the good opportunities over, maybe, the first one — has been working a lot better for us.”

The senior midfielder also caught the Lions (1-4, 1-2) off guard when she grabbed possession off a draw and charged up the middle for a score and 6-2 lead with 9:01 left in the first.

“That’s always the goal,” she said, smiling, when talking about how quickly she found the netting. “It happened to be there that time.”

But she did admit the Hurricanes hurt themselves by pressing for shots late, and losing the draws following a few quick goals deflated the young team. Westhampton started an eighth-grader, four freshmen and two sophomores in the win, with freshman goalkeeper Maya Farnan also starting in-net, making eight saves.

“It’s why our games turn into really close ones,” Rongo said. “We got a little too comfortable, and as the score kept rising on their end, we just panicked and weren’t playing how we normally do, which is calm and composed. We had a few moments where we doubted ourselves, but I knew that we could do it.”

King admitted the game should not have gone in the direction it did. West Islip rallied for four unanswered goals across a 10-minute span to close the gap to one, 9-8. That is, until freshman Brie Provenzano scored off a feed from Rongo with 1:34 left to play. Sophomore Kenzie Schindler iced it with a check that forced a turnover. Junior Reilly Mahon scooped up the ground ball in the final seconds.

“We let it go in the second half. I don’t think it should have ended up that close,” the freshman midfielder King said. “But this was a learning experience, and we can fix our mistakes. Going forward, we’re not going to let this happen again.”

There have been a few lessons learned as of late. The Hurricanes were down, 5-0, to Sayville three days prior, and scored five straight across both halves to tie the game, but scrambled at the end of the 6-5 loss.

“They felt it in the end there,” head coach Mary Bergmann said. “But we weren’t chasing at the end of this game like we were with Sayville. They didn’t want to be in that situation again. It’s a young team, and they’re learning. There’s just a confidence thing they need to work on.”

King and Rongo confessed the energy fell flat as West Islip amped up the intensity in the second, which is something Bergmann said some of her younger girls haven’t seen to this point.

“We build on each game for the next, but they’re getting thrown into the fire,” the coach said. “Every game is 50/50 — they could go either way this season, and playing West Islip is always tough because they’re really aggressive — those girls fight super hard. Playing in games like this helps you, and as long as we’re learning every day, that’s a win.”

King added the lessons are timely as the Hurricanes prepare for games against Center Moriches (3-1), Mount Sinai (3-0), Shoreham-Wading River (2-0) and Comsewogue (2-1).

“We have a tough next two weeks, but I think if we prepare — taking what we’ve learned from the games we’ve played and utilizing what we’ve learned moving forward — we’ll be in good shape,” King said. “Everyone is contributing something, and that really helps.”