As Riverhead boys lacrosse coach Vic Guadagnino scanned the field following a 3-2 defeat Tuesday night in the semifinals of their summer league playoffs against undefeated Mount Sinai (8-0), he counted the starters returning, pointing to each of them as they came off the field:
“One, two, three, four — four?”
“Yeah only four starters return,” Guadagnino said. “Our whole defense is gone, a couple midis, attackers. Yeah, we’ve got a bunch of new kids out here.”
Although familiar numbers remain — 10, 8, 3, — faces and the overall look and feel of the team differ. After easily beating William Floyd 9-3 in the quarterfinal, a victory in which passing the ball to the right player seemed contagious and open opportunities were put in the back of the net, the new squad exhibited something that last year’s teams seemed to lack — continuity.
The ball was rarely stationary. To have that much fluidity within a team, the only thing standing in their way of success is progressing consistency.
The summer gives Guadagnino a first look at what he’ll have next year. The team is stripped of seniors, replenished with underclassman, then taken to tournaments before finishing the summer in the Town of Brookhaven lacrosse league.
“We’ve been going since June so this is the end,” Guadagnino said. “There was a lot of learning this summer. We brought up a lot of younger kids just to get them in training to build a nucleus. We went up to Syracuse, Stony Brook, we went to Hofstra — you know— we’re getting there.”
Improvement was clearly evident at the end of the summer.
“Mount Sinai, the team we lost to tonight, beat us 8-1 a week and a half ago,” Guadagnino said. “So to only lose 3-2 you can already see the progress we’re making each week and that’s all we’re looking to do, make progress.”
Key players are starting to step up. Guadagnino mentioned some that really caught his eye:
“Well Blake is Blake. That’s not going to change,” he said, referring to Maryland recruit Blake Carrara. “John Ehlers stepped up a lot, he’s going to be a sophomore. Austin Fitzpatrick and Mark Andrejack stepped up as leaders on the offense. Andre Juarez, who played a lot last year is a bigger factor coming into this year. Desmond Daniels, who played for me last year has a much bigger role for me this year. Jake Zuhoski has stepped up as a key player. And we have an incoming freshman, Dalton Lucas, who will play attack.”
An open competition has been announced by Guadagnino for starting goalie next year with senior John Roca and sophomore Jacob Coleman. Coleman has had a phenomenal summer playing for multiple travel teams and has received interest from notable colleges.
“We don’t have a starter there,” Guadagnino said. “I’m not naming anything.”
Though Guadagnino was thrilled with the progress made this summer, there’s always that list of things that still need improving.
“More stick skills,” Guadagnino said. “Learning to play at the varsity speed. A lot of these kids are used to JV and this game is so much faster. Physical strength. That’s where Coach Shay’s football kids help us, that weight room and core base is big for us,” he said.
“Bigger, faster, stronger and stick skills.”
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