Third time's the charm for Port Washington boys lacrosse in Nassau Class A semifinal win over Farmingdale
Harry Eynon of Port Washington celebrates a goal during a Nassau Class A boys lacrosse semifinal against Farmingdale on Wednesday at Hofstra. Credit: Anna Sergeeva
Farmingdale ended Port Washington’s season in the Nassau Class A boys lacrosse final two seasons ago and then again in the semifinals last season.
This time, the third-seeded Vikings were the ones making a happy sprint toward their goalie, Max Eynon, at the end. They ousted the second-seeded, two-time defending county and Long Island champion Dalers, 9-5, in the semis Wednesday night at Hofstra’s Shuart Stadium.
“They sent us home the last two years, and we just wanted this one so bad,” Eynon said. “We’re not done yet and we just want to keep going.”
The sophomore made eight saves. Christian Sarchese and Harry Eynon, Max’s brother, each scored three times and Will Ahmuty delivered four assists.
So Port Washington (15-3) will face top-seeded Massapequa for the title at 3 p.m. Saturday at Shuart.
“We definitely think we’re going to win it,” Max said.
Farmingdale (10-8) lost despite three goals and one assist from Sean Schumeyer and 10 saves from Matt Hughes.
“Listen, there’s plenty of years where we didn’t win the championship,” Dalers coach Eric Dunne said. “There’s a lot of young guys returning for next year. There’s a lot of lessons for them to learn.”
Massapequa, which beat Port Washington, 9-7, on April 25, will play a team that has yielded six goals or less 15 times.
“It starts from the attack,” Vikings coach Glenn Lavey said. “Our riding again was excellent. I think our middies get back and make it six-on-six. Then once we’re in the box, we have really good players and a really good goalie.”
Lavey had been saying since the Dalers defeated Port Washington, 8-6, on May 9 that Sarchese was going to be the difference the next time they played.
“He made the prophecy come true,” Lavey said.
Farmingdale cut it to 6-4 with 9:48 left.
Then Ahmuty made a great pickup by the left of the cage and sent the ball out to Sarchese. The senior scored his third, and the margin never got closer than three from there.
“The momentum started to shift away,” Sarchese said. “They started crawling back. That one really put us back on top and gave us that boost we needed to finish out the game.”
It was 3-2 Port after one quarter, 4-3 Port at halftime and 5-3 Port after three.
“We didn’t do a great job of clearing the ball,” Dunne said. “ . . . We got a little rattled at times.”
