Boys lacrosse: Rye's postseason tear comes to an end against Garden City
ALBANY – Only a really, really good team was going to send Rye home.
Garden City is a really, really good team.
After erasing an early deficit and netting the equalizer, the Garnets were shut down for the final 16 minutes and fell 6-4 to the Long Island champions Wednesday in the NYSPHSAA Class B East Championship at the University at Albany.
“It was hard,” Rye long stick midfielder Carter Barford said. “Those guys were moving the ball really well. We did what we could. We held them to six goals and it was a good game. A couple of bounces went their way, but we had a chance.”
Regionals: Rye uses diversified attack to overpower Niskayuna in Class B regional
Awards: Here are the All-Section 1 honorees for 2022
Rye had won 13 in a row coming in.
“This is such a good group of guys,” Garnets coach Steve Lennon said. “We played like one game with our whole team before the playoffs and then they just really came together. There are some great senior leaders, great junior leaders all over the field. I think we could’ve won this game. That’s what I like about lacrosse. You can try as hard as you can and work as hard as you can, but you’re not guaranteed the outcome you want and that’s what they’re going to learn.”
When they were in gear, running from defense to offense, the Trojans were especially lethal.
Garden City was up 4-1 before Owen Kovacs sparked a run with five minutes to play in the first half. Barford made it 4-3 with a goal in transition.
The Trojans controlled the action again after the intermission, but Caden Whaling knotted the score with 4:01 to play in the third quarter. It only took Luke Schmitt 15 seconds to respond in kind and put the Section 1 champs right back into chase mode.
It was the final Rye goal of the season.
“They are really patient,” Lennon added. “They don’t make a lot of mistakes and then they hit you in transition right when you’re trying your hardest to get back. They are pretty composed in those moments and are just good players.”
What it means
Rye is going to graduate a bus load of marquee talent.
Defending back-to-back Section 1 titles will not be easy for the Garnets, but there are some capable headliners coming back and more on the way up.
Player of the game
Schmitt kept throwing daggers at Rye, finishing with the final two goals of the game and one assist.
By the numbers
Rye (18-4): Whaling delivered two goals and one assist. … Kovacs and Barford each finished with one goal. … Kian McCarthy handed out a pair of assists. … Jack Garnett made eight saves. … Johnny Hartzell won seven faceoffs.
Garden City (18-2): Brendan Staub and Steve Finell each had an unassisted goal in the first five minutes of play. … Henry Gibbons and Mike Fargione also had one goal apiece. … Finnell also had an assist. … Chris Allen made 10 saves.
Quotable
“I think we rode the wave all year,” Barford said. “Each day we got better and better and when the playoffs started, it showed once we got everyone on the field. They’re a really good team. I thought we were capable of beating them, but they deserve this and hopefully they win the state championship.”
Up next
Garden City will face Canandaigua in the Class B championship at 3 p.m. Saturday at Hofstra.
Mike Dougherty covers boys soccer, boys lacrosse, girls basketball and golf for The Journal News/lohud.com. He can be reached at mdougher@lohud.com, or on Twitter @hoopsmbd, @lohudlacrosse, @lohudhoopsmbd and @lohudgolf.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Boys lacrosse: Rye falls 6-4 to Garden City in NYSPHSAA semifinals
