The Riverhead boys lacrosse team has been contending with a lack of experience this season. When things go south, it’s hard for a team to dig themselves out if they haven’t done it before. But for the first time this season, facing an early deficit, the Blue Waves clawed their way back into the game and came away with a 10-6 victory over Patchogue-Medford Monday afternoon at Pulaski Street Sports Complex.
Riverhead (3-4) was able to register only two goals in the first half and trailed 4-2 going into halftime. It only got worse when Patchogue-Medford scored the opening goal of the second half.
“I think having no school today was a big part of our slow start,” midfielder Ruairi McElhinney said. “Maybe we were tired, I don’t know. First half we weren’t running our offense correctly. Defensively we weren’t talking. At the half, we made those corrections immediately.”
When asked by the referees how much time he needed for halftime, Riverhead head coach Vic Guadagnino asked for 10 minutes — a lot longer than the typical 5-7 minute midway break.
“I don’t want to take all the credit for our turnaround being a ‘rah-rah’ speach at halftime,” Guadagnino said. “But we had to fire them up and get their heads in the game. This was a game we felt that we absolutely should win.”
Though Riverhead was getting decent looks at goal in the first half, the shots were just off line or right at the goalie’s oversized stick. The coaching staff kept shouting reminders about the pre-game scouting report. The idea was to either bounce shots towards the net or deke low and finish high. Despite the advice from the coaching staff, Riverhead continued firing shots toward the five hole, which the opposing keeper had little trouble corralling.
But after the Blue Waves gave up that fifth goal, everything changed. Brayden Miller deposited his first career varsity goal with that exact low-high deke move to make the score 5-3. Logan Dempsey followed up with another goal a minute and a half later, and then McElhinney tied it at 5-5 with a strike from 20 yards out.
“We knew the goalie, and we knew the scout on him,” said Dempsey, who scored three goals total. “We just had to hit the shots we weren’t hitting in the first half. We changed things up in that second half and played with some grit.”
Jacob Ohlbaum put Riverhead ahead, scoring his first career varsity goal.
“We talked about the guys breaking out of their shell at halftime,” Guadagnino said. “The seniors on defense encouraged our offense to show up and show out. They really responded to everything we said at half. I mean, we had two guys score their first goal, and this is our seventh game.”
Riverhead posted seven consecutive goals to open up the lead and ultimately put the game away, taking over the entire fourth quarter. Miller scored his second, and McElhinney netted his third. Nate Nentwich scored the final goal of the game, diving across the front of the cage.
But defense was the key to sparking the comeback, conceding just two goals in the entire second half to give the offense a chance to regroup. Dillon Zaleski snatched 11 saves on the day, and the experienced defenders he had up front put a hurting on the attackers coming their way. Whether it was Brendan Wallace, Mike Gabriel, Liam Lennon or Kevin Qualey, they kept laying the boom.
“We know that the offense feeds off our energy,” Lennon said. “We have been trying to build up our offensive guys all season long. We know they have what it takes, but anything we can do as a defense and captains to help them along — we’re right there for them.”
Tucker Suter also had an impressive run during the goal-scoring stretch. The freshman kept winning faceoffs, showing that his youth has little effect on achieving the desired results.
“We’re young and there’s a lot of teaching that we’re doing right now,” Guadagnino said. “We’re getting better every week. Other games were just like this but we couldn’t make a comeback. This is an encouraging sign for things to come.”
The post Young Blue Waves boys lax team flashes some grit in comeback win appeared first on Riverhead News Review.