by Hallie Harvey
Mount Sinai Boys Varsity Lacrosse Team (5-0) hosted the Comsewogue Warriors (3-1) on Wednesday night. This intense rivalry matchup ended in a 10-7 win for the Mustangs, as they remain undefeated going into the rest of their condensed season.
Last night’s game brought a huge turnout from both the home and away teams, creating an intense atmosphere under the lights.
Post-game, senior attacker Nick Colantonio described what the intensity of this rivalry game is like each year. “It’s just Comsewogue,” he admitted plainly. “No matter how good they are, it’s still Comsewogue. It’s always going to be a close, tough, hard-fought game. It’s all about keeping it together.”
The game opened up with a hot start for Mount Sinai as they secured a 4-0 lead within the first five minutes of the game, and held that steady lead for the rest of the game.
Colantonio was the first to put a point on the board with 8:58 left in the first quarter. “We kept our heads in the game. We knew it was going to be a 7PM night game, everyone’s going to be here and it was going to be hectic,” the LIU commit described the team’s thoughts going into last night’s game.
Three more goals unfolded within the span of a minute. Junior middie, James Carreta, scored with an assist by Joey Spallina, who went for another assist to freshman attacker, Lucas LaForge. Within seconds, Jake Spallina bought Mount Sinai’s first quarter lead to 4-0 with an unassisted goal.
Jake Deacy, Comsewogue senior attacker, was the first to put the Warriors on the board. He scored with only 1:42 remaining in the first, making the tally 5-1.
The intensity fell between the first and third quarters with each team scoring only once, rounding the score to 6-2 going into halftime.
However, the tempo picked up well into the third quarter when N. Colantonio scored with an assist from Joey Spallina. Joey followed with a fast-break only 10 seconds later, scoring off-the-rip and taking the assist from his younger brother Jake. These back-to-back goals brought the score to 8-3 well into the third quarter.
Mount Sinai has a lot of family pairings on the team this season, and Mustangs Head Coach Harold Drumm described how these family dynamics add to the team’s chemistry overall. “Playing with your family, it’s great,” he said. “Our biggest thing we try to tell the kids is to play for each other, not for yourself. When they do that, they play really well.”
Mount Sinai’s LaForge opened the final quarter by scoring right away. One the score tallied to 10-4, the Warriors knew it was time to step on the gas.
Following a series of four timeouts called back-to-back without any points scored between them, Comsewogue found a way to go on a run. The Warriors scored three unanswered goals against the Mustangs within the last three minutes of the game.
CHS senior attacker, Corey Watson, scored two consecutive goals in a minute, with assists from James Mantione for both. Then, with only 25 seconds left in regulation, Deacy scored unassisted to close the 6-point deficit and bring the game within three points.
“Comsewogue is a great team— this is a big rivalry,” Coach Drumm said. “We know lacrosse is a game of momentum and we anticipated that they were going to come out and get a couple shots.”
Comsewogue gained their first loss of the season, going out 10-7, but not without a fight.
This was one of Mount Sinai’s toughest matchups, but the Mustangs plan to keep up this pace as they enter the rest of this unique season. “We just have to keep our composure, keep playing and keep to our game plan,” Drumm advised. “I’m proud of them that they did that.”
