Lady Warriors Lacrosse Out of Playoffs

Facing Sayville for the second straight time in a week proved to be of little help to the Lady Warriors as the Golden Flashes lit up the cage in an 18-5 blowout in the opening round of the Suffolk County Class B girls lacrosse playoffs played at Sayville High School Saturday afternoon. One week ago in the regular season finale the Warriors were on the short end of a 12-6 loss to Sayville.

“They were just better than us,” said a disappointed Comsewogue head coach Nicole Kidd. “We were able to stay with them until about seven minutes left in the first half. I knew it was going to be a tough game, I just wish it would have been closer. I think the lack of playoff experience hurt us.”

Reaching the playoffs for the first time since 2006 provided little momentum for the Warriors as Sayville buried Comsewogue under an avalanche of 10 first half goals. Comsewogue has never beaten Sayville in girls lacrosse.

Karie Znaniecki scored a hat trick for the Warriors while Marykate McCormick and Michelle Rubino each scored once in the losing effort. But the Comsewogue offense was not stopped due to a lack of effort. The Warriors initially applied good pressure on Sayville goalie Gianna Minogue, but she consistently came up big recording a total of 14 saves on the day.

“I didn’t think they had that many shots on us,” said Kidd. “I know we weren’t getting many good looks. They play a good aggressive man-to-man defense and we had a lot of breakdowns on defense. In the end we were tired and frustrated. It was disappointing.”

The Lady Warriors lose only six players including three starters from this year’s team, so a return trip to the playoffs in 2012 is not unrealistic. Hopefully the experience they gained in this loss will pay dividends in the future.