Update 10:30 a.m. Riverhead did not make the boys lacrosse playoff tournament. Riverhead’s final power point standing was 13th. Seeds 1-12 fill the post-season brackets. Head Coach Victor Guadagnino said he was disappointed. “Everybody always wants to make the playoffs,” he said. Nevertheless the coach said he’s ecstatic about the Waves’ season and very optimistic about the team going forward.
The Waves graduate only one starter this year, Guadagnino said. They are looking strong for the next few years and with the way the program has been building among the community’s youth, “we’re definitely moving in the right direction,” he said.
“It’s no longer an expectation that Riverhead’s going to be at the bottom of the league.” Riverhead’s lacrosse program just completed its 12th interscholastic varsity season, Guadagnino’s second season as head coach.
Original report:
They did it again.
The Riverhead Blue Waves boys lacrosse team won another one-goal contest, their third in a row, beating Lindenhurst 9-8 in the final game of regular season play.
Now the Waves (9-5 in Division I, 10-5 overall) anxiously await the new power rankings in Division I to find out if their first-ever 10-win season earned them a berth in the playoffs. They were 13th in the rankings before yesterday’s games. The top 12 seeds make the playoffs. Section XI will release the updated rankings today.
The team wins on “heart and hustle” Waves Head Coach Victor Guadagnino said, then joked about not being sure whether his heart could take much more of the kind of drama the Waves have been dishing up. They won Tuesday’s game at Patchogue-Medford 12-11, with the winning goal by R.J. Foster coming with just 21 seconds left in the game. Five of the Waves’ 10 wins this season were by one goal.
The Waves jumped out to an early two-goal lead in the first quarter, but Lindenhurst (4-10) came back to tie it at 3 by the end of the first. Adding four goals in the second, the Bulldogs took a 7-5 lead into halftime. But the Waves’ four-goal third quarter and the Bulldogs’ failure to score put the Waves ahead 9-7 going into the game’s final quarter. The Bulldogs were able to put one more on the board in the fourth, with 5 minutes left in the game. Waves goalie Alex Panagakos, who had 11 saves, came up with three big saves in the game’s final moments.
“This is a team that just won’t give up,” Guadagnino said. The last two games of the season were must-win games for the Waves, and they came through.
RiverheadLOCAL photos by Peter Blasl
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