Christ Schoen electrified his teammates and the big crowd at Blue Devil Stadium, lighting up the scoreboard three times to help lift the Huntington High School boys’ lacrosse team over Islip Friday afternoon in a Suffolk Division II playoff game, 8-3.
The Blue Devils led early, 2-1 and held a 4-2 halftime advantage to the delight of the 400 fans in the home bleachers. Huntington went on to outscore the Buccaneers, 4-1 in the second half, including two late game goals, to ice the victory advance in deeper into post-season play.
Second seeded Huntington (14-3) will host No. 6 Sayville (9-6) in the county semifinals on Thursday at 4 p.m. at Blue Devil Stadium. The Blue Devils topped the Golden Flashes earlier in the season, 8-4. Schoen had two goals and two assists in that game.
Against Islip, Huntington was facing an opponent it had overcome two weeks ago by a 13-4 margin. The Buccaneers’ defense was much tougher last Friday and didn’t give any ground to the Blue Devils, who had to work hard for every goal.
In addition to Schoen’s three goals, Christian Fiordelisi scored twice and Billy Martin (one goal, one assist), Pat Reilly (one goal, one assist) and Josh Long (one goal) put the ball in the net. Connor Birchard tallied three assists and Ben Kocis picked up one assist. Tyler Greenhill stopped 12 shots in goal.
Thursday’s game against Sayville is expected to be a rugged affair. The Golden Flashes jumped out to a 3-0 lead against the Blue Devils on April 29. Huntington scored five unanswered fourth quarter goals to nail down the victory. Greenhill made 17 saves on blistering shots.
The win over Islip was Huntington’s 13th consecutive victory.
