Engelhardt, Mahon spark Bethpage offense

The sun finally came out Saturday for Bethpage boys lacrosse.

Whether it was the thrill of playing in front of a television crew, the Duke-Denver game to be played a little later or finally adjusting to a major injury, Saturday's break from dreary weather was the perfect backdrop for a team that, for more than a week, had been playing under a dark cloud.

Tom Engelhardt and Ryan Mahon each scored four goals and had two assists as the Golden Eagles walloped visiting Lawrence, 19-2, in Conference B-II. It was something of a return to form for Bethpage, which had been without leading scorer Ryan Walsh (sprained ankle) for three games and lost top midfielder Bryan Pouria to a season-ending ACL injury.

Bethpage (1-1, 3-3) snapped a three-game losing streak in which it was outscored 29-14.

"We came out on fire," Engelhardt said. "We started to work together more on offense. We were moving the ball . . . we were pumped this week and we wanted to play well in front of the crowd."

The matchup was a preamble to the Duke-Denver men's lacrosse game, which pitted Denver coach Bill Tierney against Duke coach John Danowski, who both grew up within 10 miles of Bethpage High School.

Lawrence opened the scoring on Dom Saldutti's score off a feed from Chris Donohue a little less than two minutes in, but that was all the Golden Tornadoes would get until Ron Hirshberg's goal with a minute left in the third quarter. In between, Bethpage scored 17 times, highlighted by four straight goals from Engelhardt between 8:30 and 4:32 left in the half.

SEE PHOTOSBethpage 19, Lawrence 2

Lawrence (0-1, 0-6) had four man-up opportunities, including a 2-minute crosscheck penalty in the waning minutes of the game, but was unable to execute. Danny Chillianis scored with a man-down with 7:38 left in the third to put Bethpage up 17-1.

Chris Seiter notched his first hat trick of the season, and Jesse House had a goal and four assists.

"We played good team lacrosse," House said, adding that the extra attention was "a little bit nerve-racking, but after the first five goals, I felt we were really able to settle in."

Added Seiter: "We produced in a way that's lacked for a couple of days."

SEE PHOTOS2011 boys lacrosse players to watch

As reward, most of the team was planning to stick around to watch Duke and Denver duke it out. Seiter said that he's not looking for anything in particular, but couldn't help giving in to a touch of school pride.

"I'm just psyched they're playing at Bethpage."