Nick Muelthaler nets four goals in Floyd boys lacrosse's win over Riverhead

As the momentum quickly shifted in the opponent’s favor during the game’s latter stages, Nick Muelthaler examined the defense and saw his opening.

Muelthaler then sprinted to his right, fired and found the back of the net for his fourth goal of the game with 2:43 remaining as Floyd earned a hard-fought 12-9 road victory over Riverhead in a Suffolk I boys lacrosse game on Thursday.

“They were starting to get a little bit of momentum and they were starting to play off,” Muelthaler said of his goal that gave Floyd an 11-9 edge. “So I just ran to the net, scored it and we got it back. And it was like that for the rest of the game.”

Floyd (4-8) entered the fourth quarter ahead 8-7 following two goals over a five-second span in the final minute of the third, with Connor Murtha netting the first and Jameson Kincaid winning the faceoff before bursting through the middle for the second.

“I just kept going,” said Murtha, who scored three goals. “I thought I had good matchups all over the field. I just kept running by my guys. Some of them I missed, but eventually a few of them went in.”

It was a strong response from the Colonials after three unanswered goals gave Riverhead a 7-6 lead with 1:25 left in the third period – its first lead since Danny Squires recorded the game’s opening goal about three minutes into the match.

Ensuing goals from Marc Pluchino and Muelthaler stretched Floyd’s advantage to 10-7 with 5:33 to go before Ryken Kutner and Griffin Sumwalt each scored for Riverhead (3-7) and cut the deficit to 10-9 two minutes later.

Muelthaler and Murtha then closed out the victory with the final two goals.

“I wasn’t really that worried,” Murtha said. “I just knew that if we got one stop and once we scored another goal that we would be right back at it. Nick scores a lot of those.”

Murtha and Jayden Bonner netted back-to-back goals in the second to extend Floyd’s lead to 5-2 with 4:25 left in the opening half. Sumwalt scored about two minutes later and Floyd held a 5-3 halftime advantage.

Luke Tiedmann made eight saves for Floyd.

Floyd coach Desmond Megna was encouraged by his team’s poise down the stretch and believes it could spark them moving forward.

“This was a big win for us,” Megna said. “We’ve had a rough season with some players transferring out and some big injuries. So we’ve dealt with a lot of adversity and League I lacrosse is rough; there’s no easy matches. To come out and beat a team that is very well-coached and plays the game the right way, it’s big for us.”