Garden City boys lacrosse tops Rye, advances to Class B state final
Garden City's Luke Schmitt, center, squeezes between Rye's Johnny Hartzell, left, and Owen Kovaks, right, during the Class B New York State High Public School boys lacrosse East state semifinal game on Wednesday, June 8, 2022, in Albany, N.Y. (Photo/Tim Roske) Credit: Tim Roske
ALBANY, N.Y. — The Garden City boys lacrosse team didn’t allow itself to sulk. Sure, the Trojans had their three-goal lead evaporate into a tie. But they were determined to make sure it didn’t get any worse.
And it didn’t take long for the Trojans to guarantee that.
Luke Schmitt scored 15 seconds after Rye had tied the score at 4 off an assist from Jack Archer as Garden City went on to defeat Rye, 6-4, in the boys lacrosse state Class B semifinals at SUNY Albany’s John Fallon Field Wednesday.
“That changed our whole mindset of the game,” said Schmitt, who finished with two goals and an assist. “We were up 4-1 and we were rolling and them scoring three straight, they really slowed us down a little bit. We had to play tough and come back and that’s what we did.”
Garden City (18-2) advances to play Canandaigua Academy (15-5) in the state Class B final at Hofstra Saturday at 3 p.m. Rye finished 19-4.
Schmitt also scored the game’s final goal off an assist from Steve Finnell with 1:42 left in the third quarter. His goal to make the score 5-4 came with 3:47 left in the third quarter.
“It was huge, it was a momentum changer,” Schmitt said. “Getting the goal to go up 5-4, then 6-4, that changed the whole game.”
The Garden City defense held Rye to one goal in the second half as Allen had 11 saves in the contest.
“It felt awesome,” Allen said. “My defense really made it easy on me, preparing all week and they let me see the shots I wanted to see. They really did the job for me.”
Garden City started quickly, taking a 3-0 lead with 5:35 left in the first quarter.
“That was huge,” coach Steve Finnell said, who is the father to Steve, a junior midfielder. “You jump out to three and you think ‘Maybe we’ll score 10, 12 goals’ but that didn’t have that tempo at times. It was two really good defenses going at each other.”
Finnell had a goal and an assist, Archer had two assists and Brendan Staub, Henry Gibbons and Mike Fargione added a goal. Jack Cascadden won 9 of 14 faceoffs, including all five in the second half, and had five ground balls.
Garden City last won a state title in 2018. The Trojans won the Long Island Class B championship last season but there was no state championships to follow. But this year, the state finals will be held less than four miles from their campus.
“It’s awesome,” Allen said. “We didn’t have this last year and it’s in our backyard this year. We are going to have a huge crowd. It should be electric on Saturday.”
