Here we go, gang. This will be our last poll till the final poll at the end of the season.
1. Manhasset: Top-seeded Indians will face No. 5 Friends Academy on Thursday in the Nassau Class C semifinals. (Last week: No. 1)
2. West Islip: The half-man, half-amazing Nicky Galasso hit the 100-point mark for the season last week. (Last week: No. 3)
3. St. Anthonys: Surprise, surprise. It will be St. Anthony’s vs. Chaminade today for the CHSAA title at 6:30 p.m. at Mitchell Field in Hempstead. (Last week: No. 4)
4. Ridgefield: Top-seeded Tigers host No. 8 Westhill iN Wednesday’s FCIAC quarterfinals. (Last week: No. 5)
5. Yorktown: ‘Huskers have had a “busy” week of practice since falling at Wilton in their regular-season finale. (Last week: No. 2)
6. Ward Melville: Second-seeded Patriots play No. 7 West Babylon in Wednesday’s Suffolk Class A quarterfinals. (Last week: No. 6)
7. Chaminade: Flyers hope to shake off late-season loss to St. Anthony’s as the teams set to square off again today for CHSAA supremacy. (Last week: No. 7)
8. Garden City: Top-seeded Trojan play No. 8 Calhoun in the Nassau Class B quarterfinals today. (Last week: No. 8 )
9. Lynbrook: Third-seeded Lynbrook faces No. 6 Long Beach in tomorrow’s Nassau Class B quarterfinals. (Last week: No. 9)
10. Brunswick: Has won 13 of its last 15. (Last week: No. 10)
11. Darien: Blue Wave host a Brien McMahon team coming off an upset win over Wilton in Wednesday’s FCIAC quarterfinals. (Last week: No. 11)
12. Shoreham-Wading River: Top-seeded Wildcats host No. 3 Sayville on Friday in the Class B Suffolk semifinals. (Last week: No. 12)
13. Cold Spring Harbor: Second-seeded Seahawks face No. 3 Seaford in Thursday’s Nassau Class C semfinals. (Last week: No. 13)
14. Comsewogue: Rich Carlson has an impressive 46 assists.. (Last week: No. 14)
15. New Fairfield: Rebels’ last loss came in 2007 postseason. (Last week: No. 15)
16. Farmingdale: Dalers face Baldwin in an intriguing Class A Nassau semifinal on Thursday. (Last week: No. 17)
17. Somers: Tuskers earned the No. 1 seed in the playoffs for the first time since 2003. (Last week: No. 18)
18. Wilton: Warriors followed up their first win over Yorktown since 1999 with another stunner a loss to Brien McMahon. (Last week: Not ranked)
19. Fairfield Prep: Prep suffered a surprising loss to Simsbury to end the regular season. (Last week: No. 18)
20. Baldwin: Ohio State-bound star Dominique Alexander is among the leading scorers in the region with 82 points and Kyle Rebman is among the top goal scorers with 54. (Last week: No. 21)
21. Lakeland/Panas: Rebels seem to destined meet Yorktown in next week’s Section 1 Class A final. (Last week: No. 22)
22. John Jay: The Indians, who drew a surprising No. 3 seed in the Section 1 Class B playoffs, are eyeing a fifth straight sectional title. (Last week: No. 23)
23. Whitman: Michael Brennan and Myles Jones are one of the area’s premier scoring combos. (Last week: No. 24)
24. South Side: Nick O’Reilly became the school’s all-time scoring leader after having seven goals and 12 points in an 18-10 win over Glen Cover in the opening round of the playoffs. He now has 230 points for his career. The old mark was 227. (Last week: No. 25)
25. Hicksville: The No. 2 seeds in Nassau Class A face defending county champ Syosset in Thursday’s semifinals. Should be a good one. (Last week: Not ranked)
Dropped out: Rocky Point
BY REGION – Top 5
WESTCHESTER/ROCKLAND/PUTNAM/DUTCHESS
1. Yorktown, 2. Somers, 3. Lakeland/Panas, 4. John Jay, 5. Rye
NASSAU
1. Manhasset, 2. Chaminade, 3. Garden City, 4. Lynbrook, 5. Cold Spring Harbor
SUFFOLK
1. West Islip, 2. St. Anthonys, 3. Ward Melville, 4. Shoreham-Wading River, 5. Comsewogue
FAIRFIELD
1. Ridgefield, 2. Brunswick, 3. Darien, 4. New Fairfield, 5. Wilton
Be sure to weigh in with your comments.
You can also reach Joe Lombardi at joe@laxlessons.com.
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New York State Sportswriters Association rankings
Section 1 Class B: Who’s going to win?
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Posted In: General
I wonder if we’re going to get the Ward Melville-West Islip sectional final that everyone seems to want. Melville has played so many tight games this season I just wonder if playing that type of style will eventually come back to bite the Patriots. West Islip should be a lock to get there.
To me, the Section 11 Class B tournament is going to be great theater. SWR-Sayville is going to be a good one.
Section 8 will be interesting as well because it’s anyone’s guess who wins A and B looks like it will come down to Garden City and Lynbrook.
FCIACs should be interesting, too. After a relatively uncompetitive first round, we should see two solid semifinal matchups. Ridgefield will square off against either NC or Greenwich, both of whom gave the Tigers some heartburn during the regular season (NC’s junior pole Kevin Campbell likely did the best job of containing Matt White I’ve seen all season); in the other semifinal, Wilton has a shot to end a 19 game losing streak against Darien.
In the final, of course, we’re likely to see a rematch of the 8-7 ‘Field-Darien thriller. But the reality is that anything can happen. Last year’s Tigers squad stunned Greenwich, and we all remember NC’s takedown of the Darien juggernaut in ’07. Indeed, the best team in Connecticut (my opinion, of course) has not made it to the FCIAC championship in the past two seasons.
The FCIACs are not a tuneup for the state championship – in many people’s eyes, they are the true state championship. Every team brings their A game. Should be a fun one this year.
And as to the rankings, good job, as always. Hicksville is likely underrated, and I’m not sure that Whitman or LP belong. But it’s a big area, and there simply aren’t enough interleague results to create a perfect Top 25.
We should have some real classics to help shake things out in the coming weeks: WI-WM, Somers-Jay, Farmingdale-Hicksville, GC-Lynbrook and, of course, the FCIAC showdowns.
Cuse-
Agree that WI-WM is the premier matchup in Suffolk, if not the island as a whole. Class B looks to be very interesting as well.
James-
Have to disagree with you about the FCIACs and states. THE field will roll, pretty much uncontested, through both. Don’t really see anyone challenging them in either tourney at this point. Darien, Greenwich and Prep are all way down this year.
LP definately belongs. We beat JJ and could have easily beaten Yorktown and had Somers beat but gave the game away in OT. C’mon now.
“Could easily have beaten Yorktown.”
Wow. That’s a pretty bold statement.
Yea, years ago my dad “could” of worked with some guy name steve jobs…but my dad wasn’t crazy about selling fruit..
as “easily” they could have beaten yorktown, yorktown could have easily won by A lot more goals..it could go either way…but credit l/p, they gave yorktown a run for their money and rattled them .
very bold.
but joe, just throwing out a suggestion…
since the summer is quickly approaching, commitments for the class of 2010 will be coming as well… just like you did on lax to the max, maybe you could put up some pages about the commitments for 2009 and 2010
keep doing your thing joe, you’re the man
JF –
Great suggestion. I can assure you we will have plenty of recruiting news and info in the coming weeks/months with lots of summer coverage of showcase events and commitments, etc. It will be more thorough and comprehensive then anything I’ve ever provided before.
Meantime, hope you’re enjoying our player profiles on our recruiting section at:
http://laxlessons.com/recruit
There are more than 50 profiles already up.
Joe,
WM plays 10th seeded Bay Shore tomorrow, not West Bab (Bay Shore defeated WB last week, 12-7)
SWR is not the top seed in Suffolk B, they’re the 2 even though they beat Wogue in the regular season. Wogue is the 1 and will play 4th seeded Smithtown West
Other than that, I agree with most of the rankings, although I don’t think Whitman is a top 25 team you can’t argue with their 15-2 record and win over Smithtown East. I do think they’ll lose to Floyd tomorrow though
Syracuse,
I think the rematch of WM-Floyd, should it occur, is going to be a great game. Floyd’s ND-bound do-it-all middie Steven Murphy was limited in the first game between these two, which was close for three quarters before WM pulled away to win 14-8. With Murphy back, Floyd is a scary team that I think can play with anyone in the county, including WI. If you remember, Floyd did have a 4-0 lead after the first quarter against WI in their regular season meeting.
If Smithtown East manages to squeak by Connetquot in their rematch from last Monday’s Connetquot win, they’ll give WI a game, at least closer than their 11-5 loss the last time. I think WI will win, but it will be a test for them.
Both the Suffolk B games will be great, and I could see both underdogs winning. Smithtown West to me has improved so much as the season has gone along, and they have the potential to win the county. Any one of these four teams could beat each other on a given day, so the final four should be great. I do like Wogue and SWR in close ones, but it could just as easily be a Sayville-Smithtown West final.
LI Lax,
Great point about Murphy. I know when Floyd started fast both Joe and I penciled them in as a team to watch and even had them ranked in our regional poll for a while. It will be interesting to see how they do at full strength against arguably the best team in our area.
Echoing FANagan, detailing the ’10 recruitments would be a great touch. Thus far, I’ve subsisted on little tidbits tucked into game reports (a la the Andrew West Cornell commitment in the Ridgefield-Darien writeup), but a more comprehensive list would be helpful.
To add – having the JLo Information Train roll through Connecticut (after years of reporting Section 1 minutiae and exposing glaring deficiencies in FCIAC coverage) this year has been awesome. Bravo on a great first year.
Rebel Yell –
NC beat Greenwich, had Wilton beat (that goshdarn fourth quarter!) and could easily have beaten Ridgefield. Do the Rams deserve to be in the Top 25?
LP played some good teams close. So, the better question is: do they want a cookie?
James,
New Canaan isn’t going to survive the night let alone make the top 25!
Cards Lax –
I was pointing out how absurd a New Canaan Top 25 ranking would be – in reality, though, their profile is almost identical to LP’s (with a few more losses due to a much more difficult schedule.)
And I question your confidence re: Greenwich. Both teams have anemic offenses, but NC’s defensive unit is superior. NC has improved throughout the course of the season; Greenwich seems to have regressed. Both are very young teams who will likely contend for titles in 2010, but NC has more pieces in place to win in the here and now. I’ll go with a 7-5 Rams victory.
The major caveat: if Feeney stands on his head (as he is wont to do in big games), Greenwich will win.
I think the gap between 1-5 in the FCIAC has proven to be much closer than many expected. Wilton and New Canaan are a lot better than we thought. Darien wasn’t at first but is now maybe playing better than anyone. Ridgefield hasn’t quite been as dominant overall as we thought, though they do keep winning. Greenwich, at least to me, has been a bit less than I thought (missing key people at key times hasn’t exactly helped) and teams like Brien McMahon and Staples have had their moments.
I would agree with James, though, New Canaan’s resume puts the Rams right there in that 17-25 range in our rankings, which is not fooled by overall records. We know that an 8-8 Jay team is probably still better than the vast majority of teams with sparkling records.
So, much of this poll is subjective, which I believe any good poll should be.
Right now I still think Ridgefield will win FCIACs, but Darien is playing a true champion should. I give Wilton and New Canaan outside shots, but definitely think they are capable of pulling off big upsets. I just don’t know if they can string together three big wns.
Should be a very interesting next week or so.