West Islip's Defense Shines on LI's Biggest Stage

The West Islip Lions offense usually gets the credit for the Lions wins. The team has won 19 straight games with a potent attack featuring the likes of Nicky Galasso, Andrew Hodgson, Rob Moore, Drew Federico and Mike Sagl. In Tuesday night's Long Island Class A championship game against the Farmingdale Dalers, the Lions created an offensive clinic. However, it's defense was a main reason for the Lions advancing to the next game in their quest to win another state championship.

The game was scoreless with just under two minutes left before Galasso struck for two goals. West Islip limited the Dalers' scoring chances and when they did get a shot through, junior goalie Kyle Turri was there to stop it, making 10 saves on the night.

"This was huge. We had to come out hard. We have a pretty young defense. It's the first year for a lot of the players. We knew who to be on and we just played really great," said Turri. "They [West Islip's defense] were on people's hands and they were forcing them to take outside shots. It didn't have to face many one-on-one's."

West Islip head coach Scott Craig prepared his team for a street fight. "We came out with an intensity to match their football mentality. They're a great football-lacrosse school, but we knew they were going to come out and try to knock people down and really intimidate," he said of facing Farmingdale. 

Craig credited the defensive coaching of Bill Turri, who is Kyle's father, for the Lions' strong performance on defense. Craig said Turri likes to play a man-to-man defense as opposed to a zone defense that seems to suit West Islip. 

Craig called senior defenseman Ed Ryan the defensive star of the game. "He did an unbelievable job on [Farmingdale offensive threat Sal] Tuttle," Craig said.

The coach also gave credit to junior defenseman Kyle Carrick and senior defenseman Kyle Kerrigan for the outstanding team defense the Lions played the entire night. 

"I sense this team starting to rise to the level of play that we knew they were capable of, maybe because they are starting to see the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. They're starting to get a little more focused in understanding that it's right there," Craig said.

West Islip will now face Lakeland/Panas, the Section I champion, on Thursday night at 8 p.m. at Hofstra. Lakeland/Panas is from Shrub Oak, New York, which is in Westchester.