Shoreham vs. Bayport Boys Class C Semi-Final Recap

The Boys Suffolk County Semi Finals for the C Bracket began on Tuesday May 24th and the first two teams to meet were the Wildcats of Shoreham Wading River and the Phantoms of Bayport Blue Point. Shoreham came into the contest as the number two seed with home field advantage boasting a 15-1 record while Bayport Blue Point was the number three seed having an 11-5 record. Shoreham’s offense has been led by stud junior attackmen Alec Gregorek and senior midfielder Francisco Cortes as well as do-it-all midfielder and younger brother of Alec, Liam Gregorek. The Phantoms have had consistent production from sophomore attackmen Ben Morris, junior attackmen PJ Shanahan and senior midfielder Jameson, all of whom have produced at least 45 points throughout the season. Despite Shoreham claiming a convincing victory over Bayport 11-5 in April, the Phantoms have picked up momentum and finished their season strong with seven straight wins, leading up to an interesting rematch of last year’s playoffs where Shoreham was upset by the Phantoms.

This tilt began Liam Gregorek showing great poise at the faceoff x which lead to Shoreham thoroughly possessing the ball throughout the entirety of the contest. The first goal of the game came off a beautiful right-handed alley dodge from Liam Gregorek to give the Wildcats the lead. Despite the disadvantage at the faceoff dot, Bayport Blue Point made the most of their opportunities thanks to stellar goalkeeping from Matt Nilan and impressive shooting from JJ Aiello. The Phantoms, for the first time this season, played a man to man style of defense that caused turnovers consistently in the first half. Head Coach Doug Meehan typically went with a zone look throughout the year but the switch to man to man defense clearly gave the Wildcats troubles as they only scored three first half goals. Bayport’s offense was consistent and efficient as they scored by feeding the ball quickly on man-up and by pushing transition on outlet passes. The Phantoms led the Wildcats 6-3 at the half. But there were still 24 minutes of lacrosse to be played.

The second half seemed to really fire up the Wildcats and their fans as the thought of being upset for the second straight year wasn’t very appealing. Shoreham’s ride was noticeably more aggressive as they never gave up on hustle plays, forcing multiple turnovers. Despite the magic of Bayport goalie Matt Nilan with an incredible triple save in a matter of 10 seconds, Shoreham was able to bounce back after half time scoring three quick goals with lots of help from junior attackmen Alec Gregorek who had an absolutely phenomenal afternoon finishing with 6 goals on the day. He was able to get his way splitting double teams and finish beautiful passing plays to really get his team going. Midfielder Ryan Herr was a key transition player for the Wildcats and helped to lead to easy transition goals to add to their lead. From this point on Shoreham was able to steam roll their way to the county championship scoring a total of nine goals in a row to win this tilt 12-6 over the Bayport Blue Point Phantoms.