High school girls lacrosse: Indian River's season ends in state semifinal loss to Bayport-Blue Point

Jun. 9—CORTLAND — Competing for the first time in the state tournament in the sport, Indian River's girls lacrosse team simply met its match in Bayport-Blue Point on Friday.

The Warriors' historic season came to an end in a 14-5 loss to the Phantoms in a Class C state semifinal at SUNY Cortland.

Mikaela Mooney scored four goals and Haydin Eisfeld totaled three goals and two assists to propel Bayport-Blue Point (18-0), which was also playing in the state's final four for the first time.

Yet Indian River hung with Bayport-Blue Point through the first half, before the Section 11 champions pulled away.

"We definitely set a goal to not let it be easy and to give it our all and leave everything on the field," Indian River coach Victoria Fusco said. "Everything we built towards this season was for this game and I think we take a lot of pride in the fact that we fought for 50 minutes and didn't give them anything easy and tried our best. The best we could do."

The Warriors, who recorded the first winning season in program history, finish at 19-3.

Indian River battled back to draw within 6-4 by halftime, but the Phantoms responded by scoring the first eight goals of the second half take command.

"We went into this game, we knew they were a good team and we knew what we had to do to hang with them and I think we did in the first half," Warriors' junior midfielder Ravan Marsell said. "In the second half they just got faster, I don't know if we got slower or what. They just started putting more in the back of the net and I think that kind of sealed the deal for us."

Michaela Delles scored three goals and assisted on another to pace the Warriors, and Marsell totaled two goals and two assists to pace Indian River.

"It was really awesome to get to that point during halftime and we were all really hyped," Indian River sophomore midfielder Allison LaMora said. "And our goal was to just stay with them and try hard. And even though we didn't, we put all our effort into it and that's all we could ask for."

Bayport-Blue Point also dominated the possession battle as they won 12 of 21 draws on the day, including securing eight of 11 faceoffs in the first half.

"They had possession I would say 70 percent (of the time) in the second half, so it's hard to score when you don't have the ball," Marsell said.

The Phantoms realized they needed to pick up the pace after headline.

"In the beginning, we didn't have our best half," said Mooney, a senior forward who will attend the University at Albany. "But then I think we realized at halftime that we just need to put every ounce of effort in, and that we've worked for this in the last month, in the last year of our lives so that we can get up and accomplish what we can."

The Phantoms scored three goals within the first three minutes and 48 seconds in the second half, including tallies from Ava Meyn and Mooney within 38 seconds to kick off the decisive run.

"They went into their zone defense, like we talked about previously they were playing mostly (man-to-man), they went into their zone which limited our scoring opportunities," Fusco said of the second half. "But they're just skilled, skilled moving the ball up the field, we made some mistakes and they capitalized on them."

Earlier, Indian River scored both the first two goals of the first half and generated the last two tallies of the half, but Bayport-Blue Point dominated play by forging a six-goal run in between the pair of spurts.

Earlier, the Warriors struck for a pair of goals within a span of 21 seconds — both coming from Delles, with Marsell assisting on each — to build a 2-0 lead with 21 minutes remaining in the half.

"We've never played them before so we didn't know," Mooney said. "And there's a few very good girls on the team and they were a tough team in the beginning, we held them close and then we just started getting the momentum."

The Phantoms answered by generating three goals within a span of 1:46 to take the lead for good starting with a pair of man-up goals from Eisfeld and Julia Fusco followed with the goal-ahead tally by converting on a free-position attempt with 17:03 left in the half.

Bayport-Blue Point stretched this into a six-goal surge, capped by Katie Clare's unassisted goal with 6:35 left in the half.

In the meantime, Indian River was held scoreless for a stretch of 17 minutes and 37 seconds.

Delles broke the drought with an unassisted goal with 4:23 left in the half and Marsell followed a tally, also unassisted, with 2:09 left, to pull the Warriors within 6-4.

"We know that lacrosse is a game of runs, we knew that they were going to score, they're talented," Fusco said. "And we just had to counter what they did. If they're going to punch, we've got to punch back type of scenario, and we did."

Indian River defeated Jamesville-DeWitt 9-8 on May 30 to claim its first Section 3 crown in the sport. The Warriors then defeated Vestal, 20-10, in a regional semifinal last Thursday before defeating Canton, 17-3, in a state quarterfinal last Saturday at SUNY Potsdam.

"We loved getting here and obviously we wanted to take it all the way," said Marsell, who was named to the state's all-tournament team. "It's the first time we've ever done this and I think that we exceeded everybody's expectations for this season. So it's a good feeling to know that we can make it this far."

"It's something we should be proud of," Fusco said. "We were disappointed being handed this (semifinalist) trophy, but five years ago it's not something we would have dreamed of. So I had high expectations for today and us playing our best, but there's tears of pride in everything we accomplished."

While making a run to the state's final four was a new experience for Indian River, many team members will have the opportunity to build on this success next year as this season's squad sported only one senior.

"This was a great experience, but we've got to keep working," Marsell said. "All the way up to the beginning of next season and beyond to get back to this and maybe get that extra win, and take it to the state championship."

"Even though it didn't come out the way we wanted, it's still the coolest thing any of us have ever experienced and we're going to remember it for the rest of our lives," LaMora said.

Bayport-Blue Point advances to face Section 1 champion John Jay in the state championship game at 4:30 p.m. today at SUNY Cortland.