Niskayuna wasn’t perfect Thursday against Shaker. The Silver Warriors probably won’t be Saturday when they take on Guilderland, either.
The best the Niskayuna boys’ lacrosse team has to offer at this point in the season, though, is still pretty good. Maybe even better than that.
“They’re great,” said Shaker head coach Shawn Hennessey, whose team fell 11-3 to Niskayuna in both teams’ first game of the season. “To open up with the defending state champions, it’s going to put a scare into anybody.”
In its first game since winning the program’s first state championship last June, Niskayuna scored the first seven goals. But after starting so fast — senior Aidan Byrne scored the Silver Warriors’ first goal 13 seconds into the game — Niskayuna only scored four times in the final 27-plus minutes of action. At one point, the Silver Warriors went a little less than 12 minutes without a goal.
“In the second half, we took some poor shots against a really good goalie, which you can’t do,” Niskayuna head coach Mike Vorgang said. “We [also] got some stops in the defensive end, and we didn’t get the ground balls and gave up second opportunities.”
Andrew Leahey, Shaker’s senior goalie, made 16 saves. Niskayuna junior Lucas Quinn said the Silver Warriors too often made things easier on Leahey than they should have been, leaving his team with a clear priority to work on in future Suburban Council games.
“Definitely shot selection,” Quinn said. “Leahey is a great goalie . . . but I think we just need to not settle as much. We took — I know I did, personally — some outside shots, a lot of other guys did, and especially later on in the season those aren’t going to drop.”
While Quinn had a goal and three assists, a pair of seniors led the Silver Warriors’ offense. James Sexton had four goals and two assists, while Byrne added three goals and an assist.
Byrne’s scores all came within Niskayuna’s first four goals, with Sexton adding the other goal during that opening stretch.
“We were moving the ball well, making the extra pass,” Sexton said of the game’s start.
“That was probably the best part of the day,” Vorgang said.
Niskayuna (1-0) led 4-0 after one period, and Shaker (0-1) did not score until Jack Cheney’s goal with 1:34 to go in the first half.
“That’s the plan every game,” Quinn said. “We want to bury [the other team] as soon as we can.”
“We had a game plan,” said Hennessey, whose team lost 13-8 to Niskayuna in last year’s Section II Class A championship. “In the first quarter and the second quarter, I don’t think we executed it perfectly, but we settled in and started to find where we needed to be.”
Niskayuna has plenty of time to get itself to where it needs to be to play against the state’s best. While the Silver Warriors’ opener did not produce a flawless performance, it showed this year’s team has the pieces to make another run at a state title. Junior goalie Jack Lynch, replacing state tournament MVP Nick Testa, looked strong in stopping four shots. Senior midfielder Dylan Pantalone won one faceoff after another, as expected. On both offense and defense, Niskayuna dominated stretches of play.
“From top to bottom,” Hennessey said, “they’re still as tough as they come.”
Niskayuna 4 4 1 2 — 11
Shaker 0 2 0 1 — 3
Niskayuna scoring: Sexton 4-2, Byrne 3-1, Quinn 1-3, Doxie 1-1, Gregory 1-0, King 1-0, Maloney 0-2, Pfohl 0-1. Shaker scoring: Julien 2-0, Cheney 1-0.
Goalies: Niskayuna, Lynch, 4 saves. Shaker, Leahey, 16 saves.
Categories: -Sports-, High School Sports
