Rye girls closed their regular lacrosse season with a record of 9-5-2 before winning the Section 1 Class C title and  advancing to the State semifinal playoffs on Friday in Cortland.

 

By Melanie Cane

 

Rye girls closed their lacrosse season with a record of 9-5-2 before winning the Section 1 Class C title and advancing to State semifinal playoffs on Friday June 8 in Cortland.

 

The Garnets topped Byram Hills, 12-11, last Thursday, for the Sectional title at Fox Lane High School.

 

Wednesday, they opened Regional lacrosse playoffs with a 17-3 win over Red Hook in Kingston.

 

On Saturday, Rye slammed Section 2 champion Albany Academy 18-5 at the State University of New York at Albany. Rye faces the regional winner of Section 5/Section 6 in a State semifinal playoff at SUNY Cortland Friday at 9:30 a.m. The winner plays for the State Championship on Saturday, also in Cortland.

 

In the opening post-season game at home against Albertus Magnus on May 17, Rye blew the game wide open, outscoring their opponents 9-1 in the first half before winning, 17-4.

 

Senior tri-captains Emma Brinkman and Tori Virtue combined for nine goals. Junior Scarlett Sulliman netted four more. Goalie Maddie Kinker, a senior tri-captain, had nine saves.

 

Coach Dennis Hurlie called senior defensive player Claire O’Callaghan the star of the game.


 

On May 19, Rye bounced Bronxville out of championship contention, 14-9. Brinkman, Virtue, and Sulliman racked up 11 goals in that game. Kinker had seven saves as goalie.

 

On May 22, the lady laxers edged Pearl River 12-11, with Virtue scoring the deciding goal in the final minute to send her team to Thursday’s post-deadline final.

 

Thrilling is too weak of a word to describe the semi-final game’s storybook ending. Pearl River managed to clamp down on Brinkman, Rye’s top scorer. But as Hurlie put it, “The beauty of our team is that if one player is shut down, other players step up. We seem to peaking just at the right time.”