Mount Sinai’s Meaghan Tyrrell silences Rocky Point
Meaghan Tyrrell has put the team on her back before.
With Mount Sinai down 5-4 at halftime, Tyrrell lifted her stick high above her head and sent her shot over visiting Rocky Point’s goalkeeper for the go-ahead goal, her second straight to start the second half, in the Mustangs 6-5 Class C semifinal win May 22.
As she pulled down her arms, with them, the weight came crashing down.
“Being down is always a stressful situation. We needed to remain composed. We knew each draw counted. Once the opportunity presented itself, I took it.”
— Meaghan Tyrrell
“Relief,” the Syracuse University-bound senior said of how she felt following the score. “Being down is always a stressful situation. We needed to remain composed. We knew each draw counted. Once the opportunity presented itself, I took it. I knew this was where our momentum would build.”
Senior Gabby Sartori scored on a free position goal to put Mount Sinai ahead 6-4. Tyrrell won six draw controls and Morgan Mitchell (one goal, two assists) won three.
Mitchell, a junior, is following in the footsteps of Kasey, her older sister, who just finished her freshman year on the No. 1-ranked Stony Brook women’s lacrosse team.
“I kept working and working, and my sister helped tremendously,” Morgan Mitchell said. “I felt comfortable, I changed things up — push and then pull to myself.”
She didn’t start the season at the draw circle after banging her knee and missing scrimmages, but she’s been impressing others.
“She’s one of the brightest spots this season so far,” head coach Al Bertolone said. “She’s done a tremendous job all season. Since we got her back it’s been full steam ahead.”
Mitchell was working hard in the first half, scoring the first goal and assisting on the next two as Mount Sinai went up 3-0 early. Senior Meaghan Scutaro made back-to-back stops on defense to keep Rocky Point at bay.
“It gets our momentum going when defense gets good stops like that,” she said. “We were looking to take away their key players — Maddy Sanchez, Bri Lamoureux, Christina Bellisimo — take their midfield out
of the game, but it became a really tight one.”
“It’s a boarder war. One thing about intensity is you have to match it.”
— Al Bertolone
Bellisimo (three goals, one assist) scored twice, once with the help of Sanchez, and assisted on another during the Eagles’ four-score streak that put them up 4-3 at halftime. Mount Sinai, which turned the ball over 10 times, made most of its errors in the first half.
“It’s a boarder war,” Bertolone said. “One thing about intensity is you have to match it. We started off great but we let them back into it and we had to try to get what we wanted to do going. We weren’t smart with the ball in the first half, but in the second half we were smarter.”
The head coach said it was a good test as the team enters the Suffolk County Class C title game against No. 3 Westhampton May 31 at Hauppauge High School at 3 p.m.
“It was a wet, sloppy day, but you have to win on a day like today if you want to win a championship,” Bertolone said. “Our program, our tradition has put us in position. We’re right there.”
