Boys Lacrosse: Rebels Roll To Victory

When the Lakeland/Panas Rebels (4-0) played the Putnam Valley Tigers (2-2) on April 14 the game was a local matchup of two teams that made it to the state semifinals last year.

The Rebels made it to the Class A semifinals and Putnam Valley played in the Class C Final Four.

Lakeland/Panas then made a statement to its neighbors that it plans on making another trip to the Final Four again later this spring, beating the Tiger squad that lost a lot last year to graduation 19-7.

After trailing in the first quarter 2-1, Lakeland/Panas' Robert Caffrey, who registered a game high six goals, scored twice to put the Rebels up at the end of the quarter 3-2.

"The first three games we started a little slow," Caffrey said. "We just wanted to pick up the tempo as we found our matchups at the end of the quarter."

Putnam Valley, despite its youth, played tough early in the second quarter, and tied the game before the Rebels re-took the lead on an unassisted goal by Caffrey, which brought the score to 4-3 in favor of the Rebels with 9:03 to go before halftime.

Still, despite the lead, Lakeland/Panas coach Jim Lindsay was not pleased with his teams play and called time shortly after with 7:50 left in the second quarter.

"We started executing after that, I thought it was a sloppy game to start off, a lot of turnovers" Lindsay said. "We had guys just throwing the ball away with no pressure on them. Defensively, we settled down, we started to win face-offs. We just stopped turning the ball over. We kept moving the ball offensively and started putting it in the back of the net."

After the time out, the Rebels finished the half by scoring seven of the game's  next eight goals for an 11-4 halftime lead they would not give up.

"He (Lindsay) wanted us to slow down the pace of the game, so we could set up our offense," Caffrey said. "We wanted to take good shots and not rush anything. We were able to get quality opportunities and shots on goal."

Caffrey implied that playing a town so close to his own makes the competitive spirit more intense.

"They are the next town over, so we wanted to send a statement and define who we are as a team," Caffrey said.

Lakeland/Panas will look to keep its unbeaten season going when it travels to Rye, last year's Section 1 Class C finalist, for a contest at 2:30 p.m. on Saturday, April 16. 

"We have to play smart against Rye, we have to finish opportunities," Lindsay said. "We also have to maintain possession offensively. We have to continue to improve."

STAT CITY
Lakeland/Panas-Robert Caffrey (six goals, two assists), Chris Monteferante (four goals, two assists), Brian Prunty (three goals, two assists), Tony Laguerre (three goals), Conor Prunty (one goal, three assists), John DiMarco (one goal, one assist), Sam Vaimberg (one goal), Tom Conroy (one assist) and Mike Zingaro (13 saves).