Baldwin makes most of downtime

Baldwin boys’ lacrosse coach Rich Garguilo plans to make the most out of a rare eight-day break in the schedule and get his young squad Bruins ready for a run to the Nassau Class A playoffs.

If the Bruins (3-1 in Conference I, 5-5 overall) can win three of their last four games, they’re likely to qualify for postseason play and prove the preseason rankings wrong.

“It’s a weird gap and hard to fill it with a non-league game,” Garguilo said of the schedule interruption. “But with this particular group — we have 10 sophomores — it’s OK. It gives us time to work on some things and for some of our nicked up players to heal.

“If this happened last year, I’d be concerned about us not playing for a week,” he added. “But I think this is more of a positive than a negative.”

When Baldwin does return to action against struggling Freeport this week, it’ll be looking to bounce back from a 7-2 non-conference defeat to visiting South Side on April 23. Juniors Tyler Warner and Gerard Lyle scored in what Garguilo described as a poor outing. “We were not happy with the performance,” he said. “Our energy level wasn’t good and we made mistakes we usually don’t make.”

Overall, the Bruins have played well, Garguilo said. But he’ll be tweaking the offense and defense leading up to the Freeport game and use some of the downtime to build up the inner competition. “We’ll scrimmage against each other and the JV,” he said. “We’ve also created a competition every day called King of the Hill. The kids have really enjoyed it, and it’s motivating them.”

A three-game winning streak preceded the setback to South Side. Baldwin breezed past Valley Stream District (13-5), Uniondale (12-4) and Hempstead (15-3) while allowing just one first-half goal in the process. Sophomore attack Jesse Nolan, who Garguilo said is gaining confidence by the day, busted out with four goals against Uniondale. Sophomore midfielder Jared Warner also scored four times, while Tyler Warner had a goal and five assists.

The large sophomore class accounted for more than half — seven — of the offensive production against Valley Stream District. Jared Warner and Sam Ferguson scored twice, and Nolan, Christian Cummings and Matt Eberhart tallied once. “All of the sophomores are contributing,” Garguilo said. “They’re not as tentative as they were early in the season, and it’s great watching them improve.”

Sophomore Tom York is doing a solid job in goal and taking on a leadership role, Garguilo said. On defense, sophomores Nick DeLuca, Noel Smith and Jared Myles are getting the job done along with juniors Aasin Pritchard and Mylz Wilson.   

The Bruins host Hicksville this Saturday at 10 a.m., travel to East Meadow on May 8, and conclude the regular-season at home versus Massapequa on May 10. “We need to win three of the last four games,” Garguilo said.