South Side beats East Islip for L.I. championship

Six months after losing to East Islip in the Long Island Championship football game, South Side made sure the Redmen wouldn’t reign supreme in lacrosse too.

Nineteen Cyclones participated on the same Hofstra field Wednesday night that they did in the heartbreaking 19-14 loss to East Islip in last fall’s gridiron title game. But this time, some of those South Siders took it upon themselves to play key roles in the 12-9 Class B championship win over the Redmen that earned them its first Long Island boys’ lacrosse championship in 20 years.

One was Owen West, the quarterback who ignited the Cyclones’ win with three first-quarter goals and another in the second before setting up one of the clinching markers early in the final stanza. He scored three times in the 12-10 county final win over Manhasset five days earlier.

“It was huge,” West said. “We were all [ticked] off coming back from the football loss playing East Islip. We talked as captains and all of us except for one played football, so it’s just a big moment for all of us to get revenge on them.”

Another was fellow senior Michael Melkonian, who scored what was almost the game-winning touchdown off a fumble return that gave South Side (18-1) a 14-13 lead in the third quarter. After winning 23-of-24 faceoffs against Manhasset, the Cornell commit was just as dominant against East Islip (17-2) by taking 21-of-24 draws to earn game MVP honors.

“Just repping,” Melkonian said of his faceoff success against the Redmen. “[I was] taking reps by myself every day, just getting ready, having a good mindset, locking in before the game, and just playing my game.”

Then there was goaltender Michael Muscarella, a lineman and South Side’s 2024 valedictorian, who made a momentum-shifting save in the third quarter among the eight he had that helped shut the door on East Islip. Michael Aiello got his pound of flesh too with two goals and three assists as did junior Cullen Lynch, who had two of his three tallies in the first half.

“I’m overwhelmed,” said South Side coach Steve DiPietro. “It’s such a great group of kids. They battled. I mean, we had two amazing tests with Manhasset and East Islip and neither one was easy and the kids took it.”

West and Lynch scored 12 seconds apart from the same low right spot two minutes into the game and West added consecutive goals later in the first quarter to help the Cyclones push their lead to 4-1 with just under four minutes left in the session. The Redmen got one back with 1:11 left but were still outshot 15-4 in the quarter. 

Aiello, who had six goals in the semifinal win over Carey, scored at 2:47 of the second quarter and Lynch and West added one more apiece as South Side carried a 7-3 lead into intermission. 

Lynch scored a shorthanded goal 56 seconds into the third, but East Islip responded with three straight tallies to cut the deficit to 8-6 with 3:17 left. The Redmen came very close to making it a one-goal game late in the third, but Muscarella came up with the save of the night by robbing East Islip’s Ethan Benardos.

“My defender was on him and I saw him roll around the crease,” Muscarella recalled. “I kind of fell myself, but I got up quick and I saw him try to go high, so I put my stick up and I got it.”

Moments later, senior Griffin Mills scored the first of his two goals with 1:21 left in the third to deflate the Redmen. Liam Livingston scored a behind-the-back goal 1:47 into the fourth quarter and Mills converted a West feed 47 seconds later to put the game out of reach at 11-6.

South Side will face Section IX champion Warwick Valley (16-1) in the NYSPHSAA Southeast final Saturday at 3 p.m. at Middletown High School.