Eight were missing from the South Fork Islanders’ lineup Saturday morning when the boys lacrosse team took the field here against Lindenhurst, but at the beginning you wouldn’t have noticed. Fueled by Jack Cooper and Tinley Edwards’s face-off wins, the Southampton-based team, whose roster includes 10 East Hamptoners, jumped out to a 6-2 first-quarter lead, which was extended to 12-5 by halftime, immensely pleasing the hometown crowd.
A six-goal run in the second quarter was particularly satisfying. After the visitors had made it 6-4, and after Charlie Corwin, the team’s strongest midfielder, had been parried by Lindy’s goalie, Cooper retained possession and, coming around from behind the goal, slipped the ball under him into the nets. A minute later, Isaiah Lattanzio, a big attackman from Hampton Bays, scored in transition, and, with six minutes left in the 12-minute period, the Corwin brothers, Charlie and James, a freshman who had until the past week been playing with the junior varsity, teamed up to make it 9-4. James got the goal and Charlie the assist.
It was 12-4 South Fork, the 10th, 11th, and 12th goals having been scored by the elder Corwin, Isaiah Lattanzio, and Isiah’s younger brother, Luca, before Lindenhurst found the nets again, following a turnover in the last half-minute.
The mood was light in the halftime huddle. Matt Babb, the head coach, ventured that the Bulldogs had scored half their goals with South Fork a man down. The coaches said their charges could be doing a better job scooping up ground balls and could be making more passes, but, all in all, they’d been doing great.
With goals by Charlie Corwin (two), Isaiah Lattanzio, and James Corwin, South Fork took a seemingly insurmountable 16-6 lead into the fourth quarter. And a good thing, too. The next 12 minutes were to be agonizing if you were a South Fork fan, thrilling if you were rooting for the visitors.
Asked after the 16-13 win what had happened, Babb attributed it to increasing fatigue. His players had simply run out of steam, which resulted in numerous turnovers that enabled the increasingly confident Bulldogs to come back.
After Isaiah Lattanzio shot over Lindy’s crossbar with about one and a half minutes gone, the visitors zipped the ball downfield and scored in transition. With a little under six minutes left to play, Lindenhurst had shaved South Fork’s lead to 16-11. When, with 3:52 left on the clock, the visitors scored again, Babb called for a timeout to try and stop the bleeding.
When play resumed, Cooper won the face-off, but the fourth pass, intended for Luca Lattanzio, went awry, a turnover that ultimately resulted in Lindy’s 13th goal, its seventh unanswered one.
Two minutes and 40 seconds were left. Could South Fork hold on? Cooper, who won the ensuing face-off, ran around with the ball for about a minute before he was cited for an infraction. Lindenhurst didn’t cash in on the turnover, however, and Luke Castillo was making his way back up the field toward the visitors’ goal when he was mugged by two players near the 50-yard line. One was sent to the sin bin for a minute, strengthening South Fork’s hand as the clock wound down. Cooper won the face-off, but the home team, faced with frenzied defenders, could not convert. Lindenhurst came down for one last try, but its two shots went wide, one clanging off a post.
James Corwin finished with five goals and one assist. Isaiah Lattanzio had four goals. Charlie Corwin had three goals and three assists. Cooper had two goals and one assist. And Luca Lattanzio and Max Simpson each had one goal. Luca Lattanzio also had six assists. Cooper Ceva, the goalie, made 10 saves. South Fork had 28 shots on goal and was penalized 10 times.
“It was a game we should win,” Babb said afterward, though it was clear he didn’t think the margin would be that close. Lindenhurst, he added, “had a lot of man-up goals.”
He was proud, he said, of the way his charges played in the first three quarters, offensively and defensively, but there were too many turnovers at the end.
The win improved South Fork to 3-2 in divisional play and to 4-3 over all. Lindenhurst remained winless.