Northport's Van Dyke Puts On A Show

Dorrien Van Dyke and the Northport seniors were not prepared to have their high school lacrosse careers come to an end on Monday.

Trailing No. 2 West Islip 6-4 at halftime, the seventh-seeded Tigers roared back in a big way. Northport outscored the Lions 8-3 in a dominating second half performance and rolled to a 12-9 victory at West Islip High School.

With the win, Northport moves to the Class A semi-finals against No. 3 Ward Melville on Wednesday.

“This is my senior year and I did not want this to be my last game,” Van Dyke said. “We want to get back to the counties.”

Down by two goals, Northport would get early second half goals from Allie Pavinelli (2) and Gabbi Labuskes to take a 7-6 lead. At that point, the game turned into Van Dyke’s show as the Stony Brook-bound senior scored four consecutive goals for the Tigers to extend their lead to 11-8 with seven minutes remaining.

“Once we started going to goal, we regained our confidence,” Van Dyke said.

The Tigers would then play ball control, which served to eat clock and prevent West Islip from regaining possession.

The game did not start well for the Tigers, who found themselves trailing West Islip 5-1 less than nine minutes into the game. At that point, Northport coach Carol Rainson-Rose switched from a zone to a man-to-man defense, which served to stymie the Lions offense.

“We kept telling our girls to believe and stay focused,” Rainson-Rose said.  “Our attitude is to never give up and they didn’t.”

In addition to Van Dyke’s 4 goals and 2 assists, junior Allie Pavinell also had 4 goals and 2 assists while sophomore goaltender Kristen Brunoforte had 9 saves.