Seaford Swamps Mineola Girls Lacrosse 15-5

Frank Massaro was doing his best impersonation of Bobby Valentine in a Red Sox uniform Monday afternoon on the backfield of .

The silver-maned head coach of the Mineola varsity girls lacrosse team rubbed his palms into his face as he turned away from the sight of the southern goal and a 5-1 deficit a little more than 5 minutes into the game against Seaford.

“We came out of a tough loss the other day therefore we were really kind of pumped up to kinda make a statement, not a statement to (Mineola) but the idea of getting our stuff back where it belongs, to play to the ability that we can,” Seaford coach Kurt Dankerbrink said.

That loss against North Shore was the only one that the Lady Vikings had allowed in the conference this year and despite the two teams’ benches being about 30 feet apart Tuesday, they could not be on more disparate ends of the spectrum, continuing to head in opposite directions.

“They’re good; they’re just better than us. We need to win a game,” Massaro said, a bit of good-nature still in his voice as he trod off the field under the overcast sky, the threat of rain looming.

It has been overcast this whole year for Mineola, with Seaford’s 15-5 victory just another tally to be thrown on the growing record that is tilted the wrong way: 0-4 in the conference, 0-8 overall. In other words, dead last.

“It’s like undefeated at defeated. We’ve got the zero on the wrong spot,” Massaro said.

Granted Tuesday’s game was against Seaford.

Granted that they are currently leading the 4C conference right now.

Granted that the Lady Vikings have scored in double-digits against opponents in every game save one, that their transition offense is the envy of the conference as they look to excel at the strategy of playing four-on-four instead of seven-on-seven – “run and gun” as Dankerbrink puts it – that almost every Seaford possession in the first half resulted in a shot getting past Mineola’s R. Chiu while Diana Rice was making saves off weak Mineola shots.

“It’s not like we don’t have a few shots going on but their goalie is really good,” Massaro said, “and we don’t shoot hard enough. But we’ll keep working.”

Granted.

Friday Mineola will enter another tough stretch as they face East Meadow, followed on Saturday by Wheatley – the only other team winless in the conference, but 2-6 overall. After that will be Carle Place and Island Trees.

But this is not just on Mineola’s opponents for a squad that can’t recall when their last lead in a game was (they have not led at half-time at any point this season) as the heft of not being able to get out of the basement begins to weigh on their shoulders.

“We’ve had a good 8 year run and now we don’t have the guns, the athletes, the kids that can run,” Massaro said. “We’ve got another tough one and then we go on a little stretch where maybe we can get a win.”