GI boys lacrosse team fell short of expectations

by Eric Keppeler
Grand Island Dispatch, June 22, 2007

The Grand Island boys lacrosse team didn’t have a bad 2007 season, it just wasn’t quite as good as the Vikings had hoped it would be. And it certainly came to an end more quickly than anyone expected.

The Vikings went a respectable 4-4 in Class B play, good for the fourth seed when the sectional playoffs rolled around. They drew No. 5 Sweet Home and were upset in the quarterfinals, 6-5, by the Panthers to finish the campaign at 7-10 overall.

“We had the home game in the playoffs and we were happy about that,” said Grand Island coach Steve Steck. “But it didn’t help us enough. Sweet Home is a good team, but we also just picked a really bad time to have a clunker of a game.”

The Vikings were offensively prolific in 2007, but they had a tough time finding the net in their playoff defeat. The game was scoreless after the first quarter, thanks largely to standout play from senior Grand Island goalkeeper James Rayhill. Sweet Home led 3-0 at the half and held on for the win, despite four goals from Grand Island senior Phil Wendt.

“Looking back at it now, it was a crazy year, but I thought we had the talent to make a better run at it than we did,” Steck said. “All of the games during the season were tough, so we knew that if we didn’t play well in the playoffs, we could lose. And that’s what happened. We knew we’d have our hands full.”

The game brought to a close the outstanding careers of Wendt and Rayhill, among others.

Wendt finished the season with 26 goals and 26 assists for 52 points and wound up fourth all-time in career scoring at Grand Island. An All-Western New York selection, he will play lacrosse next year at Messiah College in Pennsylvania.

Rayhill, a three-year starter in goal, played all but three minutes this season and finished with a .620 save percentage. He’s going to Hobart College for football – Rayhill’s an outstanding defensive lineman – but he’s also been invited to try out for the school’s lacrosse team, as well.

The Vikings also graduate more scorers than just Wendt. Senior Ryan Samland had 31 goals and eight assists for 39 points, while senior Colin Gallagher had a team-high 32 goals and two assists for 34 points and Justin Samland finished with 15 goals and six assists for 21 points.

Steck knows the team will be leaning heavily next season on the junior varsity squad that finished 11-6 in 2007. He got a look at some of the youngsters, as injuries forced him to pull some of them up to the varsity for a few games this season, and he liked what he saw.

“Next year, we’ll be very young,” Steck said. “We had a few freshmen and sophomores with us this year, so we’ll have some experience, but next year we could have as many as 12 sophomores on the varsity team. It’ll be interesting to see what happens because the young kids definitely have the talent. They just need the experience.”