Boys lacrosse spotlight: Floyd's Megna joins 100 win club

The milestone came in the form of a 10-5 win at Patchogue-Medford — No. 100 in Dez Megna’s lengthy run as Floyd’s boys lacrosse coach.

Tammy Blankenship, the mom of team members D.J. and Gavin Blankenship, brought balloons, and Megna posed for a quick photo.

“I didn’t want to do too much celebrating on another team’s field,” he said.

Megna reached the magic number on April 10. This is his 15th season running this program. He’s proud of his longevity and what he has constructed, and grateful for the support he has received along the way.

“In this day and age in high school sports, it’s more like a battle of attrition,” Megna said. “The turnover of coaches now is crazy. There’s no sustainability at the position because people just come and go for whatever reason. I’m the president of the [Suffolk boys lacrosse] coaches association, so I see firsthand how many coaches I have, five, six, seven new coaches every year.

“So for me, it means that I’ve just been able to build a nice little program in a great community that supports me, supports the program, supports the kids, and that I’ve been able to be here for that long. To me, that’s more of the award than the actual Ws. It’s just that I’ve been able to build something here that’s respected.

“I’ve never really been overly concerned, to be honest with you, with wins and losses. All that stuff is great, but my main goal is to provide an avenue for these kids to further themselves. And I’ve been able to do that, and that’s more important.”

He said that parental support is a big reason why he keeps continuing. He also has a healthy respect for the county’s boys lacrosse coaches, saying, ‘It’s just a nice group of guys that I enjoy competing with on a daily level.”

The competition is formidable.

Floyd is off to a 6-3 start overall and is 4-3 in Suffolk I. The team had been seeded 10th in the division back in the preseason. Eleven will make the playoffs to compete for the Class A title.

“The goal is to get in because Suffolk County lacrosse is like Texas 5A football,” Megna said. “It’s a grind. Just to get through it to get in is an honor in itself.”

Marc Pluchino had seven goals in Thursday's 17-13 win over Lindenhurst to give him a team-leading 27 goals and P.J. Gilhauley has scored 17.

“I think they’re two of the better junior midfielders in the county,” Megna said.

Megna also praised his five seniors, attackman Mikey Maglione, midfielders Geo Alvarez and Zamari Wilkins, defenseman Scott Eriksen and D.J. Blankenship, who works at the faceoff X.

“They do a nice job,” Megna said. “They’ve been around forever. They know how things are supposed to be done and expectations. They try to take leadership roles on the field.”

Smithtown East’s James reps USA

Cameron James represented his country in October. He would love to do it again.

The Smithtown East standout junior attackman and Yale commit played for the USA Select U16 team that competed for the Brogden Cup in Maryland. The USA claimed the Cup after the U16 and U18 boys and U16 and U18 girls combined to go 16-0.

“And then we actually played a game against the U[18 boys],” James said. “We actually beat up on the U18s. So that was a great feeling.

“Just an overall great experience. I’d recommend it to any young kid who strives to put on the red, white and blue as soon as possible . . . It was amazing to compete against the Haudenosaunee and the Canadian U16 teams as well.”

So James is looking ahead to this fall.

“Now I have my bid into the next set of tryouts,” James said. “. . . I’m thinking I’m going to be trying out for the U17 team or I’ll make the jump up to the U19s to challenge myself a little bit more.”