Smithtown East, Smithtown West lacrosse programs come together for common cause
Smithtown East's Cameron James (23) looks to get around Smithtown West's Jack Cavanagh (11) in the fourth quarter during on Saturday April 12, 2025. Credit: Bob Sorensen
Cameron James stood on his home turf at Smithtown East having just delivered four goals and three assists to help fuel a 16-6 win over rival Smithtown West amid the drizzle and the biting 20-something wind chill.
The Yale-bound junior attackman could be warmed by those thoughts and even more by his other contributions on this day, because Saturday was about more than just lacrosse.
It was East vs. West throughout the day, games for the varsity and JV boys, plus a scrimmage for the varsity girls and a game for the JV girls. It was all a benefit for the One Love Foundation, raising funds and awareness to defeat relationship abuse.
“If we can save one person’s life with this, we’ve done our job,” James said. “If we can save more, awesome . . . We have to see improvement with all this stuff.”
The One Love Foundation, which provides education about relationships, was made in honor of Yeardley Love. She was killed in 2010 by her boyfriend, a fellow University of Virginia lacrosse player.
“The One Love Foundation raises awareness for what healthy relationships should look like among young people,” said Jason Lambert, the district’s athletic director and former East boys coach. “We hope to make this a yearly thing.”
Donations and concession proceeds were bound for the foundation.
So whose idea was this day of lacrosse? Credit three players: James, teammate Luke DiMaria and Barrett James, Cameron’s twin sister from the girls varsity.
It was a two-part deal, a coed scrimmage between East lacrosse players in the fall and then this spring quadruple-header.
“During school, we met with Coach Lambert, our AD, and we just got the ball rolling, found out what we had to do, how to make this real, how to see the logistics of it,” Cameron James said.
They knew East vs. West, Bulls vs. Bulls, was the best day for the spring event, he added, “because it draws the whole town out and we really wanted to spread this message . . . With us all being high school [players] and our East girls and boys so close, it seemed like the perfect thing. It’s a great cause.”
The East boys were coming off a difficult defeat on Thursday, having scored against Huntington as time expired to force overtime, only to fall, 8-7.
But the team responded well Saturday and improved to 3-2.
It was 3-3 with three minutes left in the first and then East scored 10 straight goals. Besides James’ four goals, four others scored three apiece — DiMaria, Teddy Baratta, Campbell Cracchiola and Brian Devlin.
“We have a lot of tools offensively,” East coach Kevin Huff said. “The style of play that we play, we share the ball. So it didn’t make a difference who it was. It was just a matter of who winds up with it.”
Peter Bonenfant and Collin Murphy scored twice for West, which is off to an 0-5 start after reaching the Class B final last season.
“I am surprised,” West coach Matt Schultz said. “I knew we’d be inexperienced. We’ve just got to keep working.”