11 Long Islanders return home for Premier Lacrosse League semifinals at Hofstra

For the second straight year, the road to the Premier Lacrosse League title runs through Long Island, as the semifinals of the six-year-old professional lacrosse league will take place Saturday at Hofstra’s Shuart Stadium. The winners will advance to next weekend’s PLL championship game in Chester, Pa.

“This is always one of my favorite weekends,’’ New York Atlas midfielder Myles Jones, a native of Huntington, graduate of Walt Whitman High School, and one of 11 Long Islanders on the rosters of the four semifinalists, told Newsday in a telephone interview. “Anytime you come home and play, it’s just really big, because it means a lot for the people that were part of your journey growing up.’’

Jones’ Atlas team, the No. 1 seed, with a 7-3 record in the regular season, will take on the No. 4 seed Maryland Whipsnakes (6-4) in the opening game of the doubleheader, at 5 p.m. No. 2 seed Utah Archers — 6-4, but minus injured all-world midfielder Tom Schreiber of East Meadow — will face No. 6 seed Carolina Chaos (4-6) in the nightcap.

The Atlas-Whipsnakes game will feature a matchup of a pair of goalies from Chaminade High School, Atlas rookie Liam Entenmann and the Whipsnakes’ Brendan Krebs, who is in his second year in the league.

“Liam's a great friend of mine,’’ said Krebs, 25, of East Williston. “We went to the same goalie trainer on Long Island growing up, when we were in middle school and high school. So I've known him for a while. But once that whistle blows . . .  you're not really thinking about that. You're just focused on your job.’’

The two have had very different paths to getting to the PLL.

Entenmann, 23, from Point Lookout, was taken by the Atlas with the No. 5 pick in the PLL draft this year after a being a five-year starter (including the COVID-19-shortened 2020 season) at Notre Dame. There he backstopped the Irish to their first two NCAA titles in 2023 and 2024, and this spring he was the National Goalie of the Year, and a finalist for the Tewaaraton Award, as college lacrosse’s best player.

Krebs was a backup at Chaminade who never started a game there. But he nevertheless earned a walk-on spot at Manhattan College, where he would start his last four years (including 2020), be a two-time First Team all-MAAC performer, and co-Defensive Player of the year in 2021. Undrafted after leaving college in 2022, he was invited to camp with the Whipsnakes that summer, but failed to make the team. He made it in his second attempt in 2023, and became the full-time starter this summer.

“I have a ton of respect for his path, and his story, having gone from hardly playing at all at the high school level, and then having a lot of success at Manhattan,’’ Entenmann said. “He's had a very unconventional and, kind of, I guess, an underdog story to get to the level that he's at.’’

And who will Chaminade coach Jack Moran be rooting for?

“I never root,’’ he said. “They're like your kids… I can't go, 'Oh, I really like this kid much better than that kid.' They both were really fun kids to coach in different ways. I'm hoping they both make 20 saves.’’

By Colin Stephenson

colin.stephenson@newsday.comColinSNewsday

Colin Stephenson covers the Rangers for Newsday. He has spent more than two decades covering the NHL and just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.