Middle Country Can't Stop Ward Melville

Ward Melville coach Kerri Kilkenny had this thing she called the "quarterfinal curse," a stretch spanning several years without a playoff win past the first round. Keyword: "had."

Top-seeded Ward Melville used seven straight goals in the second half on Monday to defeat No. 8 Middle Country 17-9 in a Suffolk Division I quaterfinal. The win sends the Patriots to a home-field semifinal against No. 5 East Islip on Wednesday at 4 p.m.

"We won the county in 2007, and since then we haven't been able to get past what I was calling the quarterfinal curse," Kilkenny said. "They broke [it]. We made it through."

Junior midfielder Emily Rogers-Healion scored six goals and added two assists for the Patriots, who led 7-6 at halftime but broke open the game in the second half.

Rogers-Healion scored three goals the last time Ward Melville met Middle Country, an April 18 game that the Patriots won, 10-9. She said the team's mindset was the difference between that game and Monday's game. They were just coming off the high of a win over a top rival, Northport.

"They had some really great players that were just playing well," Rogers-Healion said. "Today we knew their main players and were able to play as a team, unlike the first time we played them."

Rogers-Healion, who has verbally committed to UPenn, scored four times and added an assist during a second-half run that saw Ward Melville transform a 10-7 lead into a 15-7 lead. Kilkenny called her one of the toughest midfielders on the team.

"She is a sharp shooter," Kilkenny said. "It's almost sometimes like a magnet in her stick. She's 90 percent on with her shots, if not more."

Junior Ally Tilley scored five goals and sophomore Yuna Hur had three goals and an assist for the Patriots. Freshman Nikki Ortega, who entered the game as the fourth-highest leader in points in the county, had four goals and two assists for Middle Country (10-8).

Ward Melville now faces East Islip, who upended No. 4 Northport in another quarterfinal game on Monday. The teams' last matchup ended in Ward Melville's favor, 11-10, but Kilkenny said her team will make a few tweaks in their approach from that game.

"It will be interesting. The way East Islip finished their season, coming off a big high, they absolutely have potential," Kilkenny said. "[It] is certainly going to be a game."