The Bayport Blue Point Phantoms land at number 10 in the LILJ top 24 preseason rankings after a 14-2 regular season last year and a trip to the Suffolk Class C semifinals. They were defeated by the Wildcats in the semis, but they have a large number of returning players that keeps them in contender status as they look to compete for the county championship and possibly more. At the helm for Bayport is Doug Meehan who has been the head coach for the past six seasons and shared what excites him about his Phantoms team and what the keys to success will be this season.
“Our starting six on offense are as complete of a group as I’ve ever had. The goaltending will be ELITE with a senior heavy defense, but chemistry will need to develop quickly in preseason. With a lack of depth health will be paramount to success and our midfield will log big minutes.”
The Phantoms attack returns the trio of Navy commit Ben Morris, Towson commit Connor Curran, and Maritime commit Ryan Hannaford. Morris the lefty sniper knows how to light up the scoring column and did so in a big way his junior year, leading the team with 50 goals and dishing out 23 assists for 73 points. Curran who’s now in his junior season and year three as a starter, was good for 44 points last season which was fourth on the team, and Hannaford is back fully healthy this year from injury.
Retuning at midfield for Bayport are seniors Danny Aiello (Navy), Maclin Keyser (St. John’s), Brendan Waters, and junior Traigh Tomassone who will all be playing heavy duty minutes. Aiello scored 13 goals with 15 assists for 28 points last season, while Keyser tallied 33 points with 22 goals and 11 assists, and Tomassone nine goals with four assists for 13 points. One big absence from last year’s midfield is JJ Aiello who accounted for a lot of their offense which averaged 12.5 goals per game and they will surely look to come close to that number this year.
Defensively they will have some new faces as they graduated much of their depth, but headlining their starters is Boston University commit Mikey Luce. Among their new faces as part of the fold this year is Sean Coffey, Ryan Athearn, Chase Dickinson, Pat Ahern, and Quinn Carroll. As for the elite goaltending that coach Meehan alluded to, its senior Brady Smith the Albany commit who will be the full time starter after sharing time with 2023 graduate Eric Grahan and will be a huge X factor this year.
After being in at least the final four of Suffolk Class C the last few seasons, this appears to be Bayport’s best opportunity with this group of players to complete the goal of winning the county title and possibly more.
