No. 11 Ranked Smithtown East Bulls Team Preview

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Landing at number 11 in the LILJ preseason rankings are the Smithtown East Bulls. Last year in a tough Class A conference they went 12-5 but were defeated in the quarterfinals by Northport who ultimately went on to win the LIC. They are also fresh off of playing in the LILJ High School Winter League where they competed against some of the other top teams in Suffolk County. They are coached by Rob Campbell and have a lot of players that are back this year hoping to bring a championship back to the program.

Smithtown had one of the top rated offenses in the league last season. They averaged 13 goals per game and scored a total of 224 goals on the season which was the second most of any team in Suffolk County. They return a stud attackmen in Owen Carroll (Delaware) & Andrew Donato. Joe Hobot (Johns Hopkins) will bring a huge spark for this team between the lines and on the offensive end. They all play very well off of each other and have the ability to score at a high rate. Carroll and Donato were among the top goal scorers on the team last year. Hobot returns after missing most of last season due to an injury. He is the complete package with his ability to score, get ground balls and take face-offs. In the winter league he scored nine goals, grabbed 16 ground balls and won 34 of 45 face-offs. Their most prominent midfielder is All-County senior Marcus Wertheim (Brown). He finished top 10 in Suffolk County in points and was named the team MVP. Wertheim is more than just a great offensive player. He also makes plays on the defensive end, applying pressure on the opponents clear and getting ground balls. As great as Wertheim was last year, this season could be an even bigger one with the team losing players like Chris Cappelmann, Matt Amzler, and Jake Gallery who were all 2021 graduates. Defensively the Bulls will once again have Nick Matthes (Cortland) in the cage as the starting goalie. He was an All-Division goalie and All-County honorable mention in 2021. A few of their returning defensemen that will be playing in front of him are juniors Chris Trebing and senior Hunter Strcich. Senior, Michael DeSano (Stony Brook) is one of the top cover guys in Suffolk, and should help this group lock down the slew of good attackmen that exist in Suffolk Class A. As a team they allowed just under 10 goals per game last season. The schedule for Smithtown East will see them play against some of the teams that they played against in the winter league as well as some rivalry games. Here are some notable games that the Bulls will play this season. Smithtown East @ Smithtown West (3/23) Smithtown East @ Northport (4/12) Ward Melville @ Smithtown East (4/22) Smithtown East @ Huntington (4/28) Smithtown East @ Bay Shore (5/2) The matchup between Smithtown West is a big rivalry game between the two schools, and the matchups against Ward Melville and Bay Shore will be rematches from the winter league. They went 1-0 against Ward Melville and 1-1 against Bay Shore.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_video link=”https://vimeo.com/681148234″ el_width=”80″ align=”center”][/vc_column][/vc_row]