In Yorktown’s pregame video on the color scoreboard at Charlie Murphy Field, Huskers’ Lily Diaz holds up a jersey of New York Knicks star Jalen Brunson behind her.
That moment proved fitting, as Diaz (6G, 1A, 2 caused turnovers, 1 ground ball, 3 draw controls) delivered in the clutch in Yorktown’s 12-7 win over visiting Horace Greeley in the Section 1 Class B Tournament quarterfinals May 26. The third-seeded Huskers topped No. 6 Greeley behind her performance, which drew comparisons to Brunson’s late-game impact.
“Lily always plays with such heart,” said Yorktown coach Heather Raniolo. “She gives it everything she’s got. She’s a fierce player. Even without the goals, she comes up with the ball for us all over that field and she impacts the game tremendously.”
Yorktown entered the contest as the No. 10-ranked Class B team in the state; Greeley was No. 24.
This was the fourth straight season the two teams met in the sectionals, with Yorktown winning in 2023 and ’25 and Greeley in ’24, all in sectional finals.
“Obviously for the past few years, playing Greeley has been the highest level of a section game,” Diaz said. “So coming in to today, it was kind of an earlier game so we knew we had to keep the same intensity we would have had if it was the section final. Obviously, doing it at home means so much more. This is probably our last game here for the season. So just playing here at home meant we really had to capitalize today.”
Ava Ryan (3G, 1A, 1 caused turnover, 1 ground ball, 1 draw control) also stood out for the Huskers.
“This is game is really important to us because we just wanted to give it our all, because we didn’t want it to be our last game and it being Greeley, the team we saw in the section final last year, it just made us want it even more,” Ryan said. “We’ve always met Greeley sometime in the playoffs and it’s been a lot of back and forth with who wins but we knew we needed to play our game and if we did that, then we could beat them.”
Yorktown led 5-2 at halftime.
“It was more of our defensive side,” Raniolo said of her team’s halftime advantage. “We were able to come up with big stops, turnovers, winning the draws. Still had some turnovers on our offensive side but we were able to find the open person and put the ball in the back of the net.”
Greeley rallied in the third quarter to cut Yorktown’s lead to 7-6, but Diaz answered to put the Huskers back up by two.
“Coming down we knew there was limited time,” Diaz said, adding that Megan Durante, who wears No. 8, really just set me up nicely for a quick goal with two seconds left” in the third quarter.
In the fourth quarter, Diaz scored again before back-to-back goals by Ryan, the second assisted by Diaz, increased the Huskers’ lead to 11-7 with 1:40 to go in the game.
“Lily was on fire tonight,” Ryan said. “She was all over the field, whether it was assists or goals or ground balls or draw controls, she was great. Her just playing like herself created a lot of openings and she was able to see me and I just put the ball back in the back of the net.”
Diaz scored an unassisted goal to finish the scoring, with Sydney Sateriale (2G, 1A, 1 caused turnover, 1 ground ball, 7 draw controls), Ella Robustelli (1G, 3 ground balls), Annie Cunneen (1A, 2 caused turnovers, 3 ground balls, 1 draw control), Claire Sullivan (1 ground ball), Izzy Wilson (1 caused turnover, 1 ground ball), Addison Schluter (2 caused turnovers, 1 ground ball) and Julia Fitzsimons (1 ground ball, 4 saves) also contributing to the win.
Yorktown (13-4) travels to second-seeded Fox Lane, No. 13 in the Class B state poll, Friday, May 29, in a semifinal contest. The time is not yet known.
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