Girls Lacrosse: Brisotti makes LIU Post her college choice
Before Trish Brisotti was even a full day old, she already owned her own lacrosse stick, a small plastic one that she still has.
“It was a tradition in my family that when you’re born, you’re presented with your first lacrosse stick,” Brisotti said. “It’s kind of weird.”
If Brisotti’s athletic future was mapped out way back then, one could assume that she really had no choice but to make LIU Post her college of choice. After all, as Brisotti pointed out, her great-great-grandfather, Albert Brisotti, was the first coach of LIU Post’s men’s lacrosse program.
But as far as her college selection being an open-and-shut matter, that wasn’t the case, said Brisotti. The Mattituck High School senior had also given consideration to Monmouth University (N.J.) and Hofstra University.
In the end, though, Brisotti’s choice makes a fitting addition to the family history. She chose LIU Post.
Laughing off the suggestion that she didn’t have much of a choice, Brisotti said: “No, I definitely had a choice. It was the right choice.”
With family, friends and school officials on hand, Brisotti put pen to paper, committing to accept an athletic scholarship from LIU Post on Thursday, the day after National Signing Day. Brisotti, wearing a green, long-sleeve LIU Post lacrosse shirt, received two rounds of applause from friends watching the ceremony at the Mattituck High School library.
Brisotti, a two-time all-division midfielder, had verbally committed to the NCAA Division II school last January. “I knew when I went for my visit that I wanted to go there,” she said. “I could really see myself at Post. I love the school, I love the girls. I love the coach. It’s just all around awesome.”
Brisotti would become the first Mattituck/Greenport/Southold player to play at the Division II level, according to school officials.
“I saw this happening in her future,” former Tuckers coach Julie Milliman said. “You kind of saw the raw talent and the athleticism, and if I had to pick a girl who I thought would be playing at the next level, it would be Trish.”
Milliman continued: “She’s the best. She’s one of those athletes that every coach wants to have on their team. At the end of the game, you want the ball on her stick, and you know that she’ll make something happen.”
Brisotti will be joining a strong LIU Post team. Last year the Pioneers went 18-2, losing to Adelphi University in an NCAA semifinal.
“I’m so thankful that I’m able to keep playing after high school, especially at a place like Post,” she said. “They have such a great program.”
Known for her speed, a good shot and relentlessness in pursuit of the ball, Brisotti was instrumental in the Tuckers’ rise to the first playoff game last season in the team’s five-year history. A loss to Shoreham-Wading River in a Suffolk County Class C Tournament outbracket game left the Tuckers with a 9-7 record and their first winning season.
Brisotti, who has played on the varsity team since she was a freshman, was a big part of the team’s improvement over the years, said Milliman.
“We used to be really, really bad, and you know she was in a wave of real lacrosse players that really took the Mattituck program somewhere,” said Milliman, adding: “She worked really hard for it. She’d stay after practice and she’d be shooting on the goal. I’d be leaving and she’d still be out there practicing on her own. … Every day she wanted to leave practice as a better player than she was the day before, and that was all on her. She took the initiative.”
Mattituck’s athletic director, Gregg Wormuth, who joined in the ceremony along with Brisotti’s parents, Kerry and David, said Brisotti has drive and speed that never fails. “She will be as fast as [the opposing team’s] fastest person or faster,” he said. “She’s self-motivated to do better and play harder than everybody else on that field.”
Brisotti said her enthusiasm for lacrosse, which she took up as a third grader, remains intact.
“I just love everything about the sport, and it’s just such a close community, the lacrosse community, so I just really cherish the friendships that I’ve gotten out of it from being on travel teams and things like that,” she said. “It’s always been a part of my life so I don’t really know anything different.”
Asked how accepting a scholarship ranks among her lacrosse achievements, she answered, “Oh, this is the best, by far.”
