HAUPPAUGE, N.Y. (LISN) — Northport/Huntington had not won a playoff game in three seasons. On Feb. 2 they won one 7-1. Two nights later they were a goal from the county final.
St. Anthony’s beat them 3-2 in the semifinal and lost only once more, a 2-1 Game 2 to Smithtown/Hauppauge, before taking the county final in three and the Long Island championship a month after that. Northport/Huntington went home at 12-7-1, four wins better than either of the two seasons before it and the best year the program has had in some time.
The top of the scoring sheet leaves with them, and so does the goaltending. Joseph Caruso scored 24 goals and led the team with 41 points. Ayden Shear had 20. Joseph Buonocore and Colin Jackson ran the blue line. And Boden Rudloff, who started 19 of the 22 games, has graduated with them.
Last season
Twelve wins, seven losses and a tie, fifth place. They scored 109 goals and played it hard, taking 244 penalty minutes, the most in the division.
They scored in bunches when they got going: 13-3 and 10-2 against Patchogue-Medford, 9-1 and 8-3 against West Islip, 9-2 against Middle Country. They could stay with anyone on a given night. Four games went to overtime and they split them, beating Middle Country 4-3 and Smithtown/Hauppauge 6-5, losing to Smithtown/Hauppauge 3-2 on the second night of the season and to Kings Park/Commack 4-3 in November.
Jan. 21 against Kings Park/Commack finished 1-1, the only game they played all season that ended level. The three losses that stung were the two to St. Anthony’s and the 8-5 to East Islip on Jan. 5, a result Northport/Huntington answered four weeks later in the quarterfinal, 7-1, Caruso and the rest of the seniors running East Islip off the ice in their last month together.
Then St. Anthony’s, 3-2, and the season was over one round early. It was still the program’s first playoff win since before either of the last two 8-12 seasons.
Gone with Caruso, Shear, Buonocore and Jackson are forwards Patrick Schmidt and Justin Morrissey, defensemen Maksim Sposato and Jacob Guzzardo, and both goaltenders, Rudloff and Brandon Rossi. That is 44 of the 118 goals the team scored. The other 74 are back.
Lucas Serino
Serino scored 21 goals in 17 games, second on the team behind Caruso and now the most of anyone still here.
His best 20 minutes came against West Islip on Nov. 10. He scored short-handed with 10:16 left in the first period and short-handed again 26 seconds later, then added a power-play goal at 7:40, three goals in one period and two of them a man down. He finished the season with 28 points.
He wears No. 44, and the scoring is not new: 13 goals and 25 points in 14 games at the freshman level in 2023-24.
The forwards
Justin Cahn (F, 18-9—27) is the other one who can score, and he did it in the games that turned. He had three goals against East Islip on Oct. 19 in a 6-3 win, and on Nov. 19 he scored in overtime to beat Middle Country 4-3. He finished a point behind Serino in 16 games, and he changes his number this season, from 24 to the 91 he wore earlier in his career. Jordan Oromaner (F, 14-11—25) played 20 of the team’s 22 games and put together the longest point run on the roster — a point in nine straight from Nov. 9 through Jan. 11.
Owen Karpoich (F, 8-13—21) had the best assist rate on the team, 13 in 12 games, and takes over No. 24 from Cahn. Jose Walter (F, 5-6—11) is back, along with Devin Christman (F, 2-6—8) and Luke Scheibe (F, 3-5—8).
Nicolas Ginisi (F) and Jack Fernandez (F) each dressed twice on the varsity last season and spent the rest of it on the junior varsity; both are on the sheet full-time now.
Robert Auletta (F) comes up having scored six goals in six junior varsity games last season, a goal a game, after 19 games at the freshman level in 2024-25, where he had seven goals, 10 points and 38 penalty minutes, the most on that team.
Ryan Santini (F) is the newcomer, and on the evidence he can score. Our records have him at St. Anthony’s for three seasons: one varsity appearance last year, but before that 17 goals and 35 points in 20 junior varsity games in 2024-25, and 15 goals and 26 points in 16 freshman games the season before. He arrives wearing the No. 5 he wore there.
Defense
Kevin Sherwood (D, 2-7—9) is the only defenseman back who played a full varsity season, and he played more of it than anyone, 22 games, the most on the team. He took 40 penalty minutes doing it.
Owen Spardel (D, 1-2—3) played 13 games as a forward last season and moves to the blue line.
Nicholas Zadrozny (D) brings a scoring touch to the blue line. A career defenseman, he scored 13 goals and 23 points in 16 freshman games in 2024-25, building on a 13-point season the year before. He played five junior varsity games last season and keeps No. 1 as he joins the varsity defense.
Liam Matarese (D) has played three straight seasons on the blue line, 55 games in all, and plays a physical game, with 30 penalty minutes in 20 junior varsity games last year.
Jaxon Zethner (D) has been back and forth: Northport/Huntington at the freshman level in 2024-25 (three goals, nine points in 19 games), St. Anthony’s freshman team last season (four goals, seven points in 19), and back here now.
Zachary Smith (D) joins the blue line for his first season in our records.
In goal
Rudloff started 19 games and won 12. Rossi started three more. Neither is back, and the sheet Michael Porcello filed carries one goaltender.
Rex Moscati (G) is that goaltender, and he is not short of games. He has started 58 of them in three seasons. Last year he started all 20 games for the junior varsity. The season before, at the freshman level, he started 20 and won 13 of them. He started 18 more the year before that. Very little of what a varsity season asks will be new to him.
The staff, and what’s next
Michael Porcello is the head coach, with Edward Kurathowski, Brendon Martin, Nicholas Auletta and Francis Coyle on the staff. Captains have not been named.
The regular season opens Wednesday, Sept. 16 against West Islip and closes Jan. 27 against St. Mary’s, in its first varsity season. St. Mary’s is one of three newcomers, with Eastport South Manor and Longwood, as the division grows to twelve; gone are Patchogue-Medford and Middle Country, two of the teams Northport/Huntington had big nights against last winter. Every Northport/Huntington varsity game streamed on the LI Sports Network YouTube channel last season and will again this year; the team page and the division standings update through the season.
Seventy-four of last season’s goals are back, and the three players who scored most of them, Serino, Cahn and Oromaner, are all still here. Gone are the leading scorer, four of the five defensemen and both goaltenders. Northport/Huntington won a playoff game last February for the first time in three years; doing it again likely comes down to how quickly Moscati settles into a net that was well looked after last season.
Games to circle
Sun., Sept. 27: St. Anthony’s. The first look at the team that ended the season, 3-2 in the semifinal, before St. Anthony’s went on to take the county final and the Long Island championship. Ryan Santini, three seasons there before this one, sees his old club early.
Wed., Oct. 7: East Islip. East Islip won the January meeting 8-5; four weeks later Northport/Huntington answered in the quarterfinal, 7-1, the program’s first playoff win in three seasons. This is the first time the two have met since.
Wed., Nov. 4: St. Mary’s. The first meeting between the programs; St. Mary’s is playing its first varsity season, and nobody in the division has a book on them yet.
Mon., Jan. 18: Kings Park/Commack. Nearly a year after the 1-1 tie on Jan. 21, the only game Northport/Huntington played all season that finished level. Kings Park/Commack also beat them 4-3 in overtime in November.
2026-27 Northport/Huntington Varsity roster
| No. | Player | Pos. | 2025-26 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nicholas Zadrozny | D | JV |
| 3 | Owen Spardel | D | Varsity, 1-2—3 |
| 5 | Ryan Santini | F | St. Anthony’s |
| 19 | Zachary Smith | D | No record |
| 20 | Robert Auletta | F | JV |
| 21 | Devin Christman | F | Varsity, 2-6—8 |
| 22 | Jose Walter | F | Varsity, 5-6—11 |
| 24 | Owen Karpoich | F | Varsity, 8-13—21 |
| 31 | Rex Moscati | G | JV, 20 starts |
| 34 | Kevin Sherwood | D | Varsity, 2-7—9 |
| 37 | Jack Fernandez | F | Varsity, 2 GP |
| 41 | Jordan Oromaner | F | Varsity, 14-11—25 |
| 44 | Lucas Serino | F | Varsity, 21-7—28 |
| 48 | Liam Matarese | D | JV |
| 50 | Jaxon Zethner | D | St. Anthony’s |
| 78 | Nicolas Ginisi | F | Varsity, 2 GP |
| 87 | Luke Scheibe | F | Varsity, 3-5—8 |
| 91 | Justin Cahn | F | Varsity, 18-9—27 |
Head coach: Michael Porcello. Staff: Edward Kurathowski, Brendon Martin, Nicholas Auletta, Francis Coyle. Numbers and positions come from the club’s 2026-27 roster filing, which does not give class years. Scoring lines are goals-assists—points for skaters and starts for goalies, from lihockey.com; records and division ranks are regular season.