Valley Stream North gets elusive playoff win

After four consecutive first-round exits in the Nassau Class A boys’ soccer playoffs, Valley Stream North finally got the monkey off its back last Friday afternoon when it upset third-seeded Hewlett, 2-0, thanks to a pair of second-half goals from senior Marvin Eveillard and a defense led by senior Dondre Irving.

Sophomore goalkeeper Alec D’Aulisa made five saves for the 14th-seeded Spartans, who after finishing third in the seven-team Conference A-VII with a 5-4-3 record, advanced to meet No. 6 Great Neck North in the quarterfinals. The Bulldogs, co-champions of Conference A-V with a mark of 8-2-2, had a goal disallowed because of an offside call four minutes into the second half and couldn’t answer Eveillard’s penalty kick that came with 25:41 remaining.

“After losing in the first round four years in a row by a goal, this is a great feeling and a huge weight off our shoulders,” Valley Stream North coach Dave Aguado said. “We’ve had an up-and-down year. We started the season slow and we weren’t playing great coming into this game. Hewlett’s very good, but we were strong today. We did a great job on 50-50 balls.”

Aguado said he thought the Spartans squandered many a scoring chance in the first half and was upset they were tied a halftime. And when Hewlett controlled the first 15 minutes of the second half, he said “it looked like it was going to be a different game.” North would’ve trailed if Bulldogs senior Harrison Brenner’s redirection goal from the top of the box wasn’t waved off.

“It was a tough call,” Hewlett coach Nick Lacetera said of the offside. “But the ref whistled it right away and tough calls happen every day. We won the conference by playing good, solid soccer and I thought we played pretty well today. We shouldn’t be going home.”

D’Aulisa turned away a hard shot off the foot of Brenner with 29 minutes to go, and the Spartans kicked into gear thereafter. Opportunity knocked when Eveillard was taken down in the box and the team’s leading goal scorer didn’t disappoint, striking a low shot dead-center of the cage as Hewlett keeper Josh Alovis (six saves) dove to his right.