By:TONY BELLISSIMO
Unfortunately for the Long Beach boys soccer team, it saved its worst for last.
With the Conference A-III title and a berth in the Nassau Class A playoff tournament on the line in the regular-season finale, the Marines dropped a 2-0 decision at Baldwin last Wednesday and saw their season end with a 6-1-5 record.
Kevin Reilly opened the scoring off an Adam Crystal assist midway through the first half and Danny Cepero made 10 saves for his fifth shutout for Baldwin (7-2-3), which earned the No. 12 seed in the playoffs. Crystal also assisted on Rosario Corrao's insurance goal 11 minutes later.
The Bruins and Marines both finished with 17 points, but Baldwin's extra victory put it over the top in the tiebreaker process.
We're co-conference champs because we had the same amount of points, but they advanced to the playoffs on the second criteria which is wins,Long Beach coach Bill DeFilippis said. The first criteria was head-to-head and we split games. Unfortunately, all the ties we settled for earlier in the season came back to haunt us.
Wins over Freeport and Mepham in mid-October put the Marines in the driver's seat with a 6-0-4 record. Two more points would have clinched the conference title. But they settled for a well-played scoreless tie with a struggling Uniondale team prior to losing their showdown with Baldwin.
We played pretty well against Uniondale and they played extremely, extremely well,DeFilippis said. They were out to get us and they held us in check. But it's hard to be too disappointed when you play well.
The tie opened the door for Baldwin, which defeated Elmont and Hempstead to set the stage for the finale.
It's hard not to look back at some of the games we tied,DeFilippis said. But the kids really did have a great season.
Offensively, the Marines were led by senior Yossie Calderon (10 goals), sophomore Elmer Lazo (nine goals), sophomore Mike Palacio (22 assists) and junior Zach Abbott (three penalty-kick goals).
Lazo and Abbott scored in a 2-1 win over Freeport Oct. 15, while Calderon's third hat trick of the season highlighted the team's 4-0 win over Mepham two days later.
Sophomore goalie Angel Rivero also played a major role in the Marines' uprising. He was given the starting job midway through the campaign and posted five shutouts in eight starts.
We had six sophomores on the field most of the time,DeFilippis said. It's nice that we have the majority of the roster returning next season.
