By TONY BELLISSIMO
But David Formoso made it all worth while.
The senior midfielder gave the Seahawks a thrilling 4-3 victory on a beautiful header off junior Chris Martelli’s throw-in at 4:18. It was Formoso’s second goal of the game and punched 11th-seeded Carey’s ticket to Oceanside for a quarterfinal clash on Wednesday night. Martelli and junior Besender Moise also scored.
“I just followed the ball through to the net,” said Formoso, who was stopped on a first-half penalty kick but gave the Seahawks a 2-1 lead early in the second half when his corner kick found its way past Central goalkeeper Gregory Dohrman (14 saves). “Coach (Matt) Princi has been telling me all season I’m one of a few seniors on this team and I have to come up big, and I was able to today.”
The sixth-seeded Eagles, who scored with 16:11 and 10:04 remaining in regulation to erase a 3-1 deficit, proved a tough out. “I’m disappointed we lost, but I’m proud of the way we fought the whole game,” Central coach Lenny Fiorentino said. “We had a large group of seniors that didn’t want this to be their last game. They wanted another crack at Oceanside in the next round, and they almost had it.”
It would’ve been easy for the Eagles to waive the white flag after Moise gave Carey a 3-1 lead with 27:34 to go. But their offense, which struggled all season and didn’t produce more than two goals in any game, applied pressure all day as did the Seahawks. “Both goalkeepers were amazing,” said Princi, who saw junior Karmvir Singh make 10 saves for Carey, and junior defender Mike Marino a crucial one. “We knew they weren’t giving up. They deserve a lot of credit for tying it, but we came right back at them.”
After Singh robbed Paul Ferrandino twice from point-blank range, Chris Vasquez cut Carey’s lead to 3-2 when he converted a pass from Ferrandino. Six minutes later, Ferrandino banged home his second goal of the game off a rebound to tie it.
In the final 10 minutes of regulation, the action was non-stop from end-to-end. Central had a golden opportunity to win with less than a minute remaining, but Marino made a goalmouth save after a shot by Jovani Ramos rolled by Singh at the top of the box. “It was almost a million-dollar shot,” Fiorentino said.
Then Formoso cashed in the first scoring chance for either team in overtime.
The Seahawks went 6-3-5 in Conference AA-II and had a win over Baldwin and a tie against first-place Calhoun in the final week of the regular season to qualify for the playoffs.
Comments about this story? TBellissimo@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 204.
