East Meadow knocks out Uniondale

No team entered the Nassau Class AAA boys’ soccer playoff tournament hotter than top-seeded Uniondale, which took the regular-season crown and hadn’t tasted defeat in more than a month.

The Knights had an opportunity to avenge their most-recent loss — after nine wins and one draw — in the first playoff round [quarterfinals] but No. 8 East Meadow had other ideas.

The Jets scored three unanswered goals in the second half Wednesday and stunned Uniondale, 3-1, at Cedar Creek Park in Seaford. Junior Dylan Wauchope set up senior Alex Nicolaou’s eventual winning goal off a corner kick with 24 minutes remaining and added the insurance marker on a penalty kick four minutes later. Senior keeper Jack DeVoti (14 saves) stood tall with a pair of point-blank stops in crunch time.

“We’re both very strong teams and we have all the respect in the world for Uniondale,” East Meadow coach Bryan Horrmann said. “Triple A has shown this season anything can happen.”

Uniondale, which fell 2-1 to East Meadow Sept. 21, opened the scoring in the 21st minute on a nifty chip shot off the left foot of junior Adan Gomez, who led the balanced Knights (11-3-1) during the regular season with eight goals.

“I thought physicality and set plays were the difference,” Uniondale coach Cohen Nelson said. “It’s a hard pill to swallow. We have a resilient team, but the resilience wasn’t totally there today.”

Sophomore goalkeeper Hugo Alessandro (10 saves) made a dynamic diving stop off Wauchope late in the first half to protect Uniondale’s lead, but the Jets (8-5-2) cranked the engine in the second half.  

“Down 1-0, my message at halftime was for us to play wider,” Horrmann explained. “We’re scrappy and played a great second half.”

Senior defender Roderick Rodriguez, who was stellar in the back along with juniors David Flores and Andrew Velasquez, and freshman Jose Flores, set up the tying goal less than five minutes into the second half with senior Raymond McLeod converting from 15 yards.

It stayed 1-1 until Wauchope and Nicolaou connected as they have in practice every day and a few times in games. Nicolaou header off Wauchope’s corner put East Meadow ahead for good.

“We have a special play for Alex and it’s not the first time we scored on it,” Wauchope said. “He’s a tall kid who fights to put himself in position to score.”

Ninety seconds later, DeVoti robbed Kevin Villacis on the doorstep. Villacis looked to the sky in disbelief.

“We missed Jack the last few games with a concussion,” Horrmann said of DeVoti. “He’s a difference-maker and you can see why he was All-Conference.”

Wauchope’s penalty kick was drilled dead-center as Alessandro dove to his right. “I knew where I wanted to put the ball and stayed composed,” Wauchope said. “I hit it as hard as I could and hoped for the best.”

The Jets, who returned 10 players from last year’s 2-11-1 squad, advance to face No. 4 Baldwin in the semifinals Sunday at 2:30 p.m. at Farmingdale State College.