Boys soccer completes another successful season

 

The boys soccer team has shown their strength, courage and dedication that makes for a successful team.  Coming back from being named the 2018 Long Island Champions, the boys knew they had a lot of hard work ahead of them this year.  Through   competitive training, the boys ended their regular season with a win against East Meadow 5-1.  They played offensively, with goals from seniors Jose Sagastume, Kevin Nadolne, Adrian Astudillo; junior Jason Vinciguerra, and sophomore Christian Mendoza. The team concluded the season 9-1-2, giving them in the number two seed for playoffs.  

The boys started off their competitive season against the number seven seed, Plainview JFK.  Port took the lead in the first 11 minutes of the game with a goal from Sagastume and an assist from Vinciguerra.  During overtime, Vinciguerra scored the winning goal,  making a 2-1 Port victory.  

The team then continued to the semi-finals in which they played number three seed Uniondale.  Port and Uniondale are two high powered offenses, with both also boasting strong defenses.  Uniondale goalie, Endi Fernandez, has had a strong season making 55 saves and continued his success during the semi-finals.  During the 47th minute, senior Jose Lima Sagastume struck a well-placed free kick from about 25 yards away into the upper-right corner, a sure goal in any other situation. However, Fernandez timed his leap perfectly and tipped the shot over the crossbar.  Fernandez made another save with 7 minutes left in the first half when he dove to his right to save a hot shot that was fired from 15 yards away.  

“My friends and I went to the game and I thought that the team played extremely hard but they were held back due to the horrendous officiating,” said junior Chris Shroyer.

Port also showed impressive defense after senior Dimitri Zerakhto made four saves, including a close-range stop with 14 minutes left in the second half.  After two fifteen minute overtimes with neither team scoring, Port had to advance onto penalty kicks.  The first person to kick was senior Jack Friedman.  Friedman’s kick was saved by Fernandez as Port goalie Zerakhto got ready to face off with the Uniondale shooter. Zerakhto did not save the ball, making the game 1-0 Uniondale. Junior Daniel Kates went out onto the field, knowing he had to rebound quickly in order to have a shot at winning the game.  Kates came up clutch and tied the game up 1-1. 

Unfortunately, Zerakhto did not save the next two goals.  Next up was Naldone.  The pressure put on Naldone was extreme, considering that if he did not make the goal, Port would have no shot at advancing to County finals.  Fortunately, Naldone scored, making the score 3-2.  The end-all pressure came on Zerakhto, who unfortunately did not save the final kick.  This tough end to the game also put an end to Port’s 2019 season. 

Though this was an unfortunate loss, the team is not letting this affect their hopes for success next year.  

As captain, junior Andrew Sicchani said, “Our goals for next season are to take it all, it’s going to be my senior year and a lot of the other boys so we are going to make it count for sure. Our team always do our best to be a top team in the top conference is special and we deserve to win it all, we are going to take it one game at a time to make sure we can get there I think we still have the talent.” 

The boys plan to work hard and continue to grow as a team. No matter what, it is obvious that the boys are always looking out for each other and view their team as a family.