How Carle Place boys soccer used early losses in season to make a run at elusive state title
Carle Place celebrates their win in the NYSPHSAA Class B boys soccer final on Nov. 17 in Middletown, N.Y. Credit: Neil Miller
The seeds for success are often sown in the pain of defeat. So it was with the Carle Place boys soccer team. The Frogs had strung together county title after county title and captured two straight Long Island Class B titles, but the state tournament regionals had been the obstacle they couldn’t clear.
This year would be different, they promised each other. And when it started with a season-opening win over defending Nassau Class AA champion Manhasset, the Frogs’ belief was only reinforced. And then there was defeat, again. Carle Place dropped consecutive games to Cold Spring Harbor and Friends Academy.
“We’d seen that we were for real, a really talented collection of players capable of beating anyone like Manhasset, but this was a crossroads as they say,” Carle Place coach Conor Reardon said. “We sat there, on our own field, after losing to Friends. I told them, ‘You can feel bad about these losses or you can go to work.’ The rest is history.”
Carle Place played 16 more games and didn’t lose again. It beat Cold Spring Harbor for its seventh straight county championship, beat Babylon for its third straight Long Island crown and never let the state title out of its sight. It rallied from a one-goal deficit to down Rye Neck in the state semifinals and captured its first state championship since 2013 with a 1-0 triumph over Syracuse Westhill in the title game.
Carle Place (17-2-2) got tested in many ways but none like the state championship game, where it prevailed despite playing down a man for the final 14:28. Junior Ryan Leary, who had 17 goals and 16 assists, retreated to play center back. Senior Jason Periera, who had six goals and 13 assists, burned clock with his exceptional ball-handling when Carle Place got the ball past midfield.
“Nothing was going to keep us from our goal of winning a championship,” Leary said.
The heroes of the Carle Place title run are numerous. Senior Stratos Mehalakes scored his 18th goal for the title-game winner. Senior Matt Babino, who moved from an offensive spot to the back line, had eight goals and two assists. Senior Max Cordova volunteered to move from offense to the goal, narrowly won the starting spot and then shined in the state title match.
“We got contributions from everywhere, not just the guys who scored the goals or made the saves,” Babino said after the state final. “We came to this as a team. We won as a team.”
Carle Place had plenty of incentives from the start. For all the county and Long Island championships, the Frogs had trouble escaping the shadow of the 2013 team that won the school's first state title. As early as the first game against Manhasset, Reardon said, “I’d like to stop hearing about 2013 and start hearing about 2024.”
Even their gear — with a team logo that had a single star embroidered to mark the 2013 team’s achievement — encouraged them to put a second star next to it.
“We lost those two games in a row and it was a turning point,” Reardon said. “We could keep going down or we could turn it around and start climbing back up the hill. They conquered the hill . . . That was who they were at the start and it's who they were at the end.”
Roger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to write about high schools, colleges and baseball following 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.