No. 8 East Meadow beats Baldwin, advances to Nassau Class boys soccer AAA final
East Meadow runs to the crowd to celebrate after winning their Nassau Class AAA semifinal boys soccer game against Baldwin on Sunday in Farmingdale. Credit: Dawn McCormick
The prize is right there in front of East Meadow now, just one win away if the Jets can claim it.
“We’re on the doorstep,” coach Bryan Horrmann said. “Just keep doing what they doing.”
The eighth-seeded Jets have been doing great things. They followed their win over No. 1 Uniondale in the Nassau Class AAA boys soccer quarterfinals with another over No. 4 Baldwin in Sunday’s semis.
East Meadow won, 2-1, in the rain at Farmingdale State via a deciding second-half penalty kick by Dylan Wauchope.
“We are ecstatic,” Horrmann said. “The kids are working super, super hard, and it’s well deserved.”
The Jets (9-5-2) will be seeking the program’s first county title at 4 p.m. Wednesday at Mitchel Athletic Complex against Plainview-Old Bethpage JFK. East Meadow lost to the Hawks, 2-0, in September, but Horrmann has since moved Robert Derwin from center back to forward and made some midfield changes.
“So it’s going to be a different look for them,” Horrmann said. “We didn’t have offense, which we’re starting to generate now.”
After Wauchope was taken down in the box, he drilled his PK past Josue Ascencio Cueva and into the right side of the net to give East Meadow the edge with 21:02 remaining.
“I’m very happy for my teammates for all the hard work they put in,” Wauchope said. “They fought to the end. We have a lot of great players on this team. We’re going to try our best in the final and win this whole thing.”
It was 0-0 until 16.4 seconds showed on the clock in the first half.
Ascencio Cueva stopped a shot, but he couldn’t control the ball. Raymond McLeod was there in front to knock the rebound into the net.
“That momentum swing was big,” Horrmann said. “If we didn’t do that, it might have been a different game.”
Still, Baldwin tied it 6:44 into the second half. Christian Smalling took a penalty kick against Jack DeVoti and sent it into the left side of the net.
“We thought we had a great group that really could do it this year,” coach Chris Soupios said.
But the Bruins (8-3-2) couldn’t get another past DeVoti, who made a great stop with about 13 1/2 minutes left.
“I’m happy with the season,” Soupios said. “ … But ultimately you want to win at that next level, and we came up a little short today.”
