Elmont in hunt for title

The difference between first and seventh place in Nassau Conference AA-III boys’ soccer wasn’t as great as the standings indicated the morning of Oct 6. Two days after snapping a five-game slide, Long Beach battled from behind twice to earn a hard-fought 2-2 tie at Elmont.

Junior Andrew Judge tapped in a loose ball from the crease off a corner kick from senior Dylan Palacio with a little more than three minutes remaining to give the Marines (2-5-1) a well-earned point. They trailed by a goal at halftime, but sophomore Manny Flory’s header tied it 1:45 into the second half.

“It feels like we won,” Long Beach coach Leo Palacio said. “On the road against the first-place team, we’ll take it. We came back twice and were close to scoring a third time. We’ve been dealing with so many injuries, but we’re starting to get healthy and now we’ve got a win and a tie in our last two games.”

One of the banged-up Marines, senior goalkeeper Nicholas Alfonso, returned between the pipes after a three-game absence due to a head injury and made four saves. He was beaten on a first-half floater by junior Esosa Aluyi after leaving the crease, and by Nassau’s leading goal scorer, sophomore Benji Alonge, as the Spartans (5-1-2) took a 2-1 lead with 15 minutes left in the second half.

“We’ve been playing good, aggressive soccer and just had a huge win against Carey,” Elmont coach Pat Corvetti said. “Today was frustrating. It’s a game we let get away. We may have taken them lightly, but Long Beach is a well-coached team and deserves credit. Look at the way they celebrated.”

For most of the game it looked like the Spartans would be the ones rejoicing at the final whistle, but they twice failed to hold a lead despite the defensive efforts of junior Tim Rosario and sophomore Akeem Morris. They were shorthanded at midfield, with senior Justin Okoro forced to sit out after getting a red card in a 6-3 win over Carey, but Clemson-bound senior Richard Robinson controlled the area with help from Aluyi, fellow junior Chad Barker and sophomore Michael Howell.