Long Beach in playoff hunt

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As the Nassau boys’ soccer regular season winds down, three teams in Conference A1 (Garden City, New Hyde Park and MacArthur) remain undefeated, defending county Class A Mepham has one loss, and a host of others are fighting for their playoff lives.
Count newcomer Long Beach among those still in control of its own destiny. The Marines are 2-2-3 with three games remaining and need to finish .500 or better to make the postseason tournament in their first year in Class A.
“How we play over the next week will determine our future,” Long Beach coach Leo Palacio said. “I’ve been telling the guys, ‘don’t let the season or your high school career [if you’re a senior] end before the playoffs.’
“We have to focus on one game at a time and see what happens,” he added. “We knew this would be a very difficult conference and we’ve learned something every day. Garden City is one of the best teams I’ve seen in a long time. They’re going to win the conference and for a lot of us, it’s coming down to the wire.”
Garden City hung a six spot on the Marines Sept. 19, but Palacio’s team rebounded with back-to-back shutouts against Elmont (6-0 win) and Mepham (scoreless tie.) However, a 5-2 loss at Herricks on Monday afternoon dropped Long Beach back to .500 in conference play.

“We underestimated Herricks,” Palacio said. “Everything that could go right for them, did. We had to play catch-up all the way. They hit us hard in the first half with four goals. That’s what happens when you don’t come out focused.”
Senior midfielder Conor Haag stayed hot for the Marines with his team-leading seventh goal of 2019. Senior Bryan Mizhirumbay added his fourth of the year. “We haven’t been able to score consistently,” said Palacio, who added the loss of sophomore forward Arthur Quezada to a torn ACL has been costly. “Conor has really stepped up and picked up a lot of slack,” he noted of Haag. “He has half of our goals so we need to get some other guys going in these last three games.”
The defense, Palacio said, has been outstanding at times with sophomore Anthony Camas and senior Emerson Vasquez leading the way. “We’ve been playing great defense most games,” the coach explained. “We shutout New Hyde Park (scoreless tie) and Mepham. We just had some breakdowns that Herricks took advantage of.” In goal, senior Matt Gernhardt has been steady.
Long Beach hosts Calhoun on Friday at 4:30 p.m., travels to MacArthur next Monday morning to continue a suspended game from last week, and closes out against Sewanhaka at home on Oct. 17 at 7 p.m. MacArthur, which has a playoff berth locked, holds a 1-0 lead over the Marines with 22 minutes remaining in the first half. When that game resumes, they’ll have senior playmaker Keri Saravia (team-high seven assists) available after he missed the first 18 minutes due to a previous commitment.