Roberth Perez's three goals lead Amityville in Class A semis
Glenn's Chris Flores and Amityville's Hector Mejia play the ball during a Suffolk Class A boys soccer semifinal game at Amityville on Monday. Credit: Tom Lambui
The Amityville boys soccer team is a collection of great talents. And while it has been the Suffolk Class A frontrunner all season, there was a sense among the Warriors that they’d not yet performed to their full potential. That finally happened on Monday and Glenn had the misfortune of being the other team on the field when it did.
Top-seeded Amityville launched a barrage of shots on goal against the fourth-seeded Knights, scored four times in a 13-minute span of the first half and rolled to a 6-0 Suffolk Class A semifinal victory at the Warriors’ Lou Howard Field.
Roberth Perez scored three goals to lead the way.
“This is something we’ve been working toward and the players have put a lot into it,” Amityville coach Mike Abbondondolo said. “We do it so when the big moments come, we will come up big. . . . They met this moment.”
“This was definitely our best game of the season,” goalie Matthew Katz said. “All the time we were doing 7 a.m. [workout] sessions, this is what we were striving to become.”
Amityville (16-1-1) will be going for its seventh county title and second in a row on Thursday when it faces No. 3 Half Hollow Hills West at Comsewogue. The Warriors last season won the county and Long Island Class A championships before falling in the state title game; they have seven returning starters who are plenty motivated judging from Perez calling the season “a revenge tour.”
“We remember that feeling from the final whistle on last season,” Perez added. “There is no doubt in my mind that this is a state championship team.”
The Warriors were the aggressor from the start and goalie Tyler Ziminski of Gleen (14-3-1) already had made six of his nine saves after just 18 minutes. Hugo Rodriguez’ free kick from the right wing came down as a Perez header into the goal with 20:45 before halftime and the deluge was on. Rodriguez drilled a pass from Norvin Martinez-Hernandez into the left side of the goal 4:30 later and Horace Hibbert scored on a Martinez-Hernandez pass six minutes later.
When Perez got a pass from Edwin Acosta on the right side of the baseline and then negotiated through the Glenn defense for a goal with 7:45 left in the half, the Warriors were up 4-0.
“I was a striker before I became a center back and I still like being involved in the scoring plays,” Martinez-Hernandez said.
Perez’ third goal came in the first minute of the second half. Denis Hernandez added a goal and Katz finished with four saves for his 10th shutout on the season. Amityville has outscored playoff foes 12-0 in three games and Katz credited backs Keven Acosta and Oscar Medrano. “I’ve only had four or five great games and they’ve had 15,” he said.
“I think we might be hitting our stride,” Abbondondolo said. “Today we finally looked like the team that has been putting all that work in.”
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.
