Carle Place boys soccer posts another shutout to claim Long Island championship
Carle Place celebrates their second goal against Babylon during the Long Island high school boys soccer Class B final at Diamond in the Pines in Coram Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2022. Credit: Barry Sloan
There has been a common thread running through the fabric of this postseason for Carle Place.
Nassau Class B semifinals: Shutout victory over No. 1 Cold Spring Harbor.
County final: Shutout victory over No. 2 Locust Valley.
Long Island B championship match: Shutout victory over Suffolk winner and defending champ Babylon.
“It’s hard to lose games that way,” coach Conor Reardon said of the goals-against count after his soccer team beat Babylon, 2-0, Tuesday at Diamond in the Pines in Coram for its first Long Island title since 2018.
The Frogs got a goal and an assist from a freshman, Ryan Leary, six saves from John Hoisik and more standout work from defenders Ryan Li, Blake Lyons, Patrick McCarthy and Antonio Ruggiano.
“We’re defending the heck out of the ball right now,” Reardon said.
This was also a Southeast Regional semifinal. So Carle Place (10-7-1) will face the winner of Wednesday’s game between Briarcliff (Section 1) and Our Lady of Lourdes (Section 9) Saturday in the regional final. The game will be at Yorktown if Briarcliff wins or at Beacon if Lourdes wins.
“I think we can get there,” Hoisik said of the state final four. “… We’re a different team when it comes to the playoffs.”
This run to No. 1 came after a 2-4-1 finish to the regular season that left them with the fourth seed.
“Sometimes in October, Carle Place kind of turns it on,” Reardon said. “I thought we had a really good result to end the season with a tie against … Cold Spring Harbor. That kind of showed the boys that we’re here and we can do it.”
Tyler Aguilar took a feed from Leary and scored 51 seconds into this game against Babylon.
“It just set the tone right away,” Aguilar said. “It showed them we were there.”
Hoisik kept it at 1-0 with a diving stop on a header with about seven minutes left in the first half.
“Game changer,” the senior said.
Then Leary converted a header off an assist from Logan Martins with 1:51 remaining until the intermission.
“It was right where I needed it,” Leary said.
Babylon just couldn’t get going offensively.
"I think we definitely overshot our expectations." Panthers coach Dennis McGovern said. "To finish 16-3 [and] as Suffolk County champions I think is great for this group, considering how young they are.”
