Nicole Fabris' PK sends Centereach on to Suffolk Class AA semifinals

The magnitude of the moment certainly wasn’t lost on Nicole Fabris.

When the Centereach junior forward stepped up for a penalty kick following a hand-ball penalty in the 18-yard box in a scoreless game with 9:37 remaining, Fabris knew she had to finish.

“I literally had my team on my back, so I knew I had to put it away,” Fabris said. “In that moment, you have to ignore everyone else from the sideline and your team and just have to focus on the goal and place the ball into the corner.”

Fabris did just that, delivering the game’s lone goal as host fourth-seeded Centereach defeated No. 12 North Babylon, 1-0, in a Suffolk Class AA quarterfinal girls soccer matchup Wednesday.

“They’ve shut her down every other time we’ve played them, so I’m really happy for her because she puts in a lot of work,” coach Andrew Nardi said. “She practiced those penalty kicks for the last four days and she finished it nicely, and that’s against a good goalie.”

Centereach (13-5) advances to play at top-seeded Smithtown West Friday in the Suffolk Class AA semifinals. Smithtown West, the defending Long Island Class AA champions, hasn’t lost a game this season.

“For our program, it’s huge,” said Nardi, who added the team graduated nine seniors from last year. “It’s our first time this far in the playoffs in my 10 years here, and for a lot of them, they suffered through some off years, so it means a lot to them.”

But also for Centereach, Wednesday was part about redemption and proving it belonged. North Babylon defeated Centereach in the opening round of the playoffs last fall. This year, Centereach entered the season placed as the 13th team in Suffolk’s power points system.

“Nobody expected us to ever come here,” defender Jadyn Siu-Yan Lui said. “We made it last year and everybody said it was lucky, so to do it again this year and beat the team we lost to last year is just amazing.”

“We proved them wrong,” Fabris added.

The Centereach defense, featuring Dana DelValle, Hannah McNally, Lauren Hoppe, Jillian Morwood and Lui, along with four saves from Jamie Eck limited scoring chances for North Babylon (8-7-3). And now, the Cougars are one win away from playing for a county title.

“Honestly, I knew that we could make it far, but I didn’t know how far we could make it,” Fabris said. “But I knew as the season progressed and how hard we worked that we deserved it.”