Long Beach Girls Soccer Falls to Mepham 3-1

The Mepham girls soccer team continued their stampede through Nassau's Conference II with a definitive 3-1 win over Long Beach at Long Beach Middle School Wednesday afternoon. With the win, Mepham lifted their record to 8–0 on the season, while Long Beach dropped to 2–5–1.

Mepham scored their three goals in the first half, led by sophomore Ashley Appel, who angled in a deflected shot 21 minutes into the game and assisted on freshman Emily Schmidt's score off a corner kick ten minutes later.

The undefeated record and the team's sense of unity and chemistry have the Pirates flying high and thinking about a run deep into postseason play.

"It feels amazing," said Appel of Mepham's early success. 'We're doing really good this year. We've been talking about this since day one, having practices since way early in the summer. We think we're going to go really far. A lot of us are young; there's a lot of love."

While Long Beach's youth movement also holds promise for the future, the present has been an exercise in frustration. Aside from the glaring talents of freshman Shannon Horgan and sophomore Emily Aquedello, the Marines are struggling to find offense.

"The game should be going center, wide, center, wide," said Horgan. "But we're not able to do that. It's very crowded in the middle for us."

Aquadello had Long Beach's only goal when she slashed through traffic at midfield and launched a rocket from 40 yards that caught the back of the net  at 67 minutes.

Although Mepham denied Long Beach another scoring chance for the rest of the match, Marines head coach Jim McManus was unsatisfied.

"Heading towards the playoffs, I want them playing playoff soccer," said McManus. "I shouldn't be complaining. We gave up three shots on goal. But there are times where their choices aren't the right choices. We want to get better."