Massapequa Boys Soccer Falls Short At LI Championships

After a stellar season of boys soccer, the Massapequa Chiefs season ended on a bitter note Sunday with a loss to the Brentwood Indians, 5-3, in the Long Island Class AA championship match.

The defeat ended the Chiefs' dreams of moving on to the State finals.

The game, hosted at Dowling Stadium in Shirley, started out promising for Massapequa, with Liam Callahan drawing first blood of the match by nailing a goal on Brentwood with just 10 minutes in.

However, from that point on the Chiefs faced an uphill battle, with the Indians bouncing back with goals of their own at 27:40, 23:47, and 5:00, closing out the first half with Massapequa trailing, 3-1.

This was the most physical high school soccer game seen in some time, with players constantly pushing, shoving and inadvertently tripping each other in desperate attempts to gain an advantage, earning several players yellow cards as a result.

The Chiefs got serious in the second half, and with 31:53 on the clock, Tyler Gannon added another point to Massapequa's tally by head butting a corner kick past the Indians' goalie. The score was now 3-2.

But Brentwood rallied back, getting the ball past Massapequa goalie Sean Brailey with 27:13 remaining, pulling ahead, 4-2. Connor Nealis tried to put Massapequa back in the game with a powerful goal attempt at 24:28 that, unfortunately, went wide by only a foot.

The Indians cemented their lead with 5:10 remaining when the Chiefs' Brailey deflected one goal attempt, only to have a second Brentwood player follow up and score before the Massapequa goalie could recover.

Massapequa gave it all they had in the game's closing minutes, and with just 1:36 remaining, Tyler Gannon blasted a ball into the Indians' goal, but it was too late; at the closing buzzer, Brentwood snatched victory and the Long Island championship from the clutches of Massapequa, the final score being 5-3.

Despite appearing to take the loss hard, Massapequa head coach Keith Stanley still managed to concede that the Indians were the better team that day.

"They deserved to win today...they were a better team," he said. "I think we played well enough to put three goals in the net, but it's hard to keep the ball out of our net with these guys. We made some...I don't even want to say we made some mistakes, Brentwood just played very well, they buried everything they shot. I don't think they had a ton of opportunities until the end of the game, but every opportunity they had, they buried it."

"They were a good team, they were strong in every position," Stanley added. "It ended the way it should have."

Stanley also reflected upon the Chiefs' sterling season.

"We had an amazing run," he said. "I couldn't be prouder of my guys. I don't think they should be disappointed in anything they did out there...we're just disappointed that it's over."

Massapequa finishes out the season at an impressive 13-4-2.