Sachem Sports Roundup

Sachem North Boys Soccer: Sachem North’s boys soccer team continued to struggle last week. On Tuesday, powerhouse Sachem East traveled to North for a rivalry match. North fell 3-0, as East recorded its ninth shutout on the season. Brian Armstrong had nine saves for North and Vincent Formato had three saves. On Thursday, Sachem took a trip to Ward Melville. Again, the team was shutout by a score of 2-0. Brian Arango had six saves in this one. On Saturday, Sachem hosted Patchogue-Medford. The boys did score in this one, an early goal from Kyle Nasso, but Patchogue-Medford would come back, taking the lead on a goal in the 53^rd minute to hand Sachem another loss. Brian Armstrong had eight saves. The team now stands at 1-11-2 overall in League I. 

Sachem East Boys Soccer: East boys soccer has been one of the most dominant programs on Long Island this season, beating rival Brentwood twice and clinching a League I title this week with a win over the Indians. Sachem Patch will be featuring some stories about the East boys in the coming weeks during the post-season.

Sachem North Girls Soccer: Sachem North’s girls soccer team had some ups and downs last week. On Monday, Sachem hosted Commack. Heading into overtime, the score was tied 1-1. Just 1:45 into the first OT period, Commack scored to give Sachem the loss, 2-1. Wednesday brought another tough game for the girls, as they fell 2-0 to Longwood, at home once again. On Friday, Sachem traveled to Brentwood. In stark contrast to their two past games, Sachem was on the winning end of this one. Rachel LaSala scored her first varsity goal, junior Courtney Cohen had a goal, Ashlee Thompson had a goal and an assist, and Andrea Hegarty had an assist as well.

Sachem North Girls Volleyball: Sachem’s girls volleyball team split its two matches last week. On Monday, Sachem traveled to Commack. The girls won three games to two to take the match. Nicole Dale had 15 kills and six aces, Niki Nevola had 42 assists, and Danielle Levine had 18 kills. Sachem won by scores of 25-19, 25-16, and 25-19.

Sachem East Girls Cross Country: On October 14 the girls team competed in the Brown Invitational in Rhode Island. They competed in the Northeast Championship against some of the strongest teams in the Northeast area, including New York rival Northport. Rachel Paul, Shannon O’hehir, Melanie Notarstefano, and Danielle Vazquez were all apart of the varsity squad. These girls worked through their pain, exhaustion and fatigue to conquer a first place win and a first time ever feat against Northport. The score was tight but Sachem beat Northport 72-85. Paul led her team to victory with a second place finish against top New York runner, Kelsey Margey. Paul got a new personal best of 17:34 for the Brown Invitational Course.

“This is the first season since East opened where we’ve had an opportunity to actually be a top team in the county,” said Sachem coach Jaimie Sison.

This week, as usual, Paul came through, winning her first Individual Division Cross Country title with an outstanding 18:42 on the Sunken Meadow 5K (3.1 mile) course. O'Hehir followed in 10th in 19:52 and Vasquez placed 15th in 20:18. Kaitlin DeMartino answered her teams call finishing 36th in 21:13, closely followed by a constantly improving Nicole Silvestre, 38th in 21:17. Final scores of the top three teams: Ward Melville, first with 68 points, Sachem East, second with 98 points, and Northport, third totaling 120. Providing strong backup for Sachem East were Jada Allen, Sam Maurice, and Katie Hempfling.On November 4, the East girls will again be facing Ward Melville and Northport (and 20 other qualifiers) at Sunken Meadow to determine Suffolk County's Class "A" representative at the New York State Chamoionship. Race time is 2:50 pm.

Kaitlin DeMartino, who normally finishes as the fifth runner, had to slide up to fourth runner and someone else took her place and finished the team scoring. With Suffolk County's top 20 schools in this championship race, the East girls (ranked No. 7 in NYS) was severely tested, particularly by Ward Melville (No. 8 NYS), and Northport (No. 10 NYS).

Sachem North senior Christopher Buckley contributed to this notebook.