Sports
East Soccer Earns Draw With Pat-Med, Faces Must-Win Game at Commack
Demetrios Tsiokos scores on penalty kick for only East goal.
After two hard fought halves and two overtime periods, the Sachem East varsity boys soccer team ended up with a 1-1 draw with Patchogue-Medford on a misty Tuesday night.
The draw sets up the Flaming Arrows with a must-win game at first-place Commack (11-1-1) on Thursday, Oct. 28 at 4 p.m.
Sachem East jumped out to an early lead in the game when Demetrios Tsiokos converted a penalty kick with minutes remaining in the first half. Tsiokos deked Raiders keeper Keith Orlando into diving to his left then shot into a wide open net for the goal.
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The Raiders struck back in the second half when Brian Cioffi weaved through the defense and beat Matt Bonomini in net to tie the game at one. Both teams had their opportunities for the rest of the game, but East certainly had the best ones. A misplay on a cross and an unfortunate roll off a misplay by Orlando highlighted the Arrows' struggles to convert in the game.
"They [Pat-Med] gave a good effort, we just needed to finish," Sachem head coach Matt Stallone said. "We put ourselves in a lot of opportune positions. We out-shot them twofold so we have to be able to produce more."
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Orlando had to make 12 saves in the game to secure the draw while Bonomini had to make just five. East must now travel to take on a first-place Commack team and beat them in order to make the League I playoffs.
"If you can't get fired up for a playoff type atmosphere game then you've got to do a gut check." Stallone said. "We should be going over there firing on all pistons, everybody raring to go and giving 150 percent."
The two teams played each other back on Oct. 7, and Commack got the 2-0 victory that day. The Arrows began the season 2-5-1, fortunately a surge in the second half of the season has put them in a position to not have to worry about what other teams do…just worry about beating Commack.
"The opportunities there and we control our own destiny," Stallone said. "We started off a little rough the first half the season then put ourselves in this situation so it would be so sweet to take care of business against Commack and get us into the playoffs."
