On a surprisingly warm but breezy Monday evening at Patchogue-Medford High School, the Ward Melville Patriots defeated the Pat-Med Raiders 2-0 in a League I matchup.
The Patriots (8-3) got on the board at the 17:49 mark when Caysea Cohen got the ball deep in the Raiders (4-6) zone and beat keeper Kelly Semon and the ball slowly rolled into the net. Despite the effort of two Raiders' defenders to knock the ball out before it was called a goal, the referee said it had gone deep enough into the net and ruled it a goal.
When play restarted, the Raiders seemed to be caught off guard and Cohen got the ball up the right side and launched a perfect shot from about 30 yards out that sailed past Semon's fingertips and into the back of the net. Just over 20 seconds after the Patriots scored their first goal, they found themselves up 2-0.
Find out what's happening in Three Villagewith free, real-time updates from Patch.
"I felt we were lucky to get two goals," Patriots coach John Diehl said. "Pat-Med is always a tough opponent, especially on this field. First half I felt was even but we were fortunate, we had a couple good plays and capitalized."
The Raiders had a few missed opportunities they failed to capitalize on, none bigger than the opportunity Jessica Donato had near the end of the half. With no more than 30 seconds left in the first half, Donato beat two defenders and had Patriots keeper Ally Ramos one on one. Donato launched a shot from point blank range but Ramos made a great diving save to preserve the shutout and keep it a two-goal game. Ramos played extremely well and had 11 saves in the shutout.
Find out what's happening in Three Villagewith free, real-time updates from Patch.
"We played our game just the mental mistakes we make is what we need to improve on," Raiders head coach Chris Grieco said. "When we don't make the mental mistakes is when we do well. I think we played a very good game today, we had two mistakes we made that hurt us but all around I think we outplayed then. Their keeper made some phenomenal saves and unfortunately we didn't come out on top."
The two teams went back and forth in the second half, but neither team broke through and the Patriots clinched the 2-0 lead and their eighth win of the season.
"Going into the half I was hoping we could pick up our play and aggressiveness so we could deny as much as we can and I felt we came back in the second half stronger as a team," Diehl said.
The Patriots are locked into the playoffs but have one more regular season game on Wednesday, Oct. 27 at 4:15 p.m. against Brentwood (1-11)
We've had a lot of injuries this year," Diehl said. "We have five starters on the bench so were just battling all that and it's been a tough season but as a team they've come together as best as they can. They can do well [in the playoffs] if they bring it every game…some of these kids just never stop running. So we're getting ready for the playoffs and we'll see what we can do."
