Eighty seconds away.
Eighty more seconds of clean sheet soccer, and the Mineola boys team would have been playing for the first state championship in school history last Saturday.
For 78:40 of their Nov. 10 Class A state semifinal match against Byram Hills at Middletown High School, the Mustangs did everything they wanted to do.
They played stout defense, converted one great opportunity while pressuring the Bobcats repeatedly, and didn’t make many mental or physical mistakes at all.
But as head coach Al Cavalluzzo said after the game, the beauty and the agony of sport is that glory can be right on the tips of your cleats, and then be snatched away.
And so it was that Byram Hills, playing a man down at the time, converted a corner kick with 1:20 to go, tying the score. Then an overtime goal, aided both by a key card reversal and a key call in favor of Byram Hills by the officials, 8:37 into the first extra session by the Bobcats’ Chris Amenedo sent Byram Hills into the championship match. And sent Mineola on the long bus ride home.
When Amenedo’s ball went through the twine, several of Mineola’s players fell to the ground and stayed there for several minutes.
Beauty and agony, indeed.
“This team, all year, has been adamant that they would get here and win a state title, so I think they’re a little stunned right now,” Cavalluzzo said. “We played the game we wanted to play, and I thought we were in a great spot right until the end.”
For Mineola, everything was going perfectly according to plan. The Mustangs attacked and got chances but couldn’t convert in the first half.
But Mineola broke the scoreless tie 13 minutes into the second half, on a goal by Zain Rees. During a battle by the right corner flag, Mineola’s leading scorer, Jose Escobar, stole the ball from a Byram Hills defender, then found Leonardo Cuello Gonzalez a few feet away.
Gonzalez sent a quick pass to Rees, who blasted a low shot past Byram Hills goalie Gavin Nichols to give Mineola the lead.
After that, things were good until the end, when things got strange. With five minutes left, it appeared that the referees gave a second yellow card to Byram Hills No. 5, Peter Mon, which meant he was out of the game and the Bobcats would have to play down a man the rest of the contest.
With but 1:20 left in the game, though, Byram Hills got the chance it needed. The Bobcats earned a corner kick, and a header by Harrison Boyd eluded Mineola goalie Jesse Kostulias.
“We knew they were a big, physical team and we talked all week about defending on dead balls,” Cavalluzzo said. “And in the end that’s what got us. Their kid made a great corner cross, and their kid Boyd went up and just outjumped our defense and made a great header.”
In the interim before overtime, Cavalluzzo reminded his kids they’d been there before.
“We said, ‘Hey, we wouldn’t be us if we didn’t make things interesting,'” Cavalluzzo said. “We reminded them we were up 3-1 against Kings Park and had to go (to overtime), and won, so we thought we could do it again.”
The game would go to extra time tied at 1. Then mysteriously Byram Hills got their 11th man back in the game to start the first extra session. Cavalluzzo and Mineola’s team were confused, and the only explanation the coach said he received sounded illogical.
“They told me that during the break the official (scorebook) for yellow cards had one on No. 5 and one on No. 3,” Cavalluzzo said. “That was the only thing they said, so they allowed (Byram Hills) to put a player back in.
“We tried to look into it; we watched the film and saw No. 5 get two yellows,” Cavalluzzo said. “What the official book says is what they go with, so there was nothing we could do.”
Still, Mineola, despite having to replace starter Adryan Campos, who had to come off in the first half with an injury, pressed forward.
Four minutes into the first OT, a free kick for Mineola outside the box from 25 yards away saw a Sebastian Knight shot punched over the top of goal by Byram Hills goalie Nichols.
It looked to be a corner kick and a golden opportunity to end the game for Mineola, but the officials ruled there was a violation on Mineola on the free kick.
The Bobcats then won it with 8:37 left in first OT, as Amenedo took a pass from Billy Gillespie 10 yards out on the right side, made a quick cut past the Mineola defense, and blasted a quick shot into the net.
It ended a dream season for the Mustangs, one they and their coach won’t soon forget.
“We all said if we’re not playing in November this year, we did something wrong,” Cavalluzzo said. “And we did get to play in November. “To represent your high school, where soccer is everything … our kids are sad that those relationships in relation to high school soccer came to an end.”
