Sports

A Trojan Soccer Victory

After the exciting Varsity Girls Soccer game, the Varsity Boys Soccer team took the field,
with a roaring crowd ready for another thrilling homecoming showdown. From the start,
everyone knew it was going to be a close game. The score remained even until around a quarter
in when the Croton-Harmon Tigers had a fast break and put a cross into the middle of the box.
The Tigers scored a goal which put them ahead of the Trojans. While the Tigers had the early
lead, the crowd still maintained optimism that the Trojans would be victorious. Defense, led by
captains Jack Sassower and Ethan Taerstein, was strong for the rest of the first half. With less
than 11 seconds remaining in the first half, the ball crossed into the middle of the field where Eli
Zimmerman got a great touch into the goal. This tied the game, giving the Trojans and their fans
all the confidence heading into halftime.
The score remained stationary until around the third quarter. That changed when the
Tigers attacked, volleying the ball into the net off of an impressive cross. However, after further
review, the play was called offside and the game remained tied. Toward the end of the second
half, the Trojans started to dominate on offense, with the addition of multiple huge saves from
goalie Jack Bachman. This was all due to the intensity of Blind Brook captains, Daniel Karetsky
and Nico Gonzalez. Karetsky’s passing was on point, and Gonzalez was blowing past the
defenders easily. Freshman Jack Shaw was also a vital component for the Trojans, with quality
passes and great hustle. As the Trojans started to get the ball closer to the goal, juniors Tomo
Yamano, Martin Otero, Eli Zimmerman, and sophomore Noah Brookman were creating the best
opportunities in front of the net. Yamano had multiple big crosses in the second half, and

Brookman kept working the ball around the box, with Otero and Zimmerman around both of
them.
Despite the many close attempts in the second half, unfortunately, Blind Brook scored no
goals. The game went into a 10-minute overtime. For the last ten minutes, the Trojan defense
was impossible to get past, and the ball was mostly in the Tigers half.
With no goals scored in overtime, the game went into double overtime. The crowd was
going crazy, hoping for a Trojan goal to end homecoming weekend with a win. The ball went up
and down the field, until there were about four minutes left in double overtime. The ball was in
the Croton-Harmon box and was redirected multiple times. Finally, Blind Brook’s Martin Otero
got a perfect touch on the ball and scored the winning goal, another soccer victory for the
Trojans! The crowd was so loud that many were able to hear the noise from their houses in the
Arbors community. With the positioning and touch from Martin Otero, the Trojans exited
homecoming night with two double overtime wins.
When asked days later about scoring the winning goal, and what securing the
homecoming win felt like, Otero stated, “It felt really good to finally win it through a lot of hard
work with the team. My brother was there and he did it last year, and he was very happy for me.”
There could not have been a better way to end homecoming weekend off then, with two game winners in double overtime.