Long Beach girls soccer makes statement against Calhoun after falling to Colts in playoffs last year
Ava Kolb of host Long Beach takes a shot on goal against Calhoun during an Nassau girls soccer game on Wednesday. Credit: Derrick Dingle/Derrick Dingle
The Long Beach postgame victory celebration seemed to have a little more enthusiasm behind it on Wednesday. And that’s partly because the final memory the players had of last season was seeing Calhoun do something similar.
After losing to Calhoun by four goals in the playoffs last season, Long Beach was especially focused heading into its Nassau Conference AAA/AA-II girls soccer match on Wednesday. The players never forgot that feeling of seeing Calhoun’s celebration, and that image played a role in a 2-1 victory for the Marines at Long Beach.
“One-hundred-and-ten percent,” senior midfielder Ava Kolb said. “We know we’re capable of winning against these good teams. I think it’s just the fact that we put our mind to it and we put our foot down as soon as the first whistle was blown. We were ready to get it back.”
Calhoun defeated Long Beach, 4-0, in the Nassau Class AA quarterfinals last year.
“There always will be a different mindset when you want to get a little bit of revenge on a team when you feel like you didn’t give your best effort and a score shows something that you didn’t work toward all year,” coach Ashley Gervasi said. “All year you work for that big game and to see that 4-0 and that’s in the papers and in the school, there will always be some kind of grit that comes out of you when you get a rematch against that team. Now they go into school tomorrow and say, ‘Look, we beat them.’ They are going to be proud in the hallways tomorrow, and they should be because they worked hard for it.”
Kolb opened the scoring with a penalty kick with 28:26 left in the first half.
Kaitlin Kelly added to Long Beach’s lead when she took a through ball from Maeve Lind, beat a defender and sent the shot to the bottom-right corner to give Long Beach a 2-0 lead with 24:55 left in the second half.
“They were in first place and they are a physical team, so we wanted to bring the physicality up,” Kelly said. “We knew we had to be more physical and play as a team. We want to start building up, instead of backing down.”
Sabrina Curcio scored directly off a corner kick with 7:13 left in the second half for Calhoun (4-1-1, 3-1-1). Vanessa Leddy had 10 saves for Long Beach (2-2-1).
“This is a very good confidence booster,” Kolb said. “We know we are capable of winning against good teams.”
