The Varsity Boys team played host to their third non league match of the season as they took on the Plainedge Red Devils at North Middle School for a morning match. The game provided the opportunity for both coaches to give much needed playing time to the reserves on the roster and that is how the game began. Lynbrook’s starting XI consisted of 11 occasional players and Plainedge ran out a similar line-up.

The Owls applied immediate pressure at the games start and generate a number of great chances at the goal on some great passing and crossing of the ball. The game settled seemed to settle in after about 10 minutes which was when Plainedge struck first. After Lynbrook’s Grayson Prestianni made a challenging save to his left side and the subsequent clearing of the defensive end, Plainedge made their way back into the are and fired a shot from Prestianni’s left side. He made another save to his right where the ball squirted out and a Plainedge attacker was right there to knock it home to open the scoring. Poor defensive marking and positioning led to Lynbrook going down 1-nil in the match. The remaining time of the first half was back and forth and played mostly in the middle third of the field. Plainedge took the 1 goal lead to halftime.

The second half of play opened up and the Owls needed to score and get the game back to level. Unfortunately, just 6 minutes into the half, Plainedge scored again. The Red Devil’s took advantage of Prestianni ( 5 saves) being off his line and took a shot from 35 yards out that floated over his hands and into the net giving them a 2-0 lead in the game. Just 1 minute later, Plainedge struck again when Lynbrook failed to clear out a ball from the box and a rebounded ball found an unmarked attacker who struck it past the Owls netminder. This extended the Plainedge lead to 3.

The Owls made a number of changes to personnel at this point due to injuries and exhaustion from the warm day. With many of the regular staters now in the game, Lynbrook went to work and started finding their game. In the 57 minute, Lynbrook earned a throw in deep in Plainedge’s end of the field. Devin Ryan sent the ball into play where Riley Moscheni was able to get a head on it. The ball fell to Nick Mignella who left foot volleyed it into the net. The goal cut the Plainedge lead to 2 and the Owls were in business.

Unfortunately, even with some much better play, the Owls were unable to convert a number of opportunities and had to settle for just the lone goal. The game went final with the Owls losing 1-3.

Lynbrook now heads into a short break with the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashana making the team idle for two days this week. The team will have a short conditioning session on Monday and then return Thursday to prepare for a must win game on Friday as they travel to Valley Stream South HS on 9/26. The first meeting between the sides resulted in a 0-0 draw.

Pictures from today’s game: https://lhssoccer.jalbum.net/vs%20Plainedge/