SCARSDALE —Drew Simon’s shot pinged off of the post and Javier Casado’s rebound attempt banged off of the crossbar, leaving Edgemont in shock that it had failed to take the lead.
But while the Panthers were in disbelief, Vasiliy Schevelchinsky and his Carmel teammates were racing toward the Edgemont goal.
“I was thinking about how lucky we were, and that we have to put one in now before it gets out of hand for us,” Schevelchinsky said. “We caught them on the counter. They were frustrated, and I capitalized.”
The senior forward netted the go-ahead goal in the 34th minute on Monday about 15 seconds after Edgemont had two shots hit iron, scoring the first of his three goals to lead the Rams to a 4-1 win in each team’s season finale.
“This was a big one,” Schevelchinsky said. “This led us to go .500 and it was good to win against a good team.”
Sebastian Lopez, who has been Carmel’s leading scorer this season, put the Rams (8-8) up 2-0 with a goal in the final seconds of the first half, and then Schevelchinsky completed his hat trick in the second half.
“This is my first hat trick,” Schevelchinsky said. “It feels great.”
The Panthers (11-4) got a goal from Zander Goldman, but Carmel goalie Ross Hoffman finished with 12 saves in a strong effort.
“I knew that the game was going to turn,” Lopez said. “We had to win this game, and that gave us a push. They had a lot of chances in the beginning, but we kind of took over the game.”
With the Edgemont girls team using their normal field, the boys game was moved to a much smaller grass field that made it difficult for either team to find much space to work with. But while the narrow field caused some frustrations, it also resulted in a lot of shots from each team.
“This was definitely the smallest field that we’ve played on,” Schevelchinsky said. “On Friday, we played on the biggest field (at Arlington), and now we’ve played on the smallest field.”
Schevelchinsky’s emergence has taken some of the pressure off of Lopez, who is having a tremendous junior campaign with 15 goals and 11 assists. Once the playoffs hit, Lopez knows that he’ll be a marked man.
“That’s what they pretty much did last year,” Lopez said. “They started to know me, so I guess they’re going to try to do that again. Every game, they put like four or five guys on me. With the help of my teammates, I’m doing everything right.”
The Rams’ win means that they finish at .500, which should benefit other teams in their league such as Arlington, John Jay-EF, Ketcham and Mahopac in terms of bonus points. The Panthers’ loss keeps them under a .750 winning percentage, which will cost some of the teams that they have played.
Carmel will be on the road to start the Class AA playoffs, but after upsetting third-seeded White Plains in last year’s first round, it wouldn’t be wise to take the Rams lightly.
“We’re very confident,” Schevelchinsky said. “We don’t care which team we play. We like the challenges.”
Best of the rest: Croton-Harmon’s Peter Dinger had two assists in a 2-1 overtime win over visiting Putnam Valley. ... Liam Bradley had a goal and two assists in Horace Greeley’s 4-1 win over visiting Scarsdale. ... Miguel Tunas had two assists in North Salem’s 3-0 win over visiting Pawling to lead the Tigers to their 10th straight win. ... Jon Goldreich had a hat trick and Ben Ovetsky had two goals and two assists in Irvington’s 6-1 win over visiting Dobbs Ferry. … Kevin Collado scored twice in Rye Country Day’s 3-2 win over visiting Long Island Lutheran. … Osvaldo Almiron had a goal and an assist in White Plains’ 6-0 win over visiting Clarkstown North. … Gary Marin scored twice in Pelham’s 3-0 win over visiting Tuckahoe. .. Jay Marchese and Ramsey Hietmann each scored twice in Haldane’s 6-1 win at Panas. … Kensuke Hirai had four goals in Keio’s 10-0 win over visiting Hen Hud. … Emmet Gaffney had two goals and an assist in Mamaroneck’s 5-1 win over John Jay at Flint Park. … Adin Rinzler scored two second half goals in Hackley’s 4-0 win at Trinity. … Luke Colley scored the golden goal in Sleepy Hollow’s 2-1 overtime win at Solomon Schechter. … Alejandro Alvarez had three goals and an assist in Ossining’s 7-1 win at Pleasantville. … New Rochelle beat Woodlands 2-1. … Saunders beat Ardsley 4-3. … Yorktown beat Brewster 3-0. … Briarcliff beat Westlake 2-0.
CHECK BACK SOON FOR MY SEEDING PROJECTIONS. NOW THAT WE HAVE ALL OF TONIGHT’S RESULTS, I’M CRUNCHING SOME NUMBERS.
The post Monday’s results: Carmel finishes .500 with win at Edgemont appeared first on The LoHud Boys Soccer Blog.