The stage was set.
Amityville, the Suffolk County champs, vs the Nassau champs of Glen Cove, who surprised a confident Garden City team by handing them a loss in their county final. Some people thought Sunday’s LIC would be an easy win for Amityville, but others knew better than to count Glen Cove out as an underdog.

Amityville controlled the ball well at the start, but Glen Cove was the first to score with a header off a corner kick. Amityville fans cheered in anticipation of an equalizer, which came less than 2 minutes later when Hugo Rodriguez put the Warriors on the board and tied the game 1-1.

Amityville took the lead with 30 minutes left in the half as Stanley Louis tapped the ball over Glen Cove’s onrushingkeeper, making the score 2-1. That lead would only last for the next ten minutes until Glen Cove evened the score at 2-2, headed into half time.

Fans from both schools nervously watched and cheered (and sometimes jeered at seemingly less-than-favorable calls) in the second half, and both sides seemed to have multiple chances to score, only to see the scoreboard remain unchanged.

With just over 3 minutes left in regulation, Roberth Perez headed a ball from Norvin Martinez-Hernandez into the net, giving the Amityville Warriors a 3-2 lead. Glen Cove tried to pressure their way into another equalizing goal, but the Warriors defense proved to be too much, and Amityville won their second straight Long Island Championship– the fifth in eight years. Quoted in Newsday after the game, Perez stated, “Norv’s job is to put the ball in the right place and he found me. I always feel like I can outjump everybody and I thought my height could be a factor.”

The Warriors will now head upstate to take on Section V champions, Spencerport, in a morning state semifinal at Monroe-Woodbury High School. The winner of that game will advance to the state final on Sunday.

The Amityville ECHO wishes the team all they best as they leave for the last leg of their “revenge tour” on Friday morning.