The firsts pulled out an amazing and historic victory against Mineola Portuguese under very difficult conditions to reach the state cup final for the very first time in the club's short 11 year history. The game was moved at the last minute from a turf field to a very poor, all but unplayable, "natural" surface, and the kickoff was delayed by more than an hour. On top of that, we had a team short of several first team starters and a few players carrying injuries. Once the game started these problems were compounded by our going behind to an early goal. But the boys on the pitch kept plugging away and put in an amazing effort to put us ahead in the second half through goals from Danny D'Angelo and Eli Vovsha - the first a powerful strike from the edge of the area, assisted by an unselfish pass from Josh; and the second a header placed in the corner with expert precision from a tight angle. With ten minutes to go the referee awarded Mineola a soft penalty and the game was tied 2-2 and headed to a penalty shootout. While we missed a couple of kicks ourselves, Ben Lucki, the team's longest serving player, appropriately emerged the hero as he made 3 PK saves and ensured we reached the final. Special mention goes to Kwesi, Eli and Jay, who all made herculean efforts playing with injuries... and to Roman, who did not see any action on the pitch but made the early morning trip to the game as a substitute.

Team: Ben, Pat, Josh, Elie, Mark, Conor, Danny, Eli, Chris, Kwesi, Jay. Sub (unused): Roman