By Mitch Abramson
The match at Binghamton University was tied at 1-1 when that brief interplay took place and that is how the game, which was suspended briefly with 14:06 left in the first half because of thunder, would end.In the penalty kick shootout, Bochette and Martinez, a freshman at St. Francis College, shared another cozy moment as Bochette, who made a series of circus saves in the game, guessed correctly and dove to his right to stop Martinez's attempt. The save gave his team a 5-4 win in penalty kicks to advance to the bronze medal game Sunday.”I guess it was kind of ironic that he made the save on my penalty kick,” said Martinez, a member of the Brooklyn Knights Under-19 team, like a number of his teammates. “Adirondack was able to counter-attack pretty well against us, and they got behind the ball very quickly. They were waiting for us to make a wrong pass so they could take advantage of our mistakes.”New York City failed to capitalize on a man advantage when Adirondack's David Papa was given a yellow card and then a red card for abusive language a little more then midway through the first half. It was just another example of New York City's inability to score goals during the four-day tournament. In three games, the coupling of Saban Djonablic and Adrien Benetiz in goal gave up just two scores. The problem was that the team scored just two goals, creating three straight games decided by penalty kicks where they finished 1-2.”I've never been in a situation where every game ended that way,” said Martinez, a former player at John Bowne HS.”We were the best team in the tournament,” said Mirsad Huseinovic, one of the coaches of New York City, in his 13th year as either a coach or a player at the Empire State Games. “We do everything well offensively except score.”New York City got on the board first with a goal by Carlos Moncaleano, a resident of Jackson Heights and a sophomore on the St. Francis College soccer team, who left-footed the ball in from 30 yards out in the 46th minute to put New York up 1-0.”The coaches were telling me that when I got the ball to just take a shot,” he said.In the torrential downpour, that was probably the best advice a coach could give his players. It worked for Adirondack as Mike McCallion shoved a defender out of his way and punted the ball in from 10 yards out in the 51st minute to tie the game and send it to penalty kicks where New York City lost another heartbreaker.”The outcome would have been different if it wasn't for the rain,” Huseinovic said. “We're a very technical team, and we couldn't play our game, but our team is young Ñ every player is under 25 except for Saban [Djonablic] Ñ and we should do better next year.”Reach reporter Mitch Abramson by e-mail at TimesLedger@aol.com or call 718-229-0300, Ext. 130.
