Lately there’s been plenty to cheer about for Carle Place High School soccer fans. The varsity boys soccer team has had an impressive run of success over the last several years and, after winning the Long Island Class B Championship this season, enjoyed its third most successful playoff run in team history. The team had previously won the state title in 2013 and made it to the state finals in 1991.
“We’re a very successful boys program,” said Coach Allen Foraker. “We’re coming off a great run. In 2015 we were undefeated conference and county champions. We won county titles in 2012, ’13, ’15 and ’16. It’s been a nice stretch.”
An undefeated regular season and county championship is a difficult act to follow, especially after graduating several key starters from the team. For Foraker, this season’s success was unexpected, making their accomplishments all the more satisfying.
“Your hope going into a season is always to reach the postseason,” he said. “We graduated a large number of seniors and starters. But [our team] came together. They worked exceptionally hard and our defense was very strong.”
“I didn’t think we were getting far this year,” said Team Captain Tommy Brown, a senior and the team’s leading scorer. “But we did even better than last year, so that was the best thing.”
Inevitably, when a team performs well and falls short of its ultimate goal, a season can feel like a missed opportunity. Foraker acknowledges that the possibility of a state championship was very much on his mind, but that the season still feels like a big success.
“Of course it’s disappointing when you’re one game away from the ultimate goal,” he said. “But I wanted to make sure that every player knew how proud I was of them. The coaches were all at peace after the final game. I think we were feeling more satisfaction than anything else.”
Roster turnover is a reality of high school sports; older players move on, younger players come in and as a result maintaining long-term success can be a challenge. In facing the team’s uncertain future, Foraker cites the playoff runs his younger players have witnessed as key to their development.
“You hope it’s not a complete rebuild,” Foraker said. “You always want not to rebuild, but to reload. We’ll be young next year. We’re graduating 10 seniors and we’ll have a lot of freshmen and sophomores. But they gained a lot of experience from being in the playoffs.”
“There’s some young talent on the team,” added Brown, in assessing how competitive the team will be next year. “Some of the players also got called up for the playoffs the year before, so they’ve had an extra year of playoffs. That should help them.”
Whatever next season holds for the team, Foraker places a lot of faith in the Carle Place community, believing that the players and fans surrounding the team are vitally important.
“The high school is really the center of our community,” he said. “We get hundreds of fans. They’re lovers of the community. And the thing with Carle Place kids is they work real hard.”
