The Patchogue-Medford Boys’ Varsity Soccer team has had one of the best seasons in history so far. They started the season with a predicted county preseason rank of six, which was shockingly low considering the amazing spectacle the boys put on during the season and the infamous playoff game against Brentwood.

The moto of the team became “Revenge Tour” which holds two different meanings: one, that they want revenge for losing last season in the second round of playoffs when they knew they should’ve gone further; and two, they want revenge on anyone who doubted they would be able to come back to the glory they had last season.

The boys started the preseason a bit unsteady; they played an incredible game against last year’s county runners-up, Huntington. And then they played embarrassingly poor against a beatable North Babylon team.

The regular season seemed to be much of the same, they started off 3-3 with the hope that they would make playoffs, but there was no guarantee. But after this rocky start, Pat-Med has absolutely dominated.

They continued to play five more games, needing two wins and a tie just to clinch a playoff spot. They achieved their goal after only three games. In the last five games they have not lost once, even tying the number one ranked team in Suffolk League II, Connetquot. 

The boys were on a roll, they ended the season with a record of (7-3-1), tied for third best in League II and on top of it, those hard-fought last games got the all the way into the 7 seed.

Not only is that a great improvement over last years 16 seed Pat-Med squad, but that also meant another huge thing — a home playoff game. This is something that the Boys’ Soccer Team has not seen since coach Tim Trava played at Pat-Med, this was absolutely monumental for the program.

They were set to face-off against a tough #10 Sachem North in the first round of playoffs whom the team had actually lost to during the regular season.

“But this time it’s different. Home turf, home crowd, perfect weather, can’t ask for anything better!” said Junior Chris Espinosa.

And soon after kickoff, the team really showed how different this game was. A mere one minute and ten seconds into the game, Junior Andrew Tapia scored an absolute gem of a goal, sending a corner kick into the box which curved over the keeper’s head and into the net.

The crowd that had just been released from their 9^th period classes went crazy. The energy was so intense, and Sachem North seemed to be cracking under the pressure. Within the first twenty minutes, Junior Ryan Lazaridis bagged his 9^th and 10^th goals on the season to extend Pat-Med’s lead to three.

Right after halftime was over, the Raiders came out with what seemed like a different game plan. The goal now wasn’t to run up the score, the goal was to make sure they kept their shutout.

They played a much more defensive-minded game which worked wonders. The Sachem North attack just could not seem to break through Pat-Med’s stellar defense led by Senior captain, Marco Muy.

North fought and fought till the very end but came up short. The Raiders won the game 3-0.

Head coach Tim Trava had this to say after the game: “They fought hard out there. We were the better team today and that scoreboard reflects it. Now the mindset shifts to preparing for whoever we have to play Friday.”

Shortly after Pat-Med’s game ended, most of the team went to see #2 Connetquot play #15 Bellport: two teams whom the Raiders have a bitter rivalry with. Coincidentally, whoever won would be Pat-Med’s opponent on Friday.

It was pretty clear from the start who the more dominant team was. Connetquot defeated Bellport 5-0 and will move on to the next round.

The boys will play Connetquot Friday, October 28^th at Connetquot High School.

As chance would have it, this is the exact date, time, location, and round of playoffs as their game last year where Connetquot ended Pat-Med’s season with a final score of 3-1.

The boys are now looking for revenge and are going to put up a massive fight against the T-Birds on Friday.