Highlanders soccer aiming for highest Long Island honor

Herricks’ pitch-perfect season isn’t over yet.

The boys soccer team is hungry for a Long Island championship after taking it all in Nassau for the first time in 20 years after a two-win season in 2024.

“The personnel haven’t changed. It’s the same group of kids,” Highlanders head coach Adriana Mendrinos told The Post after keeping the dream alive with a mighty 3-0 county finals win over Syosset.

“Year after year, they get stronger, they get smarter, and we have a group of leaders this year that really want to make a name for themselves,” added the 28-year-old, a former forward at Queens College.

Mendrinos is also one of the few women coaching boys at her level. She looks up to the “tremendous success” enjoyed by Christine Ho, the coach of Plainview-Old Bethpage, and is enthusiastic about her own laurels joining the local legacy of women in boys soccer on LI.

“I’m glad I can add to it.”

There can only be one 

Herricks once again has a long and tall road ahead in Suffolk champion Commack, who won 2-1 over Brentwood on Monday. It will also be in enemy territory as Saturday’s LIC is hosted in the 631 at Islip High School, but the boys in blue could care very little.

“It’s going to be a different atmosphere, probably more Suffolk fans, but I think we just have the mentality that we’re the better team, and we’ll be there,” said 11th-grade striker Saif Khan.

“We’ll show up.”

Nobody has been showing up like senior goalkeeper Brayden Haase, whose five-game shutout streak has carried the Highlanders through the team’s final two regular-season games and all of the playoffs.

“The way we’re playing right now, I feel like no one can score on us right now,” Haase said, lauding the team’s “fantastic” defensive presence.

Herricks’ offense has been enjoying a boom as well, having scored six goals since the county quarterfinals. Senior center-midfielder Aidan Bernic, who booted the first goal three minutes in against Syosset, attributes that to the boys’ tight bond translating into mighty play.

“We’ve got a lot of chemistry and we’re playing with heart,” he said.

From glen to glen 

The boys’ connection is shared with Mendrinos, a middle school Spanish teacher in the district who took the role right out of college. 

She ended up having most of her athletes as students a few years back.

“I know them by the time they come up here…they know our expectation by the time they reach varsity,” said the coach, who is one of the younger ones to win a county title.

“There were kids who I said, ‘You better keep playing club soccer because when you get to the high school, I need you to play for me.’ ”

The focus is now on finishing the job, as the Highlanders aim to win Long Island for the first time since 1996.

“There’s a lot more to be done for Herricks because the story is not over yet,” added center-midfielder Robert Profeta.

Super saver Haase added that the Highlanders are “the most confident we’ve ever been” heading into the matchup against 17-1-1 juggernaut Commack.

Defying the odds is the Herricks mantra, after all.

“I think if you had asked other people if we would have made it this far, they’d probably say no,” the head coach said.

The boys even wrote “Believe” on a locker room whiteboard during the county title, a nod to the show “Ted Lasso” and fictitious AFC Richmond’s rise from zero to hero.

“We might be the underdogs going into this, but if we believe in ourselves, we know what we’re capable of,” added Khan.

It’s a message that has been passed from the top down since mid-October.

“Something that assistant coach Gordon Purdie continues to say to the boys is, ‘Let’s shock the world,’ ” said Mendrinos.

“So we’re just going to show up and try and shock the world.”