On this day 20 years ago…

With a 3-0 win over Hampton Bays, the boys soccer team registered its first winning season in team history. Since its debut seventeen years prior in the fall of 1973, the boys’ soccer team had witnessed more losses than wins until the ’90 Bears finished with a 6-5-1 record, paving the way for the great teams of the future. The Brook was led all season by 1st Team All-Leaguers Matt Bell and John Hildenbrand and 2nd Team All-League member Nils Brownworth. In the 3-0 win, goalkeeper Brian Madden recorded his fifth shutout of the season, a school record at the time, providing a stalwart last line of defense for the Blue and White.

Staid Stony Brook Cuts Loose

You'll have to excuse the soccer team at the Stony Brook School for breaking up the normally reserved atmosphere inside the campus dining room at Johnston Hall.

On the night of Oct. 25, the team snuck up to the bell tower and rang the bell repeatedly before charging into the dining room and interrupting the formal meal. But no demerits were issued. After all, it isn't every year that the soccer team finishes a season with a winning record. In fact, it hadn't happened in the school's 56-year history before this year's edition posted a 5-4-1 mark in League VIII.

"It was quite a scene," said coach Curt Masters. "You have to remember we have formal meals here at dinner - the boys wear jackets and ties."

No one knows for sure if any ties were loosened during the celebration, though the "exhilaration was heard and felt throughout the school," according to director of communications D.C. Dreger. "We all shared in it. We all clapped and we all yelled."

"There was a very strong camaraderie this year," said coach Curt Masters. "Last year we were 2-12-1 and we had a very fragmented team. There was little talk and we were very disjointed."

This season the team's roster includes five Long Islanders, but the rest of the boys hail from Vermont, Texas, Connecticut, Ohio, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Korea, Taiwan, and Saudi Arabia. "We also had seven seniors, who had gotten tired of losing for four years and that made a difference, too," Masters said. Four of the boys - John White, Matt Bell, Nate Hendriksen, and Brian Madden - even roomed together.

Until that fateful 3-0 victory over Hampton Bays, the school was widely known for turning out noted pianist Jorge Bolet - recognized as the most famous interpreter of Liszt - and Billy Graham's sons, Franklin and Ned. Even Donald Ian MacDonald, the director of drug abuse prevention in the Reagan administration, was a 1948 graduate. Now, however, a crew of 18 players - most with an uncommon country and language - can all say that they made history at one of Long Island's most prestigious schools.

~ Newsday

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