Garden City Soccer Shuts Out South Side, 4-0

After missing the playoffs last year, the Garden City boys soccer team is hungry to get back on top.

They took a big step towards that on Wednesday at Skelos Field in Rockville Centre, beating two-time defending Nassau County champs South Side, 4-0.

Two of Garden City's captains, Sean Bingham and Cosmo Veneziale, scored in the win. South Side played a sloppy first half, but was only down 1-0 heading into the second stanza. The Trojans, however, capitalized on the Cyclones mistakes in the second half and scored on three of their four shots on goal.

"They both played great," Trojans head coach Carlo Mazarese said of his two captains. "I like the way we looked today. We were really in sync."

Garden City first scored around 15 minutes into the game. A stolen ball and beautiful lead pass gave Bingham a 2-on-2 breakaway attempt, and the captain scorched it past a diving Taylor Kosakoff for a 1-0 lead.

South Side could not find its offensive rhythm in the first half, and that carried over into the final 40 minutes. Cyclones head coach Fred Paul screamed from the sidelines for his team "to play with some life."

"I saw in the first three games, a lot of unforced turnovers," he said. "We're looking to get a homerun ball instead of playing our type of soccer."

Nearly 11 minutes into the second half, Christopher Skorr was in perfect position to tap in a deflected ball and give Garden City a 2-0 lead. Six minutes later, after Kosakoff made another great diving save, the ball trickled away from his reach and Veneziale was there to bury it for a 3-0 lead

Veneziale added a beautiful, bending set shot into the upper left hand corner of the goal with 12 minutes left in the game for his second of the contest, sealing the 4-0 victory for Garden City.

Garden City takes on Wantagh Friday at 4:30 p.m. at home.