Boys Soccer Playoffs – Garden City Advances to Finals

The top seeded Trojans came into the semi final match feeling pretty good about their chances after two dominating shutout wins against Long Beach and Bethpage. But if anyone follows sports, you’re only as good as the game you're in. And this one appeared to be a tough matchup against fourth seeded, undefeated Mineola. A team that featured a quick striking offense and solid defense.

To counter the attack of Mineola, coach Paul Cutter had his team play an aggressive, up tempo attacking style, challenging for every ball and never giving up on a play. Throughout the early part of the match you could hear the calls to close down on the ball when Mineola had possession in their defensive end as Andy Schneider and Nick Prime continually pressured the ball. The high energy forced several early turnovers and in the tenth minute the Trojans were awarded a corner kick as a Prime shot was deflected wide of the goal.

Garden City cashed in on terrific John Scarlata corner kick, as James Costello went over the defense and placed a perfect header into the corner of the goal for a 1-0 Trojan lead.

Continuing their pressure on the ball, Garden City kept the ball in their offensive end of the field and in the sixteenth minute the hustle of Schneider tracked a ball as it reached the end line from a Costello free kick and he pushed it back to an oncoming Scarlata who buried the shot into the back of the net.

The rest of the first half continued with Garden City looking like they just had an extra gear, winning almost every loose ball and constantly applying pressure. Mineola escaped the rest of the half without allowing another goal to remain in the game, but it was inevitable that GC would break through at some point.

It took less than five minutes into the second half for the key third goal to come. The goal was a perfect example of how the game had gone to this point, with Nick Prime supplying the pressure on the defense and the hustle to open space for himself to send a rocket of a shot that froze the keeper and put GC up 3-0.

With 35 minutes remaining in the game all that was left was to see if Garden City would maintain another clean sheet for keeper Sammy Myers.

The Trojan offense had other things in mind, like continuing to press and look for more scoring opportunities. This time it was Andy Schnieder getting a goal of his own with a blast from the top of the box in the 14th minute to put GC up 4-0.

And wrapping up the scoring was Connor Eschmann as he slipped inside the defense to drive home a header from a cross from Houston Kufs.

Garden City will be heading to the Nassau County championship for the fourth straight season and will face No. 10 seeded Great Neck North on Wednesday.

Full gallery of photos at https://zenfolio.page.link/gg7...