Lady Cyclones Edge Garden City, 2-0

The Lady Cyclones rolled into Garden City on Monday looking to exact some revenge for last year’s 1-0 playoff loss to the Lady Trojans. 

They did just that, shutting out Garden City 2-0 in their first matchup against the defending New York State champs. Lady Cyclones goalkeeper Kelsey Berki finished with seven saves in the shutout win.

South Side head coach Shannon McEntee said she was happy to see her team get off to an early start, as she is looking for more offense from her squad. "I expect us to be a balanced team but definitely a team that is looking to put up a lot of offense and score," she said.

The two teams come into the season ranked in the pre-season top 10, with South Side No. 5 and Garden City No. 7. With a realignment of the conferences based on ability, the Trojans and Cyclones will face each other twice this season playing in Conference IV, Division A1. 

About six minutes into the game, Garden City had a corner kick that South Side cleared out of the box easily and started a quick counterattack up the right sideline. Working the ball down field with a couple of nice touch passes, the Lady Cyclones had their first good scoring chance and capitalized.

Meghan Hines took the ball around the Garden City defense and laid up a pretty pass to Keri Cavallo, who calmly buried the shot into the left corner past Garden City's goalie Christina Mangels for a 1-0 lead.

After 15 more minutes of back and forth action mostly played in the midfield, South Side exerted more pressure on the Garden City defense with its precise passing. Working the ball around the field and getting good touches for the Lady Cyclones were Alex Reis, Caitlin Wallace and Sam Ford from the back. 

At about the 27th minute, the Lady Cyclones got into scoring position when Michaela Lynch served the ball to Cavallo, and Keri squared up and ripped a shot over the outstretched arms of Mangels. The ball tucked just under the bar into the far-left hand corner of net, and South Side had a two-goal lead with a little more than 26 minutes to play in the first half.

South Side knocked on the door several times in the second half with great play from Caitlin Wallace, who served several good balls into the box and Christina Klaum, Lynch and Cavallo who managed to get shots off. But Garden City keeper Mangels came out and grabbed a game-high 10 saves.

The Lady Cyclones will face Seaford on Sept. 14 at 8 p.m.