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Sports

PLAYOFFS: Garden City Ousts Cyclones, 14-2

South Side couldn't contain the five-time defending Class B champs.

After Garden City handed the South Side boy’s lacrosse team its worst defeat of the season two weeks ago, they were heavily favored going into their Nassau County Class B semifinal matchup at Hofstra on Wednesday.

The Trojans showed why from whistle to whistle, dominating the Cyclones in a 14-2 win to advance to the Nassau County finals, where they will play for their sixth straight Class B title.

Tom Gordon, Devin Dwyer, Liam Kennedy and Jack Spencer each had multiple goals for the Trojans, who turned a 3-1 first quarter lead into a 9-1 halftime advantage. Head coach Steve Finnell said he was pleased that his team effectively spread the ball around.

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“Gordon, Dwyer, our usual guys got their points in, but we had a wealth of players with multiple points, it’s great to spread the ball around and get that type of production from the whole team,” he said. “We were really able to stretch the lead in the second and go from there.”

Garden City dominated the game's time of possession by winning the majority of face-offs and consistently grabbing ground balls. They won 13 of 18 face-offs and nabbed ten more groundballs than the Cyclones. With the Trojans’ high-powered offense, they bum rushed goalie Dominic Moriarty, who finished with eight saves on 22 shots.

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“The face-offs really hurt us, and we turned the ball over a ton just like our first game against them,” Cyclones coach Steve DiPietro said. “They really got after the groundballs – and when you give a team like this extra chances they’re going to beat you down.”

Finnell agreed that winning face-offs was a key to the victory. “Savage on the face-offs was huge for us,” he said. "We did a nice job of using our athleticism to get at those ground balls.”

For South Side, their season ends in disappointment. Senior Bryan Gerrato ended his outstanding career by scoring once in the first quarter, and Moriarty once again, “stood on his head,” a term DiPietro enjoyed using to describe his goalie's athleticism all season.

“I’m proud that we got to the semis right alongside some of the best teams in the country,” DiPietro said. “It’s an accomplishment with the group we’ve got. I want to thank the seniors for their contributions to the team, and I want the younger guys to remember how they felt when they looked at the scoreboard so that they never want to feel like that again.”

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