SSHS Boy's Lax Drops Season Opener to Cold Spring Harbor

When South Side head coach Steve DiPietro set up his lacrosse team’s non-league schedule against some of the toughest competition on Long Island, he did so knowing that his team might take some lumps early on, but it would prepare his squad for a deep playoff run in Conference A-II.

The Cyclones took one of those lumps at home on Monday, falling 10-6 to Cold Spring Harbor, the odds-on-favorite to claim the Class C county championship.

“Our goal in making our non-league schedule as difficult as it is, is to expose everything with our inexperienced roster so we can see at what level they are capable of playing at,” DiPietro said. “We don’t want to be scared when we face the Garden City’s or the Wantagh’s late in the playoffs.”

South Side (0-1) scored first when Zach Scaduto fed a cutting Pat Finnerty for the first goal of the game just 3:02 in, but turnovers and an inability to capitalize on extra-man opportunities hurt them. South Side allowed four unanswered goals to fall behind 4-1 after the first quarter.

“We struggled to clear the ball out which produced three or four turnovers, and two of those wound up back in our goal,” DiPietro said. “In a 10-6 game, those mistakes, and a few missed opportunities when we had an extra man did it to us.”

While South Side integrated its younger players into the game, giving six sophomores significant time — including Steve Tita who finished with a goal and an assist — Cold Spring Harbor (1-0) utilized its experience, as it returned 22 players from last year’s team. 

Seahawks coach Dennis Bonn said with the experience his team has, including seven returning starters, his team will be hard to beat.

“I was happy with how we competed, we answered that first goal in a big way and had a nice lead after the first,” he said. “I think we can be pretty good, we have a good mix of kids who can put the ball in the net.”

South Side had a strong showing from goalie Dominic Moriarty, who finished with eight saves. Finnerty, Tita, Peter Clark and Kevin Waxon each scored for the Cyclones, who finished with 20 shots — one more than the Seahawks.

On Thursday, South Side will try to rebound against Syosset, another strong, non-league opponent who have championship aspirations of its own. DiPietro said these games are just the beginning of a challenging schedule that will toughen the Cyclones before they start its weaker conference schedule.

“We were in a one goal game against Syosset last year, it’s always tight with them,” he said. “They play real physical, they like to press, so we’ll need to protect our sticks, move our feet and keep possession better than we did today. It should be a good up and down, back and forth battle for us.”