South Side battles injuries

Despite battling a slew of injuries, South Side’s boys’ soccer enters the end of the regular season in prime position to compete for a championship.

The Cyclones commenced the final week before the start of the playoffs at 10-3-1 with only one loss since beginning 0-2. The nearly unbeaten stretch over the past five weeks has occurred despite playing without key pieces of the starting lineup for much of the stretch.

“We’ve been grinding it out,” fourth year coach Patrick Corvetti said. “We have put some guys in some different positions and some bench guys have had to step up.”

One of the key injuries the Cyclones have faced this season was the absence of senior striker Luca Tarulli for a two week period starting in late September. Tarulli returned for South Side’s Oct. 7 match at Division and scored two goals in a commanding 8-0 win. He then registered another two goals in South Side’s 4-0 victory at Elmont last Friday and has the lone goal in a 1-0 non-league victory against Lawrence last Sunday.

The injury bug has also hit the defense hard with half of the starting backline out of the lineup first the first month of the season prompting Corvetti to move senior co-captain Mike Benfanti from forward to sweeper. Corvetti credits the versatile Benfanti with volunteering to change positions for the betterment of the team.

The defense, which is anchored by senior co-captain TJ Brull, recently returned sophomore Coline Levine and junior Travis Rose from early-season injuries. The backline, which has produced four clean sheets this season, has also gotten contributions from Christian Hackett, John Kufta, Michael Baum and Damien D’antonio.

Junior goalkeeper Gavin McDaid has shined in net this season and recorded five saves in the shutout win at Emont and six stops in a 2-1 win against Hewlett on Oct. 1 The victory featured goals from Jack Darlington and Michael Forker along with assists by Jonah Drew and Connor Fernandez.

South Side closes the regular season schedule on Thursday at home against Kennedy for a 5 p.m. kickoff at Darcy Field. The Cyclones stormed past JFK in the teams’ first meeting on Sept. 26 with a 6-0 win that featured two goals by Fernandez with John Kufta, Karter Kasschau, Forker and Drew also finding the net.

Corvetti said the team will likely have anywhere from a six to a nine seed in the upcoming Class AA playoffs and are capable of going on a deep run. The Cyclones are in third place in the Conference AA3 standings behind unbeaten Garden City and a one-loss Manhasset team that South Side went toe-to-toe within a 1-0 season-opening loss decided on a controversial penalty kick call.

“Garden City and Manhasset are two of the better teams in the county and we've competed against both of them so I think we're in a good position to compete against anybody,” Corvetti said. "When the playoffs come around we should definitely have a deeper team because we've had a lot of guys that have gotten a lot of playing time that might not have if we didn't have those injuries.”