Oceanside back for another run

After a memorable run to the county semifinals last season, the Oceanside boys’ soccer team has its sights set on even bigger goals for 2022.

The Sailors closed the 2021 campaign with an 11-game unbeaten streak (8-0-3) and blanked Hicksville 3-0 in the county quarters on Oct. 27. The run ended with a 4-2 loss to conference-foe Westbury four days later, but graduation didn’t deplete the roster too much, leaving the team with enough weapons at both ends of the pitch to make another run.

That, combined with the hunger that coach Patrick Turk saw with his team in training camp, could result in another special year for the Sailors, who beat Farmingdale 3-2 last Saturday on Anthony Picillo’s late goal after dropping a 4-2 decision to Garden City in the opener three days earlier.

“We feel pretty good about the squad that we’re bringing forward,” Sailors coach Patrick Turk said. “We feel that we’re not going to dip and we feel like we’ll be able to let people know that it’s not just a special class, that it’s a solid program in Oceanside.”

The offense finished with a Class AA-best plus-23 goal differential in conference play last year and returned Dan Santos (7 goals in 2021) and Ethan Recchia (5), with JV star Giacomo Vacchio joining the mix. Vacchio has already scored in each of the first two games this season and Santos and Recchia also have their firsts.

Santos, one of the team’s tri-captains, showed explosive tendencies last year with a hat trick against East Meadow in the penultimate game of the 2021 regular season before netting another goal against Hicksville. 

“He’s a leader by example,” Turk said. “He is so intelligent in his knowledge of the game that he is super hard to mark. It’s very difficult to find him on the field because he just waits for somebody to move and then takes advantage of the weakness.”

Vacchio will be paired with fellow junior Brenna Murphy as the team’s midfielders and seniors Jack Christel and Nicholas Maloney return on defense. Lucas Natal and Chris Pena are also vying for time on the back end. 

“He’s a brick wall,” Turk said of Christel, another tri-captain. “You don’t get past him, you don’t run through him. You only get past him if he lets you.”

Jacob Raphan had four saves against Garden City and is expected to get the bulk of the playing time in goal this season, but the Sailors do have a capable backup in junior Joseph Zweben. 

Conference AA-1 is again expected to be an uber- competitive group after nine teams finished with better than .500 records last year. The Sailors’ 31 points in league games tied them with Baldwin with most in that group and Westbury was three points behind them, but Turk sees some other teams like Uniondale, Freeport and Hicksville contending as well. 

“I see our conference as a super conference,” he said. “There’s eight playoff spots and there’s 14 teams, so it’s going to be a dogfight.”