South Side repeats as champs

South Side’s Ben Tetelman has a flare for the dramatic. He scored the winning goal in last year’s Nassau Class A boys’ soccer championship game, and this year he set it up.

Mark Romanowski’s picture-perfect header off Tetleman’s corner kick 11:14 into the first half gave the second-seeded Cyclones a 1-0 victory over No. 4 Wantagh and their second straight county title on Nov. 10 at Hofstra.

“It’s a play we practiced hundreds of times,” South Side coach Fred Paul said. “Ben’s one of our best passers and Mark wins everything in the air. It was a great goal.”
Goalkeeper Deven Kholsa, in posting his 11th shutout of the year, made four saves, the toughest of which came 10 minutes into the second half when he secured an 18-yard blast off the foot of Sean DeVito. The defense was airtight once again, led by Jeff Cohen, Mike Hayes, Will Nelson and Kyle Morrissey.

“I don’t ever expect our team to give up goals,” Paul said. “We truly believe that our defense starts with our forwards, and our offense starts with our goalie. All these guys work their tails off. It’s impossible to point out just a few as the reason we’ve only given up three goals all season. It’s a team effort.”

Given the rate opponents score, Tetleman said he had a good feeling Romanowski’s goal would hold up. “We have an unbelievable defense and we’ve got Deven back there,” said Tetelman, whose overtime goal beat Garden City in the 2009 Class A final. “Wantagh has a great team and played a tough game, but nobody plays with more heart as we do.”

The Warriors enjoyed the better of the play until Romanowski soared over two defenders and beat starting goalie Dan Hagan (four saves) to his left. Kholsa was tested 90 seconds into the game by DeVito, and Mike Rumel sent a blast wide of the cage two minutes later. Hayes made a clutch block in front of Kholsa three minutes after South Side took the lead, and DeVito returned the favor by blocking a shot by Kevin Cook in the 27th
minute.

“It was back and forth there for a while,” Cohen said. “We pride ourselves on defense. That’s our focal point. We like to think if we get one goal it’s going to be enough.”

The Cyclones, who finished 14-2-4 after last Sunday’s 3-0 season-ending loss to Sayville in the Long Island Class A title game, had two golden opportunities to pad their lead in the second half, but fortunately for them an insurance goal wasn’t necessary. DeVito made a desperation clear in the goalmouth off a scramble with 18 minutes remaining, and Mike Marano had a break-in shot just miss as replacement keeper Trevor Stevens charged to the top of the box to meet him.

“With last year’s group, we knew we could do it,” Paul said of being the last team standing in Nassau Class A. “With this year’s group, we knew we were going to do it.”