East Boys Soccer Blanks Floyd

Kicking off its playoff run on the turf at Centereach Park Monday evening, the Sachem East boys summer league soccer team eliminated William Floyd from contention following a 2-0 shutout.

Possessing well and staying focused thanks in part to its deeper bench, the Arrows' aim was right on target around the 10-minute mark. Nick Schook led off scoring, sending a right-side cross from Ansel Ueshiro straight in the first half. The latter goal resulted when a chance down the middle allowed a feed from Anthony Ferrara to set up Demetri Tsiokas.

Floyd never fully recovered from the quick strikes and were held largely to the midfield, having started to push back into East territory with greater success in the second half despite being routinely rebuffed and cleared by East's equally-quick defenders. First-half goalie Matt Bonomini and second-half goalie Will Silber combined for nine saves.

Schook, who nearly hooked it back into the net again on a spectacular wide cross around 20 minutes into the first to the wows of his sidelined teammates, said the effort played out as anticipated and was extremely confident going forward into the week, as East is slated to face the Patchogue-Medford squad (4-4-2 in season) Wednesday in the semifinal round. Ward Melville (6-4) will play large-school leader Newfield (8-1-1) the same day in an earlier matchup.

"We'll win that," he said. "It's Newfield that'll be the challenge."

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East coach Tom Fank said the sheer size of its roster versus that of Floyd meant the game had presented some potential strategic challenges, though he was satisfied with and expecting of the win. "It's kind of a disadvantage playing third-stringers against first-stringers," he said.

East returns to Centereach Park to play Pat-Med Wednesday evening at 7:15 p.m. The final round is set for next Monday night at Coram's Diamond in the Pines Park at 8:45 p.m.