Island Trees Soccer:
Bulldogs Win County, But Miss Trip Upstate

By Dave Mock

The men on Island Trees High School's varsity soccer team achieved a dream last week. Actually, Dream No. 1.

The Bulldogs, who have been knocking at the door of the Nassau County Class B championships for the last three years, finally kicked it down Nov. 5, defeating Hewlett 1-0 at Adelphi University for its first B title in seven years. Senior Anthony Lagnese, who has been with the squad for four years, had the Bulldogs' only goal, beating Hewlett goalie Andrew Rosenkrantz to the ball in the box and booting it home with 13:10 left.

But the Bulldogs were thwarted in their drive for a Long Island championship. In a mist that occasionally turned to rain, Island Trees fell to Suffolk Class B champion Hauppauge 2-1 Sunday at Suffolk Community College. Jim Montagna's goal with 11:35 left, from a feed by Steve Rossi, broke a 1-1 tie.

"I knew they had pretty much the majority of the team they had last year, which lost to Garden City in the LI championship," Island Trees head coach Graham Radcliffe said, adding that the Eagles' Rob Antoniou was the best opposing player he's seen in five years as Island Trees coach

"I put my best defenders on him, Rob Saladino and Mike Dvorznak, and they couldn't stop him. The testament to them is that their level of play did not drop when he left the game."

After a scoreless first half, Hauppauge struck first. The Eagles' Rob Antoniou was clipped just in front of the goal, giving Hauppauge a penalty kick with 24:15 left in the game. With Antoniou out of the game to have his collarbone treated by trainers, Bill Boyd kicked the ball to Saladino's right for the score.

Just under 10 minutes later, the Bulldogs' Dvorznak tied the game with a shot from 30 feet out.

Back in September, Radcliffe had predicted the county title for his team. This after the Bulldogs fell to Garden City in last year's semifinal, and lost to Great Neck South in the quarterfinal the previous year despite having an undefeated regular season.

"The group of seniors that I have, I'd had on the team as 10th graders, all except for two of them," Radcliffe said . "As juniors last year, we made it to the semifinals. This was kind of the culmination of three years of work as I perceive it."

Island Trees ended up defeating Garden City 1-0 in the semifinal. "They (the Trojans) are a program that is number one just about every year," Radcliffe said. " They have two JV teams with 80 players trying out for those teams, plus the varsity team. They basically reload every year."

Added senior defender Mike Dvorznak: "We beat some pretty good teams to get here."

Radcliffe's core players remained consistent -- Ray Due and Anthony Lagnese heading up the offense, Mike Dvorznak, Charlie Bacon, Rob Saladino, and James Sguiga leading the D. Rich Renner has been the first defender off the bench on D. Jim DelMonaco, Brian Dunleavy, Greg Salvage and John Huldie have led the Bulldogs' midfield.

And Steve Saladino turned into Island Trees' "Mr. October" in goal. "He's what I call my playoff goalie," Radcliffe said. "During last year and this year, he was very capable..I knew all along when it came to a pressure type situation he would rise to the occasion."

The Bulldogs went undefeated in their first seven games, outscoring their rivals 23-7 in that stretch. Along the way, Radcliffe and the other soccer coaches at the secondary level worked at building continuity among their programs, which provides both a feeder system for the varsity and a chance for varsity players to help build the younger athletes' skills.

"The four coaches -- myself, JV and the middle school coaches -- we all practice at the same site," Radcliffe said. "What I've tried to establish is almost like a family kind of setup, where you have the varsity players who are the role models, who the middle school kids look up to as well as the JV kids. We have the high varsity players come to the middle school teams and do practices for them. We'll run them through a warmup, teach them some of their skills, as kind of a motivational factor for these kids."

Members of the middle school teams also came to many of the varsity home games. The following day, the varsity kids would work with the younger players "It's all to develop a motivation to want to play on varsity, and for the (older) players to give back to the program itself."

Also this year Radcliffe took players in the entire program to Hofstra Stadium to see the Flying Dutchmen take on Manhattan College. Radcliffe said the game helped the varsity players see what the next level up was like, much as the middle school players had with the varsity.

Near the end of the first half, some movement near the Dutch bench caused a stir among the Island Trees spectators. They turned to see Hofstra freshman (and 1996 Island Trees graduate) Vinny Carbone take the field at the right side of the Hofstra defense.

Another memorable moment was the opportunity for many of the players to take part in the shooting competition at intermission. Two of the players captured T-shirts with their prize-winning shots.

"If were gonna beat those big boys," Radcliffe said, "we've got to be a strong unit."

Obviously, the "family" concept among the players was strong. Radcliffe said that many the players came down to his office at Island Trees Middle School Monday. "They were (saying) 'Coach, we should keep having practices.' " he said.

"I'm hungry now for the next thing, going to the states," Radcliffe added. "The players who came along for the ride are also ready for that next point."