Mineola Boy's Soccer Shuts Out North Shore

The Mineola Mustang's boys soccer squad used a hat trick from junior Christian Lird to cruise to a five-nil victory over the North Shore Vikings Wednesday afternoon.

The Mustangs used a solid defensive line to create turnovers to counter attack the Vikings in front of their home crowd at Mineola high school. Along with Lird, the Mustang's received goals from senior Marco Oliveira and junior Paul Sandoval in the victory.

Head coach Paul Pereira gave the team credit for the impressive win, saying that "it feels good" to have such a comfortable margin of victory. To date, the Mustang's have only allowed two goals to be scored.

Mineola goalie Filipe Ribeiro had the clean sheet today, stopping the three shots that North Shore managed to get on net. In arguably his best save of the day, Ribeiro made a diving save after senior Paul Gabriel drilled a free kick from about 30 yards out half way through the second half.

While Ribeiro was keeping the goal safe, it was the attack of the Mustang's that highlighted the day. Oliveira opened the scoring in the 27th minute, when he lifted a nifty shot from the right side of the pitch past Vikings goalie, senior Ryan Kianofsky. A Vikings defender tried to make a play on the ball, but the deflection just netted the ball in the top of the net.

North Shore threatened in the 35th minute, when junior Brian Valzavano hammered a free kick into the Mustang box. After Ribeiro was able to punch it up, junior Richie Forte booted the ball out of the Mustang third to clear.

At the end of the first half, Mineola held a one to nil lead. After the game, Pereira noted that the team "starts out slow," then said "but in the second half we pick it up."

In the second half, Lird led the Mustang's out with a bang. Set up by Oliveira in the middle of the box, Lird took the pass an rocketed it into the corner of the net just seven minutes in.

Fifteen minutes later, Lird was back at it. This time, he took a cross from Forte and put his head on it, netting it by the goalie before Kianofsky could even react. Ten minutes later, Oliveira once again assisted on a goal, this time dicing the Viking defense on the right side before delivering a beautiful cross to Sandoval to put the Mustang's ahead four to nil.

Lird added his third goal on a last-ditch shot, turning and kicking from outside the 18-yard box towards the goal. Taking a lucky bounce, the ball hit off the right side bar before going into the net, much to the dismay of Kianofsky.

Pereira was happy with the second half form, saying after the game that "we [the team] are starting to come into our own."

He also praised the defense, saying that they were a huge reason for the early season success. Mineola climbed to 5-0-1 on the season, 3-0-0 in conference 7, after the win. North Shore fell to 0-3-0 in league, with an overall record of 1-3-1.

Mineola returns to the pitch on in another conference 7 showdown.