Brandon Sozomenu led the Demons up front with two goals and, in his final game with the Demons, Paul Lindo stopped the Fire in the back.
Paul,…
The Little Neck Demons closed its season with its best effort of the year, defeating the Hicksville Fire 3-0.
Brandon Sozomenu led the Demons up front with two goals and, in his final game with the Demons, Paul Lindo stopped the Fire in the back.
Paul, who will be moving away during the summer, played a spectacular game at fullback stopping a strong Hicksville attack several times with his tenacious tackling He forced the action in the middle of the field to lead directly to Little Neck’s second goal.
During the first half of this rematch — Hicksville won a hard fought opener 2-1 last month — the sides played to a scoreless draw due to the Demons inability to finish a couple of good opportunities as well as some key clearances by Demon center fullback Giancarlo Roselli, along with outside fullbacks Lindo and Grant Pastori.
Also, some key stops by keeper Liam Maillaro kept Hicksville off the board. Brandon Dittmar, playing left forward, made several excellent runs but his crosses were thwarted by the tough Hicksville defense.
The second half was a different story as the Demons, which dedicated the game to departing fullback Lindo, came out on fire. Brandon Sozomenu scored his first goal three minutes in as he made a strong run down the right side and rifled a bullet past a startled Hicksville keeper to break the deadlock.
Five minutes later Lindo jumped into the attack, stripped a Fire midfielder and sent a beautiful pass up to left midfielder Roman Vilca, who turned and blasted a shot towards the goal.
Roman’s shot was deflected by a Fire defender, but the changed trajectory wasn’t enough to turn the shot away from the goal and the Demons had a 2-0 lead.
Continued pressure by Little Neck midfielders David Chiariello and Kevin Bonilla led to the third goal. A strong pass down the right sprung Sozomenu, but two Hicksville fullbacks closed in on him.
Brandon made a great cutback, split the defenders and unleashed a rocket that beat the Hicksville keeper to the far post. The strong midfield play kept the ball in the Fire third of the field and only some excellent play by the Fire fullbacks kept forwards Alex Esposito and Seth Rothbaum from adding to the score.
The Demons wrapped up a successful first year and will be looking to add a couple of players to their roster over the summer.
