THE JUGGERNAUT COMMODORES-Four games into season, Bayside is dominating atop Queens-A division

Four games into the season, the statistics certainly don’t lie for the Bayside girls soccer team. 4 wins, zero losses. 21 goals scored, zero allowed. 45 shots on goal, 15 against. The top three scorers in the division - sophomores Seena Sleem and Zoe Margulies and freshman Despina Psomopoulos - are all Commodores. Sleem also leads the division with 13 points and three assists.
“We had a feeling this team was going to be one of the better ones we’ve had,” said junior fullback Alexandra Knese. “We’re a rather young team and we’re getting better. We’ve gotten freshmen like Despina, who’s been a big help, and we’ve all been growing up.”
The results may not be too surprising considering the Commodores, who graduated just a single starter, racked up a 10-2 mark and won Queens-A last spring. In fact, they’ve actually gotten stronger, with the additions of freshmen like Psomopoulos and midfielder Anca Dogarescu in combination with a dogged defense (juniors Nicole Lee, Knese, April Pulgarin and Veronica Leon)
“We really take pride in our defense,” Bayside Coach Joe Corrado said effusively. “Because we’re working so hard on defense, it’s producing a lot of offense. I didn’t think we would produce this much [offensively]. We really forced the issue on offense, because we work so hard on defense.”
They’ve been so solid, the Commodores’ talented goalkeeper, Elizabeth Mardones, has made just nine saves; that’s a little over two per game. “Hopefully, we can get into the playoffs,” she said, “and I can make some saves.”
Although there is a ways to go, that is a pretty safe assumption. When and if Bayside does get in the playoffs, however, advancing is where they can really set themselves apart from past teams. Under Corrado, even though the Commodores have reached the PSAL’s second season three out of his five seasons, they have yet to get out of the first round. With this team, that is surely a possibility. “That’s our goal - to get further in the playoffs than we did a year before,” he said.
Added Mardones on getting past the opening round, “We have to. It’s a hump you have to get over.”
Others have set even higher goals. Before the season every year, the team has a dinner where they all gather and set certain achievements. Like most years, winning the division was one of them, as was advancing past the opening round and perhaps all the way to the city championship. But Lee, Knese and Pulgarin did one better - proposing they go the entire season without allowing a shot to get past Mardones. “With Liz and April and Nicole, they went the last few seasons with five goals against,” Knese said. “They just wanted to push for something. We’re looking to achieve that [goal].”
“I think it’s realistic,” Mardones said.
The Commodores’ stranglehold atop the division may not come to an end anytime soon; Mardones is the only senior on the roster.
“I just think as a group they’re very motivated,” Corrado said. “They come in with a lot of experience. Every year I’m getting more and more kids coming to me with experience.”
But will that eventually transfer to playoff success?