Truncale Uses His Head; Eagles Advance

If only Springstead senior Joe Truncale used his head in every match.
Literally.
Truncale entered Tuesday night's 8th annual Ridgewood Ram Holiday Classic Boys Soccer Tournament semifinals against Class 6A Pompano Beach-Ely with a peculiar stat.
The 6-foot-1 Truncale arrived with four goals - three coming off designated set pieces.
Make that five goals.
Four minutes into match against the athletic Tigers (3-7-5), Eagle junior midfielder Josh Peirce blasted a free kick from 30 yards out.
The left-footed shot hooked right to Truncale, who flicked it past Ely goalkeeper Ken Etienne, 1-0.
Fortunately for the Eagles, who were out shot, 11-6, Truncale's goal was supported by an airtight defense led by junior sweeper Steve Sullivan and sophomore goalkeeper Joey Lasala (seven saves) as Springstead prevailed, 1-0.
With the win, the Eagles (11-3-2) not only extended their current win skein to eight matches in a row, but in the process advanced to the finals at Booster Stadium for the first-ever time.
Not bad for a team that went 0-3 last winter in the same venue.
In Tuesday's other matches, Lithia-Newsome whacked host Ridgewood, 6-1, St. Petersburg Catholic stuffed Seffner-Armwood, 5-0, while defending tourney champion Tampa-Alonso earned a berth in Wednesday night's 7 p.m. finale by snuffing Clearwater High, 4-0.
Interestingly, Springstead faced Alonso in the opening round in 2007 and was soundly thrashed 5-0.

Coaches chatter

The Eagles' 16-year Head Coach Sal Calabrese, who suffered through the school's first losing season in 11 years last winter wasn't making any bold predictions about Wednesday's finale.
"Look Alonso can flat out play," described Calabrese. "They've got a great coach. We're looking forward to playing them again. The outcome to me doesn't matter, it's all about getting this far. To have a chance to go from worst to first here is pretty good."
What about Tuesday's efforts?
"The difference was a set piece that we've worked on all season with Joe (Truncale)," explained Calabrese. "We run a lot of options, but one of the options is we look especially for Joe. It's funny the guy (Truncale) has a knack for headers."
From the opposite sideline former River Ridge Head Coach Concepcion Ledezma said there is a fine line between winning and losing Tuesday's semifinal.
"I told the team at halftime, I think we have better individual skills than Springstead," he recalled. "But they (Springstead) play better as a team. That certainly was the case at the end of the match.
"Before we got here, we hadn't won in seven matches (enduring a 0-4-3 slump), but we played well," he added. "Tonight, again we played respectable. Give credit to Springstead in the key moments of the game we didn't finish our shots and they won several 50/50 balls."
Was there a particular thorn?
"No. 10 (SHS freshman midfielder Matt Campbell) just gave us fits," said Ledezma. "He's a heck of a little player."

Players opine

For his part, Campbell thought Truncale's goal was huge along with his team's stout defense.
"Joe's header was great," commented the 14-year-old Campbell. "Any time you score early, it puts the other team on their heals and boosts your confidence. It (goal) really helped us out mentally."
The key?
"We stayed strong throughout the match," chimed Campbell. "They had some skill, but we didn't shy away and we didn't let them get too close (to the goal)."
"They (Ely) were pretty fast," added the 17-year-old Sullivan. "But we can play better. We have to mark tighter and sort it out faster tomorrow (against Alonso). Tonight we did a nice job of possessing and covering the flanks. I thought we were kinda offensive minded in the first half and defensive minded in the second."
Truncale enjoyed the praise but said his teammates worked just as hard.
"We've been working our tails off this year," said the 17-year-old Truncale. "Tonight's header was beautiful, but Josh's cross was awesome and the team again played well.
"I thought we stayed physical and used a lot more headers than they did," he added.

Springstead 1, Pompano Beach-Ely 0
ELY 0 0 - 0
SPG 1 0 - 1
Goals - SPG: Truncale.
Assists - SPG: Peirce.
Shots on goal - ELY: 11; SPG: 6.
Saves - ELY: K. Etienne 5; SPG: Lasala 7.
Yellow Cards - none.
Blue Cards - none.
Red Cards - none.
Records: Pompano Beach-Ely (3-7-5), Springstead (11-3-2).

8th annual Ridgewood Winter
Boys Soccer Tournament Results

12-29:
Clearwater 2, Armwood 1
Alonso 8, St. Pete Catholic 1
Springstead 4, Newsome 1
Ely 4, Ridgewood 0

12-30:
Newsome 6, Ridgewood 1
St. Pete Catholic 5, Armwood 0
Springstead 1, Ely 0
Alonso 4, Clearwater 0

12-31:
(Championship)
Alonso vs. Springstead, 7 p.m.