PLAYOFFS: Trojans Lax Captures Eighth Straight County Title

The Garden City Trojans’ last loss came more than a month ago, on April 27.

Their opponent? The Manhasset Indians.

The loss was fresh in the minds of all the Garden City players Tuesday afternoon as the top-ranked Trojans (16-3) routed No. 2 Manhasset (15-4) by a final score of 10-4 to claim their eighth consecutive Nassau County Class B championship.

Garden City’s Justin Guterding continued a masterful senior campaign, scoring four goals and adding two assists in the win. Fellow senior Jack Metzler added one goal and two assists, while junior Cody George finished with three goals and one assist.

“He’s phenomenal,” Garden City head coach Steve Finnell said of Guterding’s play. “We got him in position to take shots. We’re playing a very good team offensive game.”

After a slow start to the game -- caused in part by the rain that fell from the opening whistle -- Guterding found junior Dale Stasco on a cross-field pass that Stasco ripped high past Manhasset goalie Meyer Dylan.

Just 45 seconds later, Guterding put Garden City up 2-0 after another high shot that beat Dylan from 15 yards out.

Guterding opened the second quarter 1:34 in with a mirror image of his first goal. The senior added two more goals in the next five minutes on assists from Stasco and Metzler, respectively.

George followed Guterding's fourth score of the game with a goal just 12 seconds later to put the Trojans up 6-0.

“We definitely used it as motivation,” said Guterding of the loss earlier in the season to Manhasset. “… We wanted it back really bad.”

A late goal from the Indians cut the lead to 6-1, but the Trojans controlled the ball for most of the third quarter while Metzler added his only goal of the game.

George and sophomore Kyle Brattan combined for three goals in the third quarter to clinch the championship for the Trojans.

Junior goalie Dan Dolan made six saves in the win.

“I think you win with your seniors,” Finnell said. “We challenged our seniors to get better over the last month. … Manhasset outplayed us in every aspect of the game April 27 and we kind of challenged our guys to try to get better a little bit at a time and I thought our seniors stepped up and did a super job today.”

Garden City will play the winner of Huntington-Miller Place for the Long Island Championship. A time and date has not yet been determined for the game.