Lewis leads Queens into soccer playoffs

BY ALEX FUMELLI

Tuesday, May 26, 2009 5:17 PM EDT

The Benjamin Cardozo girls’ soccer team did not succeed in its planned 2009 coup of rival Bayside, but the Judges did help put the crown on someone else’s head. Thanks in large part to Cardozo’s tie with its neighborhood opponents on May 18, the Francis Lewis Patriots enter Tuesday’s PSAL playoffs as the top seed from the Queens ‘A-IV’ division.

The first-round games on May 26 ended after press time, but Lewis, ranked fifth, was heavily favored to topple Lehman on the No. 28 Patriots’ home turf. Bayside entered the playoffs with the eighth seed, paired with No. 25 Forest Hills. If the Commodores win, they will gear up for an inevitably tight May 28 contest against the No. 9 Petrides, which went 8-3-1 in the Staten Island ‘A’ division.

The gap between those fifth and eighth seeds was the difference between a win and a tie in the regular season. Whereas undefeated Francis Lewis tallied 10 wins and two ties, the undefeated Commodores totaled nine wins and three ties.

Cardozo made the difference. The Judges allowed a 2-1 win to Lewis on May 11 thanks to two goals from the scorching Gena Koutsounadis; one week later, they managed to limit Bayside to a 1-1 tie with a second-half goal by Creshana Jones, despite taking only four on-target shots all game long.

Cardozo’s role as spoiler may have delivered some measure of satisfaction to the Judges, whose head coach Richard Parascos took exception when Bayside’s Joe Corrado lobbied to continue a mid-season game after Paola Ramos wounded her knee. Bayside ended up with a 1-0 win after the game continued, as Despina Psomopoulos, herself a victim of an ankle injury this year, rocketed a game-winning shot during the extra period.

Lewis, the division winner, would face No. 12 Banneker or No. 21 Midwood in Thursday’s second round.

The Patriots and Commodores will be joined in the playoffs’ top 10 by Queens counterpart Arts & Business, ranked fourth after a 12-0-0 season in the Queens ‘A-V’ division. The small Corona school has fielded a Class ‘A’ team only since 2006, and it finds itself with a first round bye in 2009. Should it get past No. 13 Lincoln or No. 20 Canarsie on Thursday, it will face Francis Lewis in the quarterfinals on June 2.

A note of warning: The best of Queens has not fared well against the best of the other boroughs. Bayside lost 6-0 to Staten Island’s McKee Vocational (No. 2) during a regular-season friendly, and Cardozo was blown out 5-0 by Manhattan’s Stuyvesant, which is only ranked seventh.

Beyond the big three, Townsend Harris (No. 15), Benjamin Cardozo (No. 18), Long Island City (No. 23), Thomas Edison (No. 24) and Forest Hills (No. 25) also represent Queens in the playoffs. All but Harris, which played Cardozo, faced favored teams in Tuesday’s first round.