Floral Park girls soccer's Christina Vargas strikes twice as Knights win 4th straight
Christina Vargas of Floral Park drives down field during a girls soccer game against Cold Spring Harbor on Monday in Floral Park. Credit: Dawn McCormick
This was a soccer team that lost 16 players on Floral Park graduation day and had only four starters back from a second straight run to the Nassau Class A semifinals.
“At first, everyone was unsure how the season was going to go because we lost so many people,” senior attacking midfielder Christina Vargas said.
The Knights dropped six of their first eight.
But their growth since then was on display again Monday morning at Floral Park. Vargas scored two second-half goals to put away a 3-0 non-league win over Cold Spring Harbor — their fourth straight victory and fifth in six games.
It brought them to 7-7-1 with one regular-season game remaining.
“I think that we’ve really come together as a team,” Vargas said, “and we all have gotten so close and really just putting all our effort into every practice, and just all believing that we’re capable is really helping us push hard and win games.”
The Knights have never won a county title. Do they have a team that’s capable of making program history?
“Yeah, I think we do,” said Kurt Rogers, their third-year coach. “One of the things that I think has happened overall over the past few years is we’ve really closed the gap to those teams in front of us. It no longer feels like an insurmountable task to beat those teams.”
Sydney Reid made seven saves, securing this team’s first clean sheet.
“I think we do really well when it comes to shifting across the field and moving together,” Reid said.
Giuliana Donello headed in Mia Palacios’ corner kick late in the first half. Then Vargas delivered her 15th and 16th goals.
The Florida Gulf Coast commit scored on a penalty kick and booted in Madison Deutsch’s long free kick into the box.
So Cold Spring Harbor, which rested 15-goal scorer Alex Rossen, fell to 11-4. The Seahawks have a home showdown vs. Island Trees Wednesday for the Conference A/B-II title. Then they will chase a Class B three-peat for Nassau and Long Island.
“We’re just trying to focus on this year alone,” coach Ryan Towers said. “I know we’ve been successful in the last two years, but, I mean, every year the group is different.
“So it’s going to be one of one this year and hopefully we can take care of it, and then after you can look back and appreciate the consistency.”
