Sydney Romano nets two goals, leads Wheatley past Oyster Bay in Nassau Class B final
Wheatley wins the Nassau Class B girls soccer final over Oyster Bay on Sunday at Cold Spring Harbor. Credit: Peter Frutkoff
Senior Sydney Romano embodies the success of the Wheatley girls soccer program.
Committed to Princeton as a goalie, Romano raises the Wildcats’ ceiling by playing as a defensive holding midfielder. On Sunday afternoon in the rain versus Oyster Bay in the Nassau Class B final, she was the best player on the field.
Romano scored on a pair of nearly identical 25-yard free kicks in the first half, two of five first-half goals for top-seeded Wheatley in its 6-0 win over third-seeded Oyster Bay at Cold Spring Harbor High School.
“She’s the most selfless person I’ve ever met,” Wheatley coach Andrew DeRuvo said. “She will literally do anything that the coach asks her to do, even if it’s [to] play a position that she doesn’t normally play, and excel at it.”
Wheatley (10-2-1) will meet Suffolk Class B champion Babylon in the Long Island championship on Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. at Shoreham-Wading River High School. Oyster Bay finished it season 9-5-2.
“I just think that starting out as a goalie usually for my club team, it offers me a whole different perspective when I’m on the field,” Romano said. “... But now as a field player, I can bring those same aspects of having the full-field perspective in the field.”
Wheatley opened the scoring with 32:16 left in the first half when Sophomore Sadie Keys scored off a throw-in by eighth-grader Sophia Reichman.
Romano scored her first goal with 29:09 left in the half on a powerful shot that caromed off the wet turf and past Oyster Bay goalie and eighth-grader Ellie Mazur, who finished with 14 saves.
“First of all, just looking to get it on target, make the goalie make a save,” Romano said. “The weather has been so rainy, the ground is slick. Obviously, just trying to get it to skip, and go on the ground.”
With 21:17 left before halftime, Romano added her second goal to give Wheatley a 3-0 lead.
“Once the first one went in, I just thought, ‘Let’s do it again,’” Romano said.
Freshman Ashley Zeifman added to the Wildcats' lead when she scored with 12:06 left in the half. An Oyster Bay own goal less than two minutes later put them up 5-0 at the break.
Audrey Mun, also a freshman, scored with 6:23 remaining for the final goal of the game.
“Sydney is obviously the engine that runs the team,” DeRuvo said. “But … we have a bright future ahead of us.”
Ben Dickson joined Newsday’s high school sports staff in 2023 after graduating from Maryland, where he covered several of the Terrapins' teams.
