Glenn's Anthony Randazzo continuing to pile up goals following offseason knee surgery

Anthony Randazzo was a goal-scoring machine last season for the Glenn boys soccer team. He tallied 15 of them in a run that ended in the Suffolk Class A semis.

Despite the memorable season, there were many days when the forward wasn’t feeling quite right.

It stemmed from making a move in a 2021 summer league playoff game and coming down wrong. Glenn coach Lou Hanner said “the whole general area, his knee and his hamstring,” was bothering him over the course of the season, but that “it presented as a hamstring thing.”

“We tried to just keep him as healthy as possible,” Hanner said. “We limited some of his minutes. He constantly was getting treatment with the trainer... He played the whole season and he had a really damn good junior year.”

His left knee was still bothering him in the first couple of games that soon followed with his Albertson SUSA club team. So he finally went for an MRI.

Randazzo was informed that he played the entire season for Glenn with a torn ACL. He also had a partial meniscus tear and believes he also pulled his hamstring.

Randazzo underwent knee surgery on Jan. 13 and rehabbed for about seven months and said he’s “around 80 to 90%.”

This 6-foot, 175-pound player from Huntington does not seemed to be too limited and is scoring goals again — lots of them. He owned a Long Island-leading 18 through Thursday and has led Glenn to an 8-0 start. 

“It was tough,” Randazzo said about last season. “I didn’t obviously know it was torn… It was hard because I would be fine for one day, but then the next day it would be hurting a lot. But in my head, I told myself I was fine, so I was fine.”

Randazzo, a fourth-year starter, has aspirations playing at the collegiate level.

“I would like to play Division I soccer,” Randazzo said. “I missed recruiting season when I was out with my injury.”

There’s still time for him to be discovered.

“He’s very talented,” Hanner said, emphasizing Randazzo’s size, strength, technical ability and “nose for the goal."

Added Hanner: “Listen, when you’re good, you’re good. They find you.”

Mepham’s good cause

The Mepham boys soccer program has teamed with the girls soccer program in the fight against cancer. The cause is in honor of senior center back JD Decina, who lost his mom to the disease.

Pink T-shirts with the words “Pirates Kickin Cancer” on the front are being sold for $15 at their home games. The varsity boys and girls and the JV teams will each host a “Kickin Cancer” game. There will be announcements made there that all proceeds from the T-shirts will go to Memorial Sloan Kettering. More than 300 have already been sold.

The special boys varsity game is Thursday Sep. 29 against Division and the girls varsity game is the following day vs. MacArthur.

The players will wear pink socks and the special T-shirts during warmups. Fans are also encouraged to wear pink.

“I think it’s extremely important,” boys varsity soccer coach Zachary Gosse said of the charitable effort, “because for a lot of our players, their sole focus is academics and sports, and especially in a grueling season, it’s nice to take a step back, even for a few moments, and realize there’s other avenues here. We can give back to our community in certain ways and help benefit others.”