The undefeated Mineola PAL 8-year-old Chiefs played at home this past Sunday at Hampton Field and beat the Garden City Thunder 12-7. The win brought the Chiefs record to 6-0 as they continue their storybook season.

Garden City started the game on offense, and on the second play from scrimmage scored a touchdown and then followed up with the extra-point to go up 7-0. These were the first points given up by the Chiefs' starting defense in two seasons. Following the Thunder's touchdown, the Chiefs' offense took over the ball, and with crafty runs by Anthony Preston, Ryan Eccher, and Andrew Cunningham, they landed down on the 10 yard line. On the next play, quarterback Thomas O'Connell handed the ball off to Brian Smith, who then ran the ball around the end for the touchdown. The Chiefs battled the Thunder back and fourth in the first half, and went into halftime trailing Garden City 7-6.

In the second half, the Chiefs started on offense and put together a terrific scoring drive, with strong runs by O'Connell, Preston, Cunningham and Eccher. On fourth down, quarterback Thomas O'Connell handed the ball off to Kyle Spruill who ran and made a beautiful cut back for the seven yard touchdown. The Chiefs took the lead 12-7.

The Mineola 8's played lights out defense the rest of the way. Garden City was amazed by Mineola's tackling and speed to the ball. Big pressure was brought on by Teddy Capsis, Lucas Golon, John Clancy, and TJ Kemmet. Linebackers Michael Patalano, Smith, O'Connell and Cunningham crushed the Thunder's running backs with intense physical tackling. The Chiefs' offense moved the ball and scored because of solid blocking by Gavin Dowd, Michael Delio, Kyle Facibene, Matthew Lafaye and Capsis.

Once again all the boys played and had fun in the victory. Other players who contributed were Brian Greenberg, Eric McCloskey, Peter McCormack, James Gerstner, Dennis Gannon, Thomas O'Dwyer, Christopher Asam, Patrick Brady, Brendan Sullivan, Thomas Davis, Charles Brown, Alequandro Pleitez and Matthew Mageau.