College of Staten Island women’s soccer duo Demi-Jean Martorano and Melissa Gelardi capped a 2-0 week for the Dolphins by gathering weekly City University of New York Athletic Conference honors.  For the second straight week, Martorano scored Player of the Week honors by virture of her five-goal week while frosh Gelardi scattered a trio of assists to power CSI.  The Dolphins came roaring back from a two-goal deficit to defeat Old Westbury 3-2 last Tuesday, before blowing by York College in their CUNYAC opener on the road on Saturday, 8-0.

No one in the conference has had the start that Martorano has had, as the New Dorp High School product has now tossed in eight goals and an assist over the first three games of the season.  After scoring a hat trick in CSI’s opener, Martorano scored twice in the come-from-behind win at home over Old Westbury.  The sophomore struck first at the 73-minute mark, creating a turnover and marching in the rest of the way for a point blank shot to make it 2-1.  Later, with the score knotted at 2-2, Martorano saved her heroics for the 86th-minute, blasting in a short range shot off of the foot of a Gelardi cross, to give CSI the improbable win.

Against York College, Martorano scored two goals inside of a minute.  At 2:18, she converted another Gelardi cross to put CSI on top 1-0, and 37 seconds later, CSI’s Natalie Tombasco forced a turnover and fed a ball to Martorano who was left open for the tally.  Martorano followed up the second half in much the same way, scoring 10 minutes in to put CSI up 5-0, before the team rolled to an 8-0 win.

Martorano now has 24 goals in 19 career games, good for 5th on CSI’s career goal-scoring list. 

Freshman midfielder Gelardi has also enjoyed a nice start to the season.  The freshman from St. Joseph by the Sea High School posted her first career assist in her first college game and added three more last week to raise her season total to four, the team lead.  Two of Gelardi’s assists came in the 3-2 comeback win over the Panthers.  The first was on the game-tying marker by Natalie Tombasco, and the second the eventual game-winner by Martorano.  Picking up where she left off, Gelardi found Martorano in the game against York to open the floodgates.

Along with the four assists, Gelardi is fourth on the squad in shots with eight.