East Hampton Girls Soccer Shined as Boys Battled Tough Schedule

East Hampton’s boys and girls soccer teams took divergent paths this season, with the girls, contrary to past experience, kicking butt, and the boys, whose program has been exceedingly strong since playing for its first-ever county championship in 2009, winding up with only two wins vis-à-vis 12 losses and two ties.

It should be said concerning the girls, that they were in their second year of play in the county’s alternative league, a grouping of schools whose programs have been in need of strengthening before moving up to play tougher opponents again. Nevertheless, Cara Nelson’s team was noteworthy this fall chiefly for the fact that it went 12-0 in league play and for the fact that its high-scorer, Amy Torres, a freshman midfielder, who as of earlier this week was waiting to hear if she’d made Ecuador’s 15U team, finished as the county’s points runner-up, with 27 goals and 13 assists.

Moreover, one of Torres’s teammates, Elle Reidlinger, a sophomore midfielder, was second county-wide in assists, with 16, and sixth when it came to overall points, Nelson said during a conversation the other day at East Hampton Middle School, where she teaches social studies to seventh-graders.

In all, East Hampton outscored its alternative league opponents — Riverhead, Hampton Bays, Copiague and Wyandanch — 62-5.

Asked if things had been too easy, Bonac’s energetic nine-year coach said, “Not really. The girls always came to play — they continued to improve every day throughout the season. They wanted to show everyone that they were better than the developmental league, that we have the talent and determination to play up against any other school in Suffolk. That’s our goal going forward.”

“Three years ago,” she continued, “we were in a tough league, League II, with some of the best teams in all of Long Island. And we were getting beaten up pretty badly, which is why we moved down to the developmental league, so we could gain confidence and the ability to grow as individuals and as a team. It’s allowed us the time and space to learn from our mistakes and to better understand the game. And that’s what’s happened: The girls are smart players now, they move the ball well, they’re aggressive, and they understand what it takes to play at a high level … all the players were selfless in distributing the ball.”

Nine seniors, including the team’s captains, Hailey Benenaula, a four-year starter at midfield, and Melanie Vizcaino, a two-year starter at center back, and Leah McCarron, the goalie, are to graduate in June, but Nelson expects that she’ll have 12 returnees to oversee next fall, “many of them starters.”

Whether East Hampton will move up or remain in the alternative league for another season is a question that’s up in the air at the moment. “Moving back to League II is our ultimate goal,” Nelson said.

The immediate future for East Hampton girls soccer looks bright, what with good numbers and talent at the junior high level, though Nelson, who knows the pipeline supply is not endless — there are, for instance, no girls travel teams in East Hampton, as there used to be — wants to seize the moment.

Back to the boys, Don McGovern, the team’s coach, who is serving as the Bridgehampton School’s athletic director in Mike DeRosa’s health-related absence, and who was interviewed there Friday, described the 2-12-2 season just past as “a blip.”

“We had trouble matching up physically this season,” he said, alluding to the fact that the Bonackers frequently fell victim to set plays — to corner kicks and free kicks. “We were in a lot of overtime games,” he continued. “We lost a lot by one goal.”

Asked if his young charges — there were only three senior starters — had become discouraged, McGovern, who has coached East Hampton’s varsity since 2010, said, “No, they never gave up — we battled in every game, we tried hard, the effort was always there. Our decision-making was a little slow, and, as I said, we also had trouble matching the other teams’ physicality. We’ve had players like Angel Garces, who’s teaching at Pierson now, and Jonathan and Eric Armijos from last year’s team, who haven’t been big, but who have been strong. We’ve got to get stronger, we’ve got to get into the weight room. That’s the main thing. And, of course, we never want to stop improving our skills.”

Between 2009 and the present, an East Hampton boys soccer team has only missed making the playoffs one other time, in 2015 — and that team fell short by only one game.

And the pipeline is full insofar as the boys go: Michael Tamay, who played on that 2009 playoff team with Ernesto Valverde, Danny Bedoya, Ben McCarron, Brandon West and Martin Gutierrez are overseeing numerous East Hampton youth travel teams at present.

“So, this season was a blip … we hope,” McGovern said, adding that “If we work hard, we’ll be back.”