One Goal Decides County Semifinal Between East Hampton, Hills West Boys Soccer

It didn’t take long to figure out that a single goal would likely be the difference between host East Hampton and Half Hollow Hills West boys soccer in the Suffolk County Class A semifinals on Monday afternoon. From the opening whistle, it was clear both teams were even in talent and skill and determined to win.

That single goal came with 22:31 remaining in the game, when Zach Wernick’s pass from deep in Bonac territory somehow made it all the way across the field where his teammate, Darin Sahadeo, just tapped the ball enough with his foot where it hit off the inside of the left goal post and in to give Hills West a 1-0 lead and eventual victory over the Bonackers.

With the victory, Hills West advanced to the Class A Championship against defending county champion Amityville on Thursday after the Warriors topped Elwood/John Glenn, 6-0, in the other county semifinal.

It was an extremely difficult loss to take for an East Hampton team that won its first league title in eight years after going 9-1 in League IV (11-2 overall), earning the second seed in the playoffs. But the Colts were no slouches, finishing behind League III Champion Amityville with an 8-2 league record and 10-3-2 overall sheet.

East Hampton reached the semifinals after defeating a tough East Islip team, 2-1, in the quarterfinals on October 27. Bonac head coach Don McGovern said any one of the 12 teams that qualified for the playoffs in Class A could have reached the finals, but he and his players really believed they could get there, which made Monday’s loss sting even more.

“Our game comes down to one goal at times, just like today’s,” he said. “East Islip was the seventh seed. We saw how good they were last week. They probably lost three one-goal games this season, that’s the nature of the sport. What guarantees us the two seed? Well, we won the league, but we lost to the 10-seed [Eastport-South Manor] in the regular season by a goal. It comes down to inches and it’s just about making the most of the opportunities given. We did throughout the year, today wasn’t our day to do that.

“I take nothing away from what [Hills West] did, but I’ll take my boys over their boys every day,” he added. “They left everything out on the field, worked their tails off. Even when they got down by a goal, they kept trying to get a goal. That’s what it’s about when you get into a playoff situation. Someone isn’t moving on and it’s us and it’s not for a lack of effort. You could see it in their faces and emotion. They left it all out on the field.”

Just a few minutes after the Hills West goal, East Hampton junior John Bustamante was taken down, giving the Bonackers a direct kick about 20 yards away from the goal, which junior Gary Gutama took. His shot had a dangerous bend to it that went over the Hills West goalie’s head, but just over the crossbar.

About five minutes later, a Hills West player was taken down in the box, giving the Colts a penalty kick. In a one-goal game, a second goal undoubtedly would have iced the game for Hills West, but East Hampton junior goalie Nicholas Guerrero kept his eyes on the ball from the start of the kick and easily made the save, one of five on the day, to keep it a one-goal game.

With East Hampton in attack mode in the final two minutes of the game, Hills West was able to go on a breakaway, and it appeared as though the Colts were going to score, but junior defender Jeremy Ortiz somehow slid and dove and kicked the ball away just before crossing the line, again, keeping it a one-goal game.

But with just over a minute remaining, there wasn’t enough time left for East Hampton to tie the game and force overtime.

“I thought we worked tremendously hard against a physical team,” McGovern said. “I thought that when we were able to play the way we can play, you know, moving the ball on the ground and everything, we were the better team. We knew we were going to have limited chances against them because of how many guys they keep back, but we still created chances, but we did not take advantage of those chances.”

Now comes the tough part of the season when McGovern and the rest of the program has to say goodbye to the departing seniors, a group that includes leading goal scorer and co-captain Eric Armijos, who finished the season tied with Sayville senior Owen Burke for fourth in the county with 16 goals, and co-captain Michael Figueroa. Sebastian Avila, Steve Baculima, Alexander Brito, Jose Calderon, David Criollo, Andres Narvaez, John Siranaula and Aldo Zhagui are all graduating as well.

McGovern said despite Monday’s loss, he and his team were going to take to the turf the following day to get started on next season, where despite those losses to graduation, the bulk of what was a junior-laden team will be returning.

“Our seniors are great, but we just have an outstanding team, doesn’t matter their age,” McGovern said. “We’ve got a freshman backup goalie, a sophomore starter, a large junior group with two seniors starting. They just pushed each other every day, came together as a really special group.

“I just think we, over time, need to consider what we did do and what we did accomplish,” he added. “And we do have the potential next year to be successful again. We had a lot of sophomores and juniors who played a tremendous amount of minutes and we’ll be looking to utilize that going into next season, but nothing is a given. Our work starts tomorrow. We’ll meet up on the turf where we’ll be doing some things together, reflecting on our experience and thinking about what the future has in store for us.”