Moraga's Second-Half Tally Is The Difference In Baymen's 1-0 Victory Over Mattituck

Over the past four years or so, Milan Moraga has shown an innate ability to jump, consistently winning medals in the long and triple jumps for the Hampton Bays indoor and outdoor tracks teams in the winter and spring.

On Tuesday night, the senior captain of the boys soccer team put his leaping ability to test and scored the game-winning goal in a 1-0 victory over Mattituck in what was the home opener for the Baymen.

A foul called on Mattituck with about 15 minutes remaining gave Hampton Bays a free kick from about 40 yards out. Junior Cris Vasquez sent a deep ball from the sideline to the top of Mattituck's goal box and Moraga beat his defender to the ball, leaped and the headed the ball into the top right corner of the goal to break the scoreless tie.

Moraga admitted after the game he didn't necessarily try and direct the ball into the goal it just kind of happened. He was more worried about getting to the correct spot and then timing his jump.

Just before the play, "I looked up, Cris gave me a nod, I looked back, I kept my run and I ran through on time. It was just the perfect ball," Moraga explained. "I opened my eyes in the last second and saw it go in to the far corner."

"I have friends from Center Moriches and they talked about Mattituck and how difficult they were so it felt pretty good," to score the game-winning goal, he added. "It shows that our team is looking good this year."

Hampton Bays head coach Scott Garofola said that earlier in the game he saw his players not run at full speed during a similar play and it led to a missed opportunity. This time everything was executed well.

"With Milan at full pace on a jump, you’re not going to out-jump him, so the timing was right, the spot was right. Cris hit the spot and Milan finished it," he said. "Cris hits a good long ball. We know he can put a dangerous ball in from there that’s why we use him and he put it in the right spot."

Mattituck certainly had its opportunities to score throughout the game, including after Moraga's goal. Just minutes after Moraga's goal, the Tuckers had a solid shot go just wide right of the goal. And with about 10 minutes remaining in the game, Hampton Bays junior goalie Matt Arroyo had come out of his box to play a ball and was down on the ground when the Tuckers sent what looked to be the game-tying goal into the net, but Hampton Bays senior defender Diego Vivar was there to boot the chance aside.

From that point on the Baymen pretty much controlled the rest of the game and even had more opportunities to score but settled with the 1-0 victory. After a 2-1 victory at Southold on September 7, the Baymen are off to a 2-0 start in League VII play, and Garofola said Tuesday night's victory was nice to get early on against a solid team such as Mattituck.

"They’re well coached, the players are well trained, they know what they’re doing, so to get a win against one of the good teams in the league early it helps, not only in the standings but it helps boost the morale of the team going forward and that piece is important in terms of mindset."

The season is just starting, though, and things need to improve, Garofola added.

"I think it's something where you can't get complacent. We have to use it as building, because today was far from perfect," he said. "They did outplay us to begin the game, we were flat. But again, it also speaks to some perseverance there and pushing through that and coming out the other side.

"Sometimes we're going to need to grind and this was one," Garofola said. "If it has to be one play, we need to make that one play, and today we did."