Southampton Girls Soccer Defeats Center Moriches, Has Sights Set On County Title

The Southampton girls soccer team isn’t shy when talking about what its singular goal is for this season.

“We want to beat every team in our class,” Southampton junior co-captain Charlotte Cardel said after her team’s 2-1 home victory over Center Moriches on Thursday. “We’re coming for Babylon.”

The Mariners have been eliminated from the postseason the past two years by Babylon, which won the county title and reached the state semifinals in 2019, the last time a state tournament was played. While there isn’t a state tournament this season due to the coronavirus pandemic, Southampton has its sights set on capturing what would be the program’s first ever county title.

“Our goal is to make county finals, and we’re really close to that even at the beginning of the season,” junior co-captain Carli Cameron added. “We just need to work hard, and if we keep working hard and keep playing like we played today, then we’ll definitely get there.”

Cameron got her Mariners on the scoreboard with 19:14 remaining in the first half of Thursday’s contest. She played a long ball into the box that was originally corralled by the Center Moriches goalie, but the ball squirted out from underneath her and Cameron was there to pick up the loose ball and score on what was an empty net.

Not even four minutes later, a similar situation presented itself where the Center Moriches goalie could not keep possession of the ball, but this time it was junior Taylor Zukosky who picked up the loose ball and fired it into the upper left hand corner to make it a quick 2-0 game.

Zukosky’s goal wound up being the game-winner as Center Moriches scored with just under eight minutes left in the first half. Both teams had its scoring chances throughout the second half, but Southampton senior Kendra Jimenez came up big for a few saves to preserve the lead.

Jimenez made 15 saves on the night and her head coach, Sean Zay, appreciated her effort.

“She’s everything you want in a keeper in that she’s very, very aggressive, but also has a good awareness of where everybody else is on the field,” he said. “She’s played with that back four for years, so she knows where they’re going to be and where she’s going to be, so she can take chances and that’s the thing that’s going to help us out. She’s good. She’s very good.”

Southampton started the season off with a 7-0 victory at Port Jefferson this past Monday. Both Cameron and junior co-captain Ellie Avallone each had a pair of hat tricks and Zukosky added the other. Jimenez made 11 saves for the shut out.

But Thursday's victory over Center Moriches was a milestone in and of itself – it’s thought to be the Southampton girl's first ever over the Red Devils. The Mariners were scheduled to play Mattituck/Southold/Greenport on Friday evening and a win on the North Fork would be another first for the team.

Southampton is hoping for more firsts as the season goes on.

“We’re starting off really strong and I think if we keep playing the way we’ve been playing — we just beat a team that we haven’t beaten — I think if we keep that pressure up and keep attacking like we want to win, then I think we can go far," Avallone said.

“We’re trying to announce ourself to the rest of the county that we’re one of the better B schools and we’re looking to get a county title,” Zay added.