Westhampton Beach Boys Soccer Is On A Roll

And then there two.

The Westhampton Beach boys soccer team is one of only two remaining teams, along with Half Hollow Hills West, that remain undefeated in League III play, as of Tuesday morning. The Hurricanes have rattled off four consecutive victories since losing their non-league season opener, 2-1, to Elwood/John Glenn, and head coach Cody Hoyt said his players are excited about a possible postseason berth this season, but with the way they’ve started, he wants them to strive for more.

“We talk about winning the week, and everyone’s talking about the playoffs. I’m like, why not go for the league title? Why not focus on other goals besides playoffs?” he said, after his team’s 1-0 home victory over Rocky Point on Saturday. “That’s something else that I think we have to get in that mindset and not just think postseason, but what we want to do in the season.”

In that tight one-goal victory over Rocky Point, the ’Canes outplayed the Eagles in just about every facet of the game, but couldn’t capitalize on their number of scoring opportunities. Finally, with about 20 minutes remaining in the game, junior Aidan Kellachan sent a nice pass into the box for junior Loris Van Vlodrop, who beat his defender and then the Rocky Point goalie to basically walk the ball into the goal.

“It was Aidan Kellachan with the pass into the box, and it was a great ball, right to my feet, like right to my right foot, right where I want it,” Van Vlodrop said of the scoring play. “I put it into space, and that 50/50 I was always going to win and put it in the back of the net.

“It felt good,” to score, Van Vlodrop added, “but the win is most important. And I knew that we still had 20 minutes left on the clock, so we had to sit back, defend, try and get another one.”

The Westhampton Beach defense — as it has most of the season — stood tall the rest of the game and only allowed one scoring opportunity in the second half. The ’Canes have only allowed three goals thus far and junior goalie Alessandro Volpe, behind the strong defense of senior captain Danny Slover, senior Matt Daleo and juniors Kellechan and Liam McMunn, have all pitched in to shut out their last three opponents.

“The defense is just getting better and better every game, and we’re consistently working on it,” Slover said. “I feel like we’re just going to be very good during the season.”

Hoyt said this year’s team may be the deepest one he’s had in recent memory. He can go down the bench and call on anyone to come in and make an impact, and he said that’s going to be key as the season progresses.

“We’ve got a large senior base, and a lot of them have been playing together for a while, so that kind of shows out there,” he said. “The chemistry is out there, and I just think this team as a whole, with all of those seniors and everybody else together, that chemistry is building more and more and you can see it kind of developing each game. We have guys who have been on the team the past couple of years, guys who have been here since ninth grade, like Danny and couple of the other guys. They know what it takes, they know the level of play, and we see some new teams this year, especially at the end of the season, that are tough teams. I think it’s good that we see them later on where we can continue to grow with each other in practice and games and be ready for that at the end of the season.”

With games remaining against tough teams such as Hills West, Harborfields, Kings Park and East Islip, the ’Canes know they still have a lot of accomplish, but they’re ready for the challenge.

“Happy to start off with 3-0 in league,” junior captain Andre Insalaco said. “We’re exactly where we want to be at this point, we’ve been playing really well. Today was a little slower than we would have liked it to have been, but we’re off to a great start. We’re very happy.”