East Hampton Boys Soccer Falls To Harborfields In County Championship

The sad looks on the faces of the East Hampton boys soccer team players said it all after their hard-fought 1-0 loss to Harborfields in the Suffolk County Class A Championships at Diamond in the Pines in Coram on Saturday, with their hands on their heads and tears streaming down their faces.

Clearly, with such deep emotions pouring out following the loss, the Bonackers truly felt they had a shot at taking home the program’s first county title since 2014. But it was simply not meant to be.

With 18:15 remaining in the game, Harborfields was awarded a free kick after junior Andrew Root was taken down just outside of the goal box. Junior Nicholas Ruisi sent a diving ball in that East Hampton senior goalie Christopher Barahona dove to get a hand on, but the ball deflected directly to the feet of junior Jude Callan, who only needed to gather himself with a few toe taps before easily pushing the ball across the goal line with Barahona out of the play.

The Bonackers had several chances to score throughout the game, maybe more so than the Tornadoes, but they couldn’t capitalize on any of them. As senior defender Christian Gomez pointed out after the game, East Hampton allowed what amounted to eight goals all season long — just six during the regular season — and to have it decided by one goal was hard to swallow.

“That’s the game. That’s the brutality of it,” East Hampton head coach Don McGovern said. “You can give up the one opportunity that they generate, and then you could have numerous, and if you don’t put it in the back of the net, that’s the brutality of it.”

After diving to make the initial stop on what ended up being the winning goal, Barahona landed on a part of the goal and had a decent-sized scrape on his arm to show for it. He simply called it an unlucky play.

“It was whipping in so I couldn’t do much about it. I just had to parry it out,” he said of the shot. “Really it’s all about luck. [The deflection] was going to the guy’s feet, he just shoots it in.

“Not a good memory,” he added. “It could have been great to win, but I can say in the future that I went to a county final and played in it.”

What hurt the most for the players was that they had worked extremely hard, some for the past four years, to finally get the team back to the county final, and to come up just short was heartbreaking.

“Everyone worked hard, both teams,” East Hampton senior captain Matthew McGovern said. “Outcome is not what we wanted, but I’m happy with the way we played today.

“Looking back, it’s going to be a really nice season to look at ’cause it’s the first time we’re in the county championship since 2014,” he added. “It’s definitely an accomplishment. Even though we feel really down right now, if we look back, we’re going to think about the good times, not this one game.”

East Hampton reached the playoffs after going 8-1-1 in League IV this season, which included a big 1-0 victory over powerhouse Amityville. The fourth-seeded Bonackers defeated Hauppauge, 1-0, in the quarterfinals of the playoffs, then upended top-seed Half Hollow Hills West, 5-1, on April 21 to reach Saturday’s county final.

The Bonackers have now reached the county championships five of the past 12 years — a feat their head coach said shouldn’t be taken lightly — and many of the players on this year’s team were ball boys or watched those teams that won county titles in 2011, 2012 and 2014, and wanted to achieve that same greatness.

“They grew up watching guys winning league championships, county championships, so for them getting back here was something that they always dreamed about, strived for,” Coach McGovern said. “But at the end of the day, [they] were one of two teams that got the opportunity to play on the last possible day of the season.

“Great, great group of guys,” he added. “Worked their tails off all year. There’s no quit in them, today either. They kept trying. I felt like when we got into the attacking third we were more dangerous, but we weren’t able to find the back of the net.”

There is a large group of seniors graduating, many of whom played a big part in leading the team to the success it had this season. But as the Bonackers have shown in the past, they can battle with the best the county has to offer, and Coach McGovern isn’t expecting any sort of dropoff next season — in fact, he’s expecting the loss to push the team going forward.

“That’s the thing, getting to this game, the other kids know about that, they want to get back here,” he said. “In 12 years, we’ve gone to five county finals. When you put that into perspective, that’s pretty good. Haven’t won them all, won three, but I think that’s what the program represents. And it’s also a good representation, as they’re growing up they see that they want to do that. And they play a lot of club soccer, too, because they know that’s one avenue that’s going to improve and help them, and then they come together and play with their school mates and guys you walk the halls with.”