Guerrero, Defense Comes Up Big in East Hampton Boys Soccer's 1-0 Victory Over East Islip

It may have only been his second start of the season, but East Hampton senior goalie Nicholas Guerrero had faced teams like East Islip before, and won, which is why when the game was on the line on Saturday, his teammates had all the faith in the world in him to come up big. And that’s what he did.

Sophomore goalie Adrian Arango, who became the team’s starting goalie with Guerrero nursing an injury earlier this season, was away this week, leaving Guerrero to reclaim his starting role. In his first game back on October 5 at Rocky Point, Guerrero was credited with three saves and the shutout, but he knew he’d face stiffer competition at home on Saturday against East Islip, who came into that game undefeated in League VI play. It was Guerrero and East Hampton that dispatched East Islip in the quarterfinals of last year’s playoffs, and that seemed to only add fuel to the fire between both teams.

And similarly to last year’s quarterfinal, East Hampton got on the board quickly, about 12 minutes in, when senior John Bustamante, off a throw in, found junior Michael Chimbo over the middle of the field who took an open shot and scored to give Bonac an early 1-0 lead. East Hampton played well over the course of the first half but couldn’t add to its one-goal lead by halftime.

From the opening whistle of the second half, East Islip pressured but couldn’t find anything through what was a stout Bonac defense. Even when senior Kevin Hilario received his second yellow card of the game with 24:02 remaining and had to come out of the game, leaving the Bonackers a man down, the defense, along with senior goalie Nicholas Guerrero, came up big. East Islip had a few free kicks that were blocked by walls set up by the Bonackers, and when balls did happen to get through, Guerrero was there for the stop; he was credited with five saves on the day.

“Being injured and being left on the bench, it hurt,” Guerrero said after Saturday’s game. “Sometimes I was inconsistent. Sometimes I felt good, sometimes I felt bad. Now that I’m 100 percent, this game meant a lot. I started crying [after the game], just the emotions. It feels great putting everything on the field.”

Guerrero admitted that the last couple of minutes when East Islip was peppering him with shots and having to deal with multiple corner kicks was a lot.

“Last couple of minutes I was stressing because I think the second half was more East Islip’s game,” he said. “There were just a lot of emotions going through my head, but I kept my cool, always kept a good mentality, and I just said I have to defend my goal.”

In the game’s final 15 minutes or so, East Islip seemed to get frustrated it couldn’t find the back of the net, and again, even playing a man down, East Hampton managed to play the game’s final minutes much in the East Islip’s defensive third.

Eventually, Bonac held on for the 1-0 victory to improve to 7-2-1 in League VI (9-2-1 overall).

Senior co-captain Brian Tacuri said he knew Saturday’s game was going to be a battle and very much like a playoff game.

“Since I got here, my stomach dropped, it had that playoff feeling,” he said. “There’s something different when you get to these games. They’re probably one of the best teams we’ve faced this season, probably one of the most talented, too. But from the get go, I let everyone know that if we want to win today’s game, it’s going to be really, really close and we have to defend like hell. We did today, we had to park the bus and just clear everything out. We shut down their main two players. They didn’t do anything.”

Tacuri also gave a nod to Guerrero for coming up big when the team needed him.

“He didn’t start the first few games, but I said from the beginning when he started against Rocky Point, I have full faith in him,” he said. “I’ve always had full faith in him since last year since he started and he just has to keep it going and he showed off today. Very proud of him today.”

Saturday’s victory kept East Hampton alive for possibly winning the League VI title. It just so happens that Bonac’s next game is at East Islip this Thursday, October 12, at 4:30 p.m. It will be without Hilario, who will have to sit out the game having received a red card on Saturday, which is a huge loss, head coach Don McGovern said, but he’s expecting another hard-fought game on both sides.

“It’s going to be really tough since we’ll be missing our main center back in Kevin, but it’s just like coach said, if we want to win big games, we have to face adversity and we have to overcome,” Tacuri said.