Pintado's Goal Gives East Hampton Boys Soccer First Victory Over Amityville In Five Years

The boys on the Amityville soccer team don’t make many mistakes, evident in the team’s many wins over the past several seasons, including state championship banners from 2015 and 2018. But the Warriors made one mistake on March 31 at East Hampton, and senior Bonacker Christopher Pintado made them pay for it.

With about 25 minutes remaining in a scoreless game, Pintado made a great individual effort to pressure an Amityville player, managed to get the ball away from that player, then find about 10 yards of open space to dribble before rocketing a shot from 20 yards out into the upper portion of the goal to give East Hampton a big 1-0 victory and hand Amityville its first League IV loss of the season.

After defeating Miller Place, 3-0, on Monday, East Hampton finished the regular season 8-1-1 in league play (9-3-1 overall) and has now put itself in contention for at least a share of the league title with Amityville. Since the Warriors still had two games remaining, as of Tuesday morning, it was too early to know which team would win the league title.

East Hampton head coach Don McGovern said his team was going to enjoy what was its first win over Amityville in at least five years, and deal with everything later on.

“We want to be in positions that we were in today — playing a tight game,” he said following the win. “The kids have been great. They’ve been having a lot of fun together.

“The joy on their faces today was just great, because they know a league championship is within reach.”

It was a bit perplexing that the Amityville defense, which was swarming the field all game, didn’t collapse on Pintado after he stole the ball. Pintado himself was a bit surprised, he said, but he saw an opportunity and took it.

“You get that opening, just rip the shot,” he said.

“It feels good at the end that we won, we beat them,” Pintado added. “They’re the best team, everyone says, but now they’re going to be talking about us.”

Amityville had outscored its opponents 26-4 this season, tied with Babylon for third best in the county in scoring, but East Hampton’s defense was up to the task. That included senior goalie Christopher Pintado, who made two big saves in the first half, and was helped out by the post on an Amityville corner kick that made its way through the box. The Warriors also sent in a number of deep long balls into the box that Barahona made look easy, but with a cross wind at East Hampton, certainly were not.

Barahona was grateful of the help he’s had from his coaches, specifically assistant Anthony Roza.

“It’s all up to him because he’s the man that taught me how to catch the ball,” he said. “Some of the set pieces they looked for the wide guys, so it didn’t come to me. But some balls did, and with the wind and everything, you have to time it perfectly and make sure not to drop it, because if they get the rebound it’s on you.”

East Hampton senior Matthew McGovern said winning the league title may be out of the Bonackers’ hands at this point, but last week’s victory should propel them going forward.

“We’re feeling good now,” he said. “We came off one tough loss last week, but we’re right back in it now. We’re ready for playoffs.”