Westhampton Beach Boys Soccer Drops Playoff Opener in Overtime

When it comes to the Suffolk County Class A boys soccer playoffs, seeding can basically get thrown out of the window. Outside of maybe the top two teams — Amityville and East Hampton, respectively — every team could give each other a run, and that’s what played out on Monday evening, when Westhampton Beach, the 12th seed, visited Shoreham-Wading River, the fifth seed.

In a game that featured three high quality goals, the Wildcats scored the third and deciding one, when, just 1:14 into the first overtime, junior Thomas Daggett headed a perfectly placed cross feed from senior Ryan Menno into the back of the goal, giving Shoreham the 2-1 victory at Thomas Cutinella Memorial Field at Shoreham-Wading River High School. With the win, Shoreham advanced to the quarterfinals at No. 4 Elwood/John Glenn on Thursday.

It was a tough way to go down for a Westhampton Beach team that battled its way through injuries all season long to clinch a spot by going 5-5 in League IV. The Hurricanes had lost, 7-0, to the Wildcats on the same field earlier this season, but as head coach Cody Hoyt pointed out, he was missing four players that game. He knew Monday’s affair would be different, and after all, his team had given teams like Amityville and East Hampton scares this season.

“We definitely have a lot of seniors driving us along here,” Hoyt said after the game. “It’s been an up and down season with injuries and everything like that. Still a few guys getting healthy, but they knew coming in it wasn’t going to be like last time. We played East Hampton to a tough game. We played Amityville to a tough game. We had the mindset we could play with everybody. Even though we’re the 12th seed, we never felt like a 12 seed.”

Shoreham put itself on the board with 3:08 in the first half on a highlight reel goal by junior Owen Caraftis. A ball was sent in from the corner and drifted beyond the Westhampton Beach goal, and looked like it was going to go wide, when Caraftis used a scissors kick to flick the ball in with his right foot, making it a 1-0 game.

Down a goal to start the second half, the Hurricanes pressured early and often and scored a nifty goal of their own when senior co-captain Kade Murphree sent the ball to the left side of the field to fellow senior co-captain Ethan Vogt, who quickly centered a pass to a driving Chance Brindle in the middle of the field, and the senior buried the ball into what was basically an open net with goalie Kyle Rose caught off guard.

“Going down, it’s easy to hang your head, but in soccer, one goal, two goals, it’s not like a definitive lead, so they came out strong,” Hoyt said of his players. “And I said, look to dominate the first five minutes of the second half to really show if we want this or not. We actually talked at halftime, even if you don’t feel your legs, you got to be sprinting down that backside with everything you got, and that’s what happened. Chance did that. He was able to put one in just like we talked about. Showed a lot of heart there.”

While the final score was close, the Wildcats did outplay the ’Canes in a number of facets, including corners and shots on goal. Many of those scoring opportunities were snuffed out by senior goalie Alex Ajiataz, who was credited with eight saves, but probably was involved in a lot more. He battled all game long, including when he took an inadvertent kick to the ribs on a ball that was crossed into the box.

“Today he showed up, he stood on his head, he made some incredible saves,” Hoyt said of his goalie. “He was aggressive coming out. He doesn’t really have all that much formal goalie training.”

Like they did at the end of last season, the ’Canes are preparing for another exodus of graduating players with 12 moving on after this season. That group includes Ajiataz, Brindle, Murphree, Vogt, Robert Bertorello, Jean Carlo Escobar, Alex Espana, Matt Galovic, Angel Lima Ramirez, Randel Osorio, Amner Rosales, Heliang Vera Mantuano, Pablo Vicente and Ryan Kienerman. Many were a part of last year’s team that also made the playoffs.

“A tremendous group,” Hoyt said. “They saw last year how last season ended and it was eye-opening for them, and they wanted to make it their year this year and to step up and make a nice name for themselves and they did that. We’re going to miss them, but JV did well this season, so we’re expecting to have some younger kids come through.”