While Playoffs May Not Be Attainable This Season, Zay Likes How His Southampton Girls Soccer Team Is Playing

Coming into the season with a talented, senior-laden squad, Southampton girls soccer head coach Sean Zay had high hopes for his team. But they were just that, hopes.

Zay knew it was going to take a lot of things to go right for his team to make a possibly postseason run, but that hasn’t happened. The Mariners have had to navigate through what is a highly competitive League VII that includes state-ranked teams, and the ones that aren’t ranked, Zay said, could easily find themselves in the state tournament this November.

While he knows his team can compete, the wins haven’t been there. Southampton lost, 6-0, at Bayport-Blue Point, on Thursday, September 26, after having lost, 5-0, at home to Shoreham-Wading River, which is ranked fifth in the state in Class A as of the latest New York State Sportswriters Association poll.

“The scores may not indicate it but this is the best my teams have played against these schools,” Zay said. “We’re hanging in there. There are no breaks with that ‘A’ schedule. Those teams we used to do well against are now in that developmental league and so there are no days off. We took Mount Sinai to double overtime and lost, 4-3. We lost, 3-0, to a really good John Glenn that was really a 2-0 game for most of it. We’ve had some really good chances. We’re right there.”

Zay said while the team isn’t officially mathematically out of a playoff spot just yet, the team would have to go on torrid run to qualify in Class A, and while the schedule doesn’t get somewhat easier in the second half, it’s still a tall order, he said. It’s a tough pill to swallow given the talent up and down the lineup, Zay added. Senior Vivienne Archer leads the team with nine goals and is a legitimate threat to score against any team when she has the ball, he said, and some of the younger players, such as freshmen Isabella Glorioso and Sabrina Calderone, have already shined. Calderone was not on varsity to start the season, but since being called up has three goals. Glorioso has her first varsity points under her belt as well.

“In my five or six years, however long I’ve been here now as coach, this is definitely one of the best teams,” he said. “The fact that we’re not a ‘B’ school means we just have to be perfect to make the playoffs and we just haven’t been perfect. But the girls still go out there and play their hearts out every single game.”

The expectation is that next year the program will drop back down to Class B due to lower enrollment numbers where Zay said his team, although graduating a bevy of talent this year, should be more competitive. But a playoff spot won’t be a guarantee with strong programs such as Babylon there as well.

“We still have really good young talent. Our JV is having a really good season,” Zay said. “We’ll still hang in there and fight with the A teams, but we’re set up for the next couple years. And it’s not like I’m not thrilled with how the girls are playing, and it’s not like we’re getting thumped every game. If you score on us it means you did well. We’ve figured things out on defense and they’re playing tough.”

Southampton hosted Mattituck/Southold/Greenport on Tuesday, results of which occurred too late to appear in this week’s article. It won’t have another game until October 10 when it plays at Babylon at 4:30 p.m.