Following Saturday's 1-0 county Class A final loss to Harborfields, Don McGovern, East Hampton High's varsity boys soccer coach, said that "if we played them 10 times, we'd win five and they'd win five."
The Tornadoes, the third-seeded team in the tournament, had beaten Amityville, the second seed, 3-1 in the semifinal round. East Hampton had routed the top seed, Half Hollow Hills West, 5-1 in the other semi.
It was the fifth time an East Hampton boys soccer team had played in a county final in the past dozen years. The Bonackers lost to Comsewogue in 2009, but won in 2011, 2012, and 2014, defeating Sayville, John Glenn, and Comsewogue in those games.
As McGovern said, the Bonackers and Tornadoes were evenly matched. Statistics kept by one spectator bear that out, in every category save for goals scored and throw-ins awarded in the second half, which went East Hampton's way 12-3, an indicator, McGovern agreed, that the Bonackers were the more aggressive team in that span. He also agreed that his team had the more promising scoring chances throughout the fray -- and it was a fray. Every ball was contested.
And yet it came down to one set play, when, in the 61st minute, the Tornadoes were awarded a free kick off to the left of East Hampton's goal, about 20 yards out, following a takedown. Stefen Nikolic, a senior midfielder who took the free kick, curled a rocket that would have torn into the right corner of the nets had not Christopher Barahona, Bonac's senior goalie, made a leaping, breathtaking save.
But, because of the acute angle, Barahona, who fell to the ground, could not hang on to the ball, and Jude Callan, a junior midfielder, emerged from a crowd in the goal mouth to push in the rebound.
"I thought the only way they'd score would be on something like that," McGovern said during a telephone conversation the next day.
The call against East Hampton's defender had been "fair enough," he said. There were countless collisions and bodies flew that evening on Coram's Diamond in the Pines field, "but it was a good, hard-fought soccer game," McGovern said. "Every kid on both teams was battling hard."
There was still the better part of 20 minutes left to play after Harborfields scored, and East Hampton tried mightily in those minutes to even the count.
Matt McGovern came very close to doing so in the 71st minute, but his hard-hit 25-yard free kick over a three-man "wall" curled just wide of the left post.
Earlier, about five minutes into second frame, the players on East Hampton's bench leaped up, arms raised, thinking that Nico Cifuentes-Diaz's free kick, taken down the field from about 30 yards away, had found the nets, but it turned out his shot had zipped just over the crossbar.
"It was, as you say, even-steven -- it came down to that one play, but that's soccer," Bonac's coach said afterward.
With many of his players in an inconsolable state following the final countdown, McGovern told them in the huddle that they should hold their heads high, that they had left it all out on the field. Life was like that, he said. Inevitably there would be disappointments.
"It was a hard loss -- it hurt," he said later. "I was sad, too, especially for the seniors. You can say we had a good time wallowing in our sorrow on the way back in the bus, but, in the end, we understood that we should be proud."
"They're a wonderful group of young men," added McGovern, who has coached a number of them, on club teams and school teams, since they were fifth graders.
"I said to the younger guys, 'Remember this feeling -- you don't want to have it!' "
