A good number of East Hampton High's players were in tears following Saturday's 2-1 first-round county Class AA boys soccer playoff loss to Deer Park, the 10th seed among the bracket's 11 teams. East Hampton was the seventh.
They had, their coach, Don McGovern, assured them, lost to a good team, but knowing that they'd often come out on the short end of the free-kick calls that arose from toe-to-toe struggles for possession stung.
Well, McGovern said, sometimes life isn't fair, and, as they would learn as their lives progressed, the best thing to do was to gain in strength and move forward.
The visitors got on the scoreboard first, when, in the 24th minute, a free kick taken just outside the penalty box soared over a four-man "wall" and bounced down over the goal line from the underside of the crossbar. With the sun in his eyes to boot, Brandon Encalada, Bonac's sophomore goalie, didn't have much of a chance.
Moments later, Esteban Diaz, a sophomore midfielder, sent a long shot over Deer Park's crossbar, as he was to do a number of other times as the game went on.
Juan Salcedo, a hard-charging senior forward who scored twice in a 4-3 comeback win over Hauppauge here on Oct. 17 — a delightful victory that clinched a playoff spot for the Bonackers — came close to scoring with nine minutes left until the half. A minute later, the Falcons were awarded another free kick in close, but the kicker, again facing a wall of defenders, sent his shot over the bar. A subsequent shot by Diaz zipped over Deer Park's crossbar with three minutes to go, and, in the final minute of the first half, Deer Park almost put another one past Encalada, who had a teammate to thank for the save.
Before a minute of play had passed in the second half, Salcedo converted the rebound of a shot that had resulted from an East Hampton free kick Diaz had taken, a goal that tied the score and energized the home team and its fans.
Five minutes later, the legs of a Bonac player were taken out from under him near the 40-yard line, a seeming foul that, despite McGovern's loud protests, went unacknowledged as Deer Park, continuing to play the ball up, scored again, the shot beating Encalada to the right side of the nets.
Diaz got off another bazooka in the 50th minute, but it went wide. In the 64th, he was pushed down in the penalty box, but, to the puzzlement of many, what ensued was a corner kick, rather than a penalty kick, which, if made, would have tied the score.
Nothing came of that corner kick, and nothing was to come of East Hampton's continually tenacious efforts in the 16 minutes that remained, during which Encalada made a diving save following another close-in free kick, and, as the clock was running out, made a leaping save of another Deer Park bid.
Thus, this year's squad, which had on it 11 seniors, ended the season at 7-7-1. Though, looking ahead to the fall of 2025, when it comes to East Hampton boys soccer it's never a case of rebuilding, only of reloading.
