“It was a great game,” Don McGovern, who coaches East Hampton High’s boys soccer team, said at Friday’s practice, the day after East Hampton and Amityville, which came into the showdown as the undefeated league leader, played full tilt for the better part of two hours — throughout 80 minutes of regulation and two 10-minute overtimes — only to have the game wind up in a tie, at 3-3.
If it were any consolation, McGovern and his assistant, Anthony Roza, were in agreement that East Hampton’s misses were by narrower margins than Amityville’s.
The visitors scored four minutes into the game, after Randy Japa, East Hampton’s keeper, had come well out of the cage to the left in trying to fend off an attack, an ensuing high-flying kick coming to rest in the upper right corner of Bonac’s nets as a defender, Matias Gonzalez, looked on helplessly.
Two minutes later, Gonzalez was called for taking an Amityville player down in the box, resulting in a penalty kick that beat Japa to the upper right corner for a 2-0 Warrior lead.
Things looked pretty bleak for East Hampton at that point, but the Bonackers came right back. In the seventh minute, East Hampton’s Nolan Serrano alertly converted Eduardo Calle’s ground-hugger aimed toward the far post.
Christopher Deleon came very close to tying the score when, after breaking away downfield in the 18th minute, he launched a shot that just skimmed over Amityville’s crossbar, and, barely a minute later, Calle took aim from the 25-yard line, his shot likewise sailing just over the bar. A one-on-one save by Japa in the 23rd minute kept East Hampton in the game. In the 30th, Yandel Parra blew a chance, his try veering wide left.
“Now, we have the wind,” McGovern said to his charges during the halftime break, at which point East Hampton still trailed 2-1. “And be quicker — be first to the ball. I’m not talking about speed, I’m talking about being aggressive. We can play with these guys.”
Soon after the second half started, in the 46th minute, East Hampton tied it at 2-2, and in dramatic fashion, as Serrano headed in the rebound of a direct kick by Jonathan Armijos that had bounced down off the underside of Amityville’s crossbar.
And then, in the 60th minute, McGovern’s team took a 3-2 lead as Yandel Parra, who had, in working his way into scoring position, juked two defenders, slammed a shot into the lower left corner of the nets. Moments later, he found himself in a similar position, but rather than pull the trigger, Parra passed softly to Deleon, who was more centered, but who could not convert.
In the 71st minute, the players on the visitors’ bench jumped up and cheered as a header zipped past Japa, tying the score at 3-3.
And that was the way it would be for the remaining 29 minutes of play, though, with three minutes to go in regulation, Armijos had a golden chance to win it had his one-touch effort from point-blank range not risen just over the crossbar. He had another chance in the final seconds of regulation, from the 20, but his shot went wide left.
In the opening minutes of the first 10-minute overtime, Juan Salcedo smacked a shot off the crossbar, which proved to be the OT periods’ most creditable attempt.
As of Friday, Amityville, at 4-0-2, and Hauppauge, at 5-1-0, were tied for the League VI lead. East Hampton, at 4-1-1, was just one point out of first place.
East Hampton was to have played at Hauppauge on Monday, and is to play at Eastport-South Manor today.
