For the second time in five years, the Jamesville-DeWitt boys soccer team had made it to the last weekend of the season, bound and determined to bring the program’s first state championship home.
But before it could really settle down in Saturday morning’s state Class A semifinal at Middletown High School, East Hampton had seized the initiative, and would not let go.
With a lot of talent and a little bit of good fortune, the Long Island champion Bonackers put away J-D, 3-0, advancing to the state title game against Greece Athena (Section V) and ending the Rams’ run.
What had brought J-D back to the state final four was a spicy mixture of aggressive midfield play, backed up by a defense that rarely surrendered anything and rarely made the kind of mistakes a quality opponent could exploit.
Right away, though, East Hampton applied heavy pressure on J-D’s back end. At first, the shots went off target, but in the 11th minute, after another attack, a clearing attempt by the defense inadvertently went back into the Rams’ net, giving the Bonackers a 1-0 edge.
Five minute later, J-D’s deficit doubled when Nicholas West pounced upon a shot by teammate Esteban Valverde that had rammed off the goalpost. Before Rams goalie D.J. Newman could react, West had deposited the rebound for East Hampton’s second goal.
Only then did the defense settle down, and late in the first half J-D enjoyed more of the flow of play, applying some pressure, but getting nothing past a stingy Bonackers defense that had recorded 15 shutouts this fall.
So it was 2-0 going into the break, and as the second half got underway, the Rams tried, again, to get on the board, and again got thwarted.
Instead, in the 55th minute, West returned as chief tormentor, moving the ball past a pair of J-D back-line players and made a solo run on Newman, eventually putting home East Hampton’s third and final goal.
Unable to get on the board, J-D saw a season that included Section III and regional Class A titles (with six straight post-season wins) conclude at 14-7-2.
And the Rams won’t see much roster turnover. Tyler Lichtenstein, Xander Ferlenda, Josh Frank, Sean Mulvihill and Robert Wason graduate, but a large returning cast, including Newman, Jordan VanStry, Dylan Lichtenstein, Jacob Brazie, Charlie Digristina, Tyler Lux, Jake Socia, Tyler Gabriel and Dean Kousmanidis, will set its sights on a return trip to the state final four in 2015.
