Bridgehampton Enjoying Its First Foray Into Varsity Boys Soccer

Yes, Bridgehampton has its first-ever varsity boys soccer team this fall, and yes, the Killer Bees already have their first win.

The victory came on September 15, in their first home game on their field behind their school, when the Bees defeated Smithtown Christian, 4-2. Senior co-captain Luis Penafiel scored the initial goal — another program first — about 15 minutes into the contest off what he described on Saturday, after Bridgehampton (1-5 in Division IV) lost a home game, 4-0, to Mattituck, as off a deflection.

Penafiel finished with a hat trick in the win, while junior Xavier Johnson scored off a corner kick sent in from sophomore Ian Brabo.

“I’m really excited to get the first goal,” the striker said. “That was my goal, ultimately. I’ve had a couple of injuries. I was a bit doubtful [to play], but I really had it in my head the whole time, I really wanted that first goal and I got it.”

In what is thought to be the district’s first fall varsity sport since the 1940s, when it had 6-man and 8-man football, the boys soccer program, which up until this year had sent players to nearby Pierson in Sag Harbor, was a longtime vision of athletic director Mike DeRosa. Currently recuperating from brain surgery following his glioblastoma diagnosis in March, DeRosa made it down to the field last week to witness the program’s very first victory.

Davin Johnson is the head coach of Bridgehampton, and if that’s a name that sounds familiar, it’s because it is. He is the son of legendary Bridgehampton basketball coach Carl Johnson and is ready to lead the program for the future.

Davin Johnson is no stranger to soccer. A player under coach Dave Riley at Southampton High School, Johnson walked on to the University of Miami’s men’s track and field team — the school did not have a men’s soccer team when he attended the school. He returned to Southampton, where he headed up the junior high boys soccer team before assisting Sean Zay on the varsity girls soccer team there for six years.

It was a bit of a hectic start to the season for Johnson, who was married in Jamaica the first week of the season. In his stead, Cesar Giraldo and George Luna filled in, admirably, according to Johnson. Both have stayed on in Johnson’s return.

“Coach George and Coach Cesar, they’ve been absolutely amazing,” he said. “We got them through assistance of East Hampton’s Athletic Director [Kathy Masterson]. They filled in, ran all the practices for me. They are very experienced coaches, they know exactly what they are talking about. They can also help break down language barriers because they’re bilingual, so that’s a big help, too.”

“It’s very, very exciting for us, quite frankly,” Johnson said, overall, starting out as a brand new program. “These boys have been excited about this program — probably even longer than I have — and it’s great for them now to be able to put that energy out on the field. They show up every day to work hard and they’re ready to make history for this program.”

Numbers are solid with 27 student-athletes making up the program. For some schools, that could be enough for a junior varsity program as well, but Johnson said that for the time being, they’re going to go with a large varsity team. Should numbers improve, he said, they could very well add a JV team.

“It makes practices competitive because we know the next man is always there,” he said of keeping a large team. “So if they’re not participating and showing up in practice, we have somebody else to fill that spot.”

That’s 27 players with only five seniors, which includes Penafiel, goal keeper Kai Alversa, defensemen Devyer Cabanas and Adrian Molina, and midfielder/forward Steven Tlapanco.

Alversa has been busy more often than not this season, which is par for the course for a team that is new to varsity, playing against some seasoned and much larger teams in Division IV, such as Babylon, Southampton and Center Moriches. He was credited with 14 saves on Saturday against Mattituck, one of which came on a penalty kick.

The way he controls the defense and is not one bit hesitant to disrupt the offense on balls coming into the box, Alversa — a key piece of Bridgehampton’s varsity baseball team as well — looks like he’s been playing soccer nearly his entire life.

But, to the contrary, this is just his second year playing soccer, and he admitted last week that he wasn’t entirely sure he’d even play this season.

“I wasn’t sure I was going to play last year when I first heard, but it’s something special to play and represent your school,” he said. “It means a lot to me. We’re only getting better. We look so much better this game than the first game. It’s been great.”

Juniors Elver Cruz-Reyes, Luka Hope, Joseph Penafiel, Leo McDonald, Jordyn Turner, Xavier Johnson and Santiago Posada; sophomores Nick Bonilla Hernandez, Ian Brabo, Amaree Charlton, Steven Lucero Morocho, Guillermo San Juan, Engher Suarez Rodriguez and Italo Tenecela Pintado; freshmen Finn Alversa, Axel Cruz-Reyes, Chase Chmielewski, Nate Feierstein, Edgar Huacon Bonilla and Dutch Lawless; and eighth-graders Joshua Acton-Bond and Jeffrey Ruiz Soto fill out the roster.

“It shows that we have a lot of potential here,” the fact that his team has already won a game, Johnson said. “We’re only carrying about five seniors on our squad, so we have a nice tight unit. They play hard, they work hard for each other, and when things are clicking for us we look like a very good team. We can compete with most teams out here on the island, even being such a small school.”

Johnson said there are a number of goals he and his team would like to achieve this season. At the top of that list is to be the Suffolk County Class D Champions. In order to do that, they’ll need to continue to defeat Smithtown Christian and Riverhead Charter, the other two “D” schools in the county. They play each school twice during the regular season and the top two schools are expected to play for the county title on October 28 at Southampton High School at 5 p.m.

Bridgehampton is scheduled to play Riverhead Charter for the first time this Friday, September 26, at the Granny Road Complex in Gordon Heights at 4 p.m.

Alversa said the immediate goal is to continue to build the program and improve every day.

“Even though we’re the seniors, we’re trying to make sure this program can keep competing year after year after year,” he said. “This year our goal is to be that Class D qualifier and move on. We’ve got some great coaches so we’re positive we can get there.”

“If we want to reach our maximum goal, which is be Class D Champions, it’s got to go through Riverhead Charter and Smithtown Christian,” Johnson said. “Those are our big focuses for the season, that we can get those wins there. But we want to compete against every team that we play up against. Even today, the result wasn’t what we wanted, but we came out here and competed. We had spurts of maybe 5 to 10 minutes or so, separated of course, but we had great runs out there, connecting passes, controlling the field. So it shows that when we actually put our ‘A’ game forward the entire time, we can win these games against these bigger schools.”