Second-Half Surge Propels Bridgehampton Boys Soccer to Thrilling Tie With Greenport

With 1:05 remaining in the second overtime of a 3-3 tie, Bridgehampton senior goalie Kai Alversa went to shield himself from an incoming Greenport player and, incidentally, shouldered him to the ground. That brought a whistle from the official, who understandably called for a penalty shot.

With the game literally on the line, Alversa, as he’s done so many times already this season, stood tall and stopped the initial penalty kick, then saved the secondary shot as well, to preserve a 3-3 that saw the host Killer Bees come back from a 3-0 deficit at halftime on Saturday.

Although it went down as the team’s first-ever tie, to do so in dramatic come-from-behind fashion almost made it feel like a win.

“I was going for it and trying to shield him away from the ball a little bit,” Alversa explained of that final play that resulted in a penalty shot attempt. “[He] kind of ran in close to my shoulder, so I tried to brush him down — just a little too much contact.”

Alversa didn’t have any issues with the call for the penalty kick, just that it was a bit of an unfortunate turn of events. But then it was on to quickly locking in on the penalty shot.

“For me, I shift to the one side — I usually go to the left — and it kind of makes them have to think, obviously, go to the side where the goalie’s not,” Alversa said. “Mostly just reading his eyes, though. And then it’s just getting a hand on it.

“You got to keep your head up when you’re making the save,” he added. “Obviously, you don’t know where it’s going, so it’s just staying ready, getting as wide as you can and then trying to get some mitt on it.”

Bridgehampton head coach Davin Johnson was not at all surprised that his keeper came through in the clutch.

“Kai has an amazing ability to keep a level head, even with all the chaos on our team when things get unorganized,” he said. “Our team feels pretty solid knowing that Kai is back there holding us.”

For Alversa to be in goal for nearly all of the game’s 100 minutes was a bit surprising, being that he was injured on one of the very first plays of the game.

He and a Greenport player went after a bouncing ball in the box, and there was quite a bit of contact, to the point where Alversa had to come out of the game. He was seen on the sideline getting his head and jaw checked out.

In the meantime, junior Xavier Johnson took over Alversa’s magenta goalie jersey and played keeper. In the little time Alversa was actually out, the Porters managed to score the game’s first goal, off a corner kick that was headed in just two minutes into the contest. After being checked out, Alversa came back in goal, and Johnson went back to his sweeper position on the back line.

Greenport managed to score two more times in the half — nearly three more times if it weren’t for junior Elver Cruz-Reyes, who slid to push the ball out of bounds before it crossed the goal line.

But the Bees pushed the action from the opening whistle of the second half — freshman Nate Feierstein, specifically. His hard work in the offensive end was rewarded when he took on a pair of Greenport defenders for a loose ball in the box; one of them intentionally took him down so he didn’t have a one-on-one with the goalie, and the Bees were awarded a penalty shot of their own.

Junior Steven Lucero Morocho took the shot and buried it top shelf to put Bridgehampton on the board less than three minutes into the half.

Nearly 15 minutes of game time later, Feierstein himself found the back of the net, prompting him to pull off a clean back-flip in celebration, a little something he said he taught himself on spring break last year.

“I had been planning on doing that the past three weeks after a goal,” he said. “I think I’m gonna score every game now.”

Well, with a little over 17 minutes to go, Feierstein didn’t have to wait until the next game to score. The freshman found the ball off an incoming corner and once again found the back of the net, knotting the game at 3-3 and completing the Bees’ torrid comeback.

Feierstein did not replicate his back-flip from the earlier goal, probably because he was too busy being mobbed by his teammates this time around.

“He’s a freshman, first time ever playing the sport,” Johnson said of Feierstein. “We have a few guys who are brand new to the sport who have come in, like Jordyn Turner as well. He’s been a great center back, too.

“It just shows that our program can have even more growth beyond what we’ve already seen. Kids who have never played before, they come out, find their niche, find their position that they’re good at, and then mold them and shape them around that.

“Nate is an extremely athletic freshman. For him to be able to get into those positions alone says a lot for his ability to read the field, find a way to sneak those goals in. For a first-timer, it’s very impressive.”

Outside of a rocket of a shot from senior co-captain Luis Penafiel with three seconds left in the first 10-minute overtime period, which the Greenport keeper was able to get a piece of to preserve the tie, both OT periods came and went without very much fanfare, Alversa’s aforementioned last-minute heroics notwithstanding.

Again, although just a tie, the way in which his players battled back may be a big corner that his players turned, Johnson said.

“It’s great to see where we’ve come from,” he said. “Typically, in our games, usually when we go down, it’s a downhill slide from there, and we never pick ourselves back up. But I told them, we have enough talent and enough will to battle with most of these teams.

“We finally did it today, and even though we didn’t get the win, even us getting back from that 0-3 hole shows our progress, and I love to see that for these boys.”

Bridgehampton did suffer a little bit of a blow to its goal of reaching a Suffolk County Class D Championship when it lost, 4-2, to Riverhead Charter in Gordon Heights on September 26. But the Bees will play their fellow “D” opponents, Riverhead Charter and Smithtown Christian, the latter of which they have their first-ever win against, each once more this season.

Reaching and winning a county championship remains the team’s ultimate goal, Johnson said.

“Riverhead Charter, they were a very tough and aggressive team,” he explained. “We weren’t ready for that initially when we first started playing them, but even that got down to a goal with about 10 seconds to go — we just got caught on a counter attack, so we’re right there, we’re able to hang with these teams.

“Now these boys are getting a little bit more disciplined in their attack, playing a lot cleaner, with chemistry, and our defense is carrying us. They’re doing a great job.”