Don McGovern, who coaches East Hampton High’s boys soccer team, a perennial contender for league crowns and playoff berths, took seven of his charges, six of them seniors, to the Suffolk County Soccer Coaches Association’s awards banquet on Dec. 18 at Villa Lombardi in Holbrook, where they — and he and his assistant, Anthony Roza — were honored.
Brian Tacuri and Kevin Hilario were named to the all-county team; Steven Ortiz, who is to major in mechanical engineering at Rice University in Houston, was named to the all-county academic team; John Bustamante and Jonathan Armijos-Calle were named to the all-conference team, and Chris Guallpa and Gary Gutama were named to the all-league team.
All but Armijos-Calle, who is a junior, are seniors, and all of them, McGovern said last Thursday, are in the process of applying to colleges where they hope to play soccer. East Hampton, he added, was a state-designated student-athlete team.
Tacuri, a three-year varsity player, has been named to the all-state team as well, the latest in a growing number of all-state players McGovern has coached, Eric Armijos, Matt McGovern, Brian Oreamuno, Nick Tulp, Nick West, and Brandon West among them.
Asked to say something about Tacuri, Bonac’s coach said, “He’s been a tremendous leader — he was a captain last year and this — he understands the game, and he can play anywhere on the field, even in the goal; though, with three goalies this year, he didn’t have to.”
Hilario, a two-year varsity player, anchored the 12-2-2 team’s defense, repeatedly heading away free kicks and corner kicks headed toward the goal mouth. “He was a tremendous asset,” McGovern said.
Tacuri, Hilario, and Bustamante played in a countywide senior all-star game on Nov. 15 in which McGovern was one of the coaches, a live-streamed game that was seen by numerous college coaches.
Bustamante, like Tacuri, “was also a versatile player, either as a striker, an outside midfielder, or as a center midfielder,” McGovern said, adding, “I’m almost positive that he’ll play in college. And there are other seniors on the team who are aiming to play in college too.”
As for Armijos-Calle, who has another year to go here, McGovern said, “As our center midfielder he was the man who pulled all the strings. He was our key person on offense, linking the backs with the strikers.”
Under McGovern and Roza, who were named League VI’s coach and assistant coach of the year at the banquet, East Hampton won the league championship and, as the second seed in the county’s class AA tournament, earned two home playoff games. The Bonackers won the first, but lost the second — a semifinal matchup with Huntington that went down to a penalty kick shootout after the teams wound up tied at 2-2 at the end of regulation. Huntington went on to lose 2-0 to Smithtown West in the final.
Asked what the outlook for next fall was, McGovern said, “I’m looking forward to it, we’ll have a nice group of returnees.” This year’s junior varsity, a team coached by Mike Vitulli, had gone undefeated, he added.