By Benito Vila
When the football season started this fall, the East Hampton/Pierson/Bridgehampton “Bonac” varsity was ranked thirteenth in a fourteen-team division. A team 5-19 record over the last three years apparently left the prognosticators to believe there was little talent in the three-school program.
But no one told the Bonac players they were expected to lay down this season, a 5-1 start sending them to the top of the league and making them eligible for the county playoffs. While close losses in their last two games brought them back into the middle of the league, the final 5-3 mark was the best finish for the program in recent memory.
Representing Pierson on the team was senior and two-way starting lineman Joe Dowling, who summed up the season by saying, “The best thing is we won games and earned respect in our division which we never had in the past. What I’ll remember most though is having a good senior year with a good group of teammates.”
On Saturday, the seventh-ranked Bonac boys played second-ranked 6-2 Sayville there, a first round match-up in the county Division III playoffs. The two teams met in each of the last three seasons, the Golden Flashes showing their mettle in taking those contests 41-0, 48-13 and 48-19 and going on to earn Long Island division titles in 2006 and 2008.
While that 137-32 differential might have indicated an unfortunate disparity between the two schools, Saturday’s 17-6 final showed everyone how far the Bonac program has come.
Game Notes
A short-run, a long pass and a field goal at the gun put the Bonackers behind 17-0 at the half. The score, while one-sided, was not enough to deter the visitors who came back with a touchdown early in the third, Austin Heneveld putting points up on a 1-yard run.
That was as close as the Bonackers would get, shutting out the Golden Flashes the rest of the way but not posting any points of their own.
Bonac head coach Bill Barbour attributed the difference in the game to “the depth of each team. We had nine or so kids going both ways to their two or three. I also think their experience helped them. This was the first time our kids have been in the playoff atmosphere and we took some time to get going.”
“I was proud of our defensive effort; holding a team that consistently scores in the forties to seventeen was tremendous. And our second half on offense was good as well. We just came up short.”
Already looking ahead to next year, Coach Barbour added, “Next up is to reassess our strengths and weaknesses, and establish new goals. Recruitment is huge as well. We need more kids that don’t play a sport in the fall to give it a shot. We don’t cut anyone, and have consistently taken first-year players and made them starters. We will be contacting Pierson kids to see if we can increase our turnout. We only had three this year.”
Coach Barbour also reminisced about the moments he has shared with the eighteen seniors (thirteen starters) due to graduate. “I will remember watching them grow and mature. I coached them as the junior high coach in their eighth grade, then I moved to JV with them and, ultimately, onto varsity. They have always surprised people, and done things that no one expected and this year most of all. It has been a great experience and I will miss them a lot.”
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