Babylon beats Mattituck, wins Suffolk Class B boys soccer title for fourth straight season
Babylon's players celebrate their win during the Suffolk boys soccer Class B final between against Mattituck on Saturday, Oct. 28, 2023 at Diamond in the Pines. Credit: Bob Sorensen
This diamond of a boys soccer program from Babylon did it again Saturday at Diamond in the Pines in Coram.
The top-seeded Panthers shut down second-seeded Mattituck in a 2-0 win to claim the Suffolk Class B championship for the fourth straight season.
“Obviously, it means we have really good kids,” coach Dennis McGovern said. “ … Each class has left a nice legacy of winning.”
Now Babylon will go after a Long Island championship. It will face Nassau B champ Carle Place at noon Tuesday at Mitchel Field. It will be a rematch of the 2022 LI final. The Panthers lost that game, 2-0.
“We’re really looking forward to it,” said Ciaran Stein, who delivered the first goal for Babylon. “We know what we did wrong last year, but we’re going to make our mistakes up. We’re going to come back stronger.”
The Tuckers had gone 1-1-1 during the regular season against a Panthers team that improved to 14-2-1. Mattituck finishes 10-5-2.
“Heartbreak,” coach Dan O’Sullivan said. “We had 21 seniors this year. This is a group that two years ago, we lost to Babylon in penalty kicks in the county final.
“So we had very high expectations today. We got to the final, which was, of course, what we wanted to do. But just heartbreak for these guys … It’s devastating.”
The Panthers jumped on top just 3:48 into the match.
After a handball in the box, Stein sent a penalty kick past Jack Golder and into the left side of the net.
“That was huge for us,” Stein said. “We knew that they were going to come out hot. We’ve already beaten them in the counties before. So that goal really helped us out there.”
They didn’t get the next one until senior captain Ben Dellafranca scored on a header with 1:38 left.
“It’s been a great ride,” Dellafranca said. “It’s my second year on the team … McGov’s a great coach, and these boys, we ball every day in practice. We’ve been going almost every Wednesday since I think it was July 4 we started.”
Sophomore Trace Cerrone, the JV goalkeeper who was playing because of injuries, only had to make three saves. The back line of Michael Burke, Quinn Ringstad, Ben Stricoff and Dom Kuhnla held up its end quite well.
“This is probably the best back four that I’ve ever had,” McGovern said, “because they’re just so athletic.”
