Suffolk Christian Academy’s boys’ soccer team looked pretty good in the eyes of its coach after the first game of the Knights’ 2014 season on Friday, but the score did not end up being a pleasing one for the home team.

Visiting StoneBridge School capitalized on some big penalty calls in the second half and ultimately left with a 4-2 victory.

“I think if I’d have had different referees it’d have went a different way,” Knights coach Jeremy Effler said. “(StoneBridge) scored three goals on penalty calls.”

He did not disagree with the officials on all of the calls, though.

“One of them, OK, I agree with, the other two I think were not very good calls, but you can’t ever blame it on the refs, so it is what it is,” Effler said.

Suffolk Christian led 1-0 at halftime. It was about 15 minutes into the second half when the Knights committed a hand ball in the goal box, leading to a Cavaliers penalty kick, which tied the game.

But then senior David Day scored a goal to put SCA back up.

StoneBridge’s next two goals came on direct kicks.

One was from about 30 yards away after a foul that Effler said he thought should have incurred an indirect kick. The other was placed just outside of the Suffolk Christian goal box after a foul was called when a StoneBridge player attempted to dribble past SCA senior sweeper Nathan Leiter.

“(Leiter) was just going for the ball, and they tripped each other up, and (the referee) called it,” Effler said. “So, I totally disagree.”

One of the direct kicks came with about 15 minutes to go in the game, breaking a 2-2 tie. Then, with only about a minute left, the Cavaliers added another goal without any benefit of a call.

Effler said he thought Suffolk Christian had a good game, though.

“The first half we spent about 35 minutes right in front of their goal, so we did really good first half,” he said.

Praising the Knights’ skill when in possession of the ball, Effler said. “I’m impressed — they passed better opening game than they did all season last year.”

However, he also noted an area of needed offensive improvement when he said, “We missed a lot of opportunities.”

Rising junior striker Steven Effler scored the first goal of the game and saw positives in his team’s play, but also seemed to take responsibility for the missed chances his father referred to.

“I think we did a lot of things right in the first half,” the younger Effler said. “I take personal ownership for some mistakes; I should have followed up on some shots, easy opportunities, but I didn’t.”

He had some specific praise for his young teammates.

“The little guys, they took the cake,” he said, highlighting rising eighth-grader Matt Leiter in particular. “A lot of them have improved since last year.”

Suffolk Christian (0-1) returns to action on Tuesday, traveling to play Summit Christian Academy.