Let the soap opera begin.

After two hours of jockeying for that all-important one-on-one time with Greek beauty DeAnna Pappas, the 15 bachelors still looking to be Mr. Right were culled to an even dozen as tensions and emotions began to heat up.

Former Amherst resident Jesse Csincsak used his muscles and unorthodox style to score another big night on “The Bachelorette.” The professional snowboarder began the ABC reality series’ second episode Monday by getting to join Jeremy and Richard in the lavish Mediterranean-style mansion where Pappas will hold forth until selecting one of the show’s remaining 12 contestants as her supposed true love and future husband.

All three guys received the show’s coveted “first impression” roses during last week’s season opener, in which Csincsak, 26, met Pappas dressed in green sneakers and a wildly colored jacket.

Dressed in a red T-shirt beneath a dark sports jacket, Csincsak scored some coveted one-on-one time with Pappas near the end of the two-hour program. After outlasting his 14 rivals in an impromptu push-up contest by doing nearly 100, Csincsak again impressed Pappas as he told her he was out to win her heart but not by competing with an expected stereotype.

“I can’t be a pro snowboarder forever,” he said, before adding that he yearned to be a father one day who is able to spend more time at home with his own children. Csincsak indicated he had a good relationship with his own father, who was a truck driver, but didn’t get to as much of him as he would have liked growing up.

Earlier in the show, Csincsak read off the names of one group of contestants who spent a “date” night with Pappas at Los Angeles’ famed Magic Castle. Another group, including Csincsak, took part in a home run contest at Dodger Stadium, where they and Pappas got relationship pep talks from former Dodger manager Tommy Lasorda. Csincsak, who was anxious “to show her the athletic side of me,” hit one homer.

Jeremy, a 30-year-old real estate attorney from Texas whose father coached him in baseball, smacked six homers to score time alone with the dark-haired Pappas. One of the show’s few moments of genuine poignancy came as he told her about the deaths of his parents.

Apparently struck by his revelation, Pappas admitted to be more attracted to Jeremy, which sparked fireworks back at the mansion when he told his fellow competitors “welcome to our house.”

As a trio of bachelors failed to receive roses at the close of Monday’s episode (10 were bounced from the initial crop of 25 last week), Pappas teared up, saying she hated to “break people’s hearts.” She was rejected herself at the conclusion of last fall’s “The Bachelor” after outlasting her fellow female competitors.

As the program ended, Pappas told the guys still in the hunt: “I believe one of you is my husband.”

Contact Steve Fogarty at 329-7146 or sfogarty@chroniclet.com.

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