Thursday, January 11

BOYS BASKETBALL, Kings Park at East Hampton, 6:45 p.m.

GIRLS BASKETBALL, East Hampton at Kings Park, 6:45 p.m.

Friday, January 12

WRESTLING, East Hampton at Kings Park, 4:30 p.m.

BOYS BASKETBALL, Bridgehampton at Ross School, East Hampton, 4:30 p.m., and Southold at Pierson, Sag Harbor, 6:15.

Tuesday, January 16

BOYS SWIMMING, West Islip vs. East Hampton, Y.M.C.A. East   Hampton RECenter, 5 p.m.

GIRLS BASKETBALL, East Islip at East Hampton, 6:30 p.m.

Wednesday, January 17

BOYS BASKETBALL, Pierson at Bridgehampton, 6 p.m., and Ross at Smithtown Christian, 5:15.

GIRLS BASKETBALL, Center Moriches at Pierson, Sag Har bor, 6:15 p.m.

December 24, 1992

In typical Killer Bees fashion, the Bridgehampton High School basketball team, facing a tough opponent from a considerably larger school, rose to the occasion before finally succumbing to Amityville 58-48 last Thursday. 

The Warriors scored only two buckets in the entire second quarter, Bridgehampton having stepped up its defensive play, suddenly making it difficult for Amityville to operate. By halftime the Bees were within 5. The tone of the game had been set — the remainder would be played by both teams in an in-your-face-I-can-do-that-too style. And so it was.

With time winding down in the third stanza, Carl Johnson, the Bees’ coach, inserted one of his four ninth-grade baby boomers, Marcus Johnson, into the fray. It proved to be the right move.

It is frightening to imagine how good Bridgehampton is going to be in two or three years. Javon Harding, one of the boomers, already starts. Nick Thomas, another, and Terrell Hopson, a third, already play regularly. So too will Marcus Johnson from now on.

 Carl Johnson barely can contain himself when discussing the future of this team: “I would say we have the potential to be one of the greatest teams in the history of East End basketball in two or three years,” he said. And he wasn’t exaggerating, folks, although his team is 1-1 in the here and now. — Rick Murphy

December 31, 1992

High school basketball fans who attended the Westhampton-East Hampton affair at Bonac’s gym on Dec. 23 received an early Christmas present, a rousing cliffhanger that wasn’t decided until the very last moment of the game.

The Hurricanes came out on top 68-66, but the locals looked ready for the coming League Seven season in defeat.

With time running out, Ross Gload got the ball and launched a 3-pointer that would have tied the score, but Pete Donahue, Westhampton’s 6-foot-5-inch senior point guard, was there to snuff it. Gload got the ball back, went up again from 22 feet, and Donahue sent it back again. This time, the whistle sounded. Foul on Number 44. Three charity shots for Gload . . . one second left on the ticker . . . the home team down by three. . . . 

The first attempt went in and out. Ed Petrie called timeout. The second attempt went cleanly through. Petrie called timeout again, and sent Peter Maxey into the game.

Bonac fans knew what was coming — the intentional miss, the last-second attempt at a tie off a rebound putback. As so often seems to happen with Petrie-coached teams, the play fell into place perfectly. Gload sent up a liner that bounced off to the left. Maxey, perfectly placed, grabbed the ball in midair and sent it back to the hoop. It rattled around and fell off as the buzzer sounded. — Rick Murphy

The food pantries in East Hampton, Wainscott, Springs, and Amagansett are to split the more than $10,000 in proceeds from the New Year’s Day Polar Bear Plunge at East Hampton’s Main Beach, Vicki Littman, who chairs the East Hampton Food Pantry, said earlier this week.

The Springs Food Pantry, however, like the ones in Wainscott and Montauk, is — contrary to the impression left by last week’s article on the Plunge — independent, and “has been operating that way without interruption for 25 years,” its coordinator, Pamela Bicket, said after last week’s story appeared.

“This year, as in past years, the Plunge registration team consisted entirely of volunteers from the Springs Food Pantry,” she added. “We work very, very hard on a shoestring budget to provide nutritious food to our recipients [all of them Springs School District residents], and, in fact, we were recognized in 2017 as an ‘outstanding cooperative’ by the Cornell Cooperative Extension for our focus on nutritional, culturally responsive menus, and for our emphasis on nutrition education.”

Bicket said that in the past year the food pantry in Springs had served on average “1,000 people a month, a third of them children.”

As is the case with the East Hampton Food Pantry, the Springs Food Pantry would be happy to receive donations — either through its springsfoodpantry.com website or by mail addressed to the Springs Food Pantry, 5 Old Stone Highway, East Hampton 11937.

East Hampton High’s boys basketball team, which was to have played back-to-back games Monday and Tuesday as a result of last Thursday’s blizzard, enjoyed an easy 71-49 win here on Jan. 2 over Sayville, a win that Dan White, the coach, attributed primarily to improved defensive play.

“They only lost by 10 to East Islip [which had defeated East Hampton 75-52],” said White. “I’m happy with our effort. To have three players in double digits [Bladimir Rodriguez Garces, with 23, Malachi Miller, with 21, and Jack Reese, with 15] is good.”

The Bonackers led by 7 points midway through the second quarter, but proceeded to pull away from there, entering the half up 39-26. 

A fast-break layup by Reese, East Hampton’s senior point guard, put the home team up by 47-28 midway through the third, after which a technical foul assessed Sayville sent him to the foul line, where he made all three attempts for a 22-point lead — the margin of victory in the end.

White cleared his bench with 2 minutes and 15 seconds to play.

Rodriguez Garces also had 10 rebounds, and Reese had 10 assists. Miller hit four 3-pointers.

East Hampton’s junior varsity, coached by Joe McKee, was 7-2 as of Jan. 2.

As of Monday, East Islip, at 6-0, led League V, after which came Kings Park, at 5-1, Westhampton Beach, at 4-1, Harborfields, at 3-2, East Hampton, at 2-3, Islip, at 2-4, Sayville, at 2-4, Rocky Point, at 1-4, and Hauppauge, at 0-6.

In League VIII, Bridgehampton’s Killer Bees presented Ron White with his first varsity win by defeating Southold 60-48 on Jan. 3, thus breaking a six-game losing streak. In Sag Harbor that day, the Pierson Whalers beat Shelter Island 70-47, improving their overall record to 3-5. As of Monday, Bridgehampton, Greenport (7-2 over all), and Pierson were each at 1-0 in league play, with Shelter Island at 1-1, and with the Ross School, Smithtown Christian, and Southold all at 0-1. 

The only other East Hampton High School team to see action this past week was wrestling, in a meet here on Jan. 3 with Hauppauge, the undefeated League V leader. 

Things went quickly as the Eagles, who have been pounding their opponents, soared to a 75-6 win, which improved their record to 4-0 and dropped East Hampton to 0-3.

East Hampton’s points were the result of a Hauppauge forfeit at 152 pounds. Andreas Koutsogiannis, wrestling up, put up a good fight at 195. He led his opponent 3-0 following a second-period escape and a takedown. But a subsequent reversal made it 3-2, and, with a minute to go in the third, Koutsogiannis was pinned.

Bonac’s sole winner on the mats that day was Marco Rabanal, who won by pin in the third period of a junior varsity 170-pound match.

Brian Mott, who assists Anthony Piscitello — a former Hauppauge wrestler himself — in coaching East Hampton’s team, wasn’t particularly consoled when this writer said that at least East Hampton had a team. “There were only three who showed up for practices during vacation,”  he said.

Ron White, a national junior college champion when he went a while ago to Suffolk Community College-Selden, has been told by his former coach there, Rich Wrase, not to worry when it comes to the high school coaching career upon which he recently embarked. 

As of Monday, Bridgehampton, which was to have played at Center Moriches Tuesday and was to have played host to Stony Brook yesterday, was 0-4 in nonleague games.

“Coach Wrase said the first game he ever coached at Eastport his team lost something like 125 to 37 to the Killer Bees, and that in his first two years his record was 2-34,” White said, with a smile, following Bridgehampton’s 63-48 nonleague loss to McGann-Mercy at the Bee Hive on Dec. 13.

Bee fans were pulling for White to get his first varsity win that evening — and, at one point, early in the third quarter, the game did seem winnable, with the Bees trailing 33-31 after J.P. Harding had muscled his way to a basket underneath. 

The Riverhead team (whose coach, Kevin O’Halloran, is well familiar with Bridgehampton’s undersize gym) pulled away after that, however, taking advantage of the Bees’ uncharacteristic tentative play, and looking, if truth be told, more like the Killer Bees of old than the Bees themselves.

Of Bridgehampton’s starters, only J.P. Harding, who recently underwent an appendectomy, seemed fueled by the competitive fire that has been the hallmark of Bridgehampton basketball for so many years.

It was Mercy, meanwhile, that banged the boards, sliced and diced, and hawked the ball in Killer Bee fashion, creating numerous turnovers. Mercy got off 60 shots, according to one count, Bridgehampton, 42, which was indicative.

“What we need is consistency,” White said afterward. “We’re putting them in the right positions. . . .”

Emotion too. Perhaps a win will help instill that.

“They’ve got to start taking it more personal — they’ve got to take it home,” the coach added.

When it came to the scoring, Mercy’s Allan Zilnicki led the way, with 27 points. His teammates Matt Chilicki (17) and John Venesina (13) also finished in double figures.

For Bridgehampton, Elijah White, the sophomore point guard, had 16, and Harding and William Walker each had 12.

The Bees lost 63-53 at Port Jefferson Friday.

As for East Hampton, its second-year coach, Dan White, said during a Biddy basketball practice he was overseeing Saturday morning at the John M. Marshall Elementary School that he was tired of being told his players were fun to watch. “What I want to do is win,” he said, with a sigh.

East Hampton lost 70-69 in the last seconds at Islip last Thursday, a game it played without the services of one of its key inside players, Bladimir Rodriguez Garces, who had been ruled academically ineligible. 

White said that Chris Stoecker, his 6-foot-8-inch center, got into foul trouble toward the end of third period, at which point he sat him, until the beginning of the final quarter. 

“We were up by 12 at one point in the third,” White said, adding that “it was back and forth in the fourth. . . . We were up by one with 13 seconds left. They came up with the ball in a chaotic scrum after we had stolen it, and, with four seconds left, one of their guys, with hands in his face — Max Proctor’s and Jack Reese’s — tossed up a high floater from about eight feet out that banked in.”

The good news was that Turner Foster finished with 20 points, 12 of them the result of 3-pointers. Reese, the hard-playing point guard, had 20 as well. Malachi Miller had 10, Stoecker, 9, Proctor, 8, and Jeremy Vizcaino, 2.

More good news insofar as White is concerned was the fact that Rodriguez Garces had been cleared to play as of Saturday.

“What killed us at Islip,” he added, “was our foul shooting. We went 6-for-18 from the line. . . . You should make 70 to 80 percent of your foul shots, not 33.”

East Hampton, whose overall record was 2-2 as of Monday, was to have played Harborfields in its league opener at home Tuesday. The Bonackers are to play at Hauppauge this evening.­

Last year was a lean one for East Hampton High School wrestling — by season’s end Anthony Piscitello, a Ross School wellness teacher who was in his first year of coaching here, had only eight left on a roster that began with somewhat more than 20.

That precipitous fall-off, caused in large part by academic difficulties, but also owing to injuries and defections, led to talk of possibly combining with Southampton, whose program reportedly has also been struggling, but the prospect of a South Fork team — as in boys lacrosse — has been shelved of late given that there’s reason to hope the program here may turn around.

As of this week, Piscitello again has a roster of two score, and is determined, especially when it comes to keeping an eye on his charges’ grades, that they see it through.

Robyn Mott, whose husband, Brian, not only assists Piscitello with the varsity (there will be no junior varsity this year) but also is involved with the popular town-sponsored youth program, said during a Biddy basketball session Saturday morning that wrestling here will definitely turn around.

Santiago Maya, one of two eighth graders whom Piscitello has taken onto the varsity squad, was a place-winner in the county youth wrestling championships last year (as were his younger peers Jacob Kennedy, R.J. Hernandez, and Bronco Campsey, whose father, Beau, heads up the town’s youth program with Mott). East Hampton’s kindergarten through sixth graders, in addition to their practice sessions here, went once a week last winter to the East Quogue Elementary School, where they worked out with their peers from Westhampton Beach, Hampton Bays, and Riverhead. 

Maya was one of 14 wrestlers Piscitello and Mott put out on the mats Saturday in East Hampton’s invitational Frank (Sprig) Gardner tournament, named for the late Hall of Fame coach and East Hampton resident, who made his reputation at Mepham High School after beginning his career here.

As luck would have it, Maya drew Bayport-Blue Point’s Max Gallagher — later to be named the tourney’s most outstanding wrestler — in the first round of the 99-pound class, and was pinned.

The good news was that East Hampton had a winner this year in Andreas Koutsogiannis, at 195 pounds. The second-year senior went 3-0 on the day, defeating opponents from Southampton, Longwood, and Ward Melville.

Koutsogiannis was one of three Bonackers to place fifth in last year’s Sprig tourney. 

“I’m thrilled with his result — I worked with Andreas and some of the other kids, mainly Santi and Anthony Franzone, three days a week in the summer at the middle school,” said Piscitello.

Conor Brady, at 106 pounds, went 2-1 on the way to a third-place finish in that class. Following a first-round pin, he “rolled into a pin” in the second round, a defeat that sent him into the wrestlebacks, where he won the match for third place with a pin.

And that was it for East Hampton’s place-winners, though all the others — as was the case with those from the six other participating schools — were guaranteed at least two matches that day.

Others who wrestled for East Hampton on Saturday were Caleb Peralta and Ben Baris, at 126, Cole Shaw, at 132, Charlie DiTullio, at 145, Brahian Usma and Brian Barrera, at 152, Franzone, at 160, Marco Rabanal, at 170, Martin Soto, at 182, Carlos Schiappacasse, at 220, and Cebastian Sanchez, at 285. East Hampton had no entries at 113, 120, or 138.

“We’re trying to fill those gaps,” said Piscitello, whose team’s first match was to have been yesterday at Comsewogue. East Islip is to wrestle here tomorrow, at 6:15 p.m.

Piscitello was sad to say he’d not been able to persuade Vincenzo Salcedo, who was impressive as a rookie last season at 145 pounds, to stay on. Play rehearsals had won out over wrestling practices in his case, the coach said. 

Contrary to what usually happens, the day — last year the tournament did not end until 10:30 p.m. — ended early, because of the dire (but ultimately overblown) snowstorm predictions. Two of the teams, Sachem North and Bayport-Blue Point (the others were Longwood, Ward Melville, and Southampton, as aforesaid, and Westhampton Beach) left at 2, but without having to forgo any matches. 

“We wrestled the finals on all three mats,” said Piscitello. “It ended at 4. I was home by 5:45,” which presumably was a record.

Thursday, December 21

BOYS BASKETBALL, East Hampton at Hauppauge, 6:45 p.m.

GIRLS BASKETBALL, Hauppauge at East Hampton, 6:15 p.m.

Friday, December 22

GIRLS BASKETBALL, Babylon at Pierson, Sag Harbor, 6:15 p.m.

Saturday, December 23

SKATING, public skating with Santa Claus, Buckskill Winter Club, Buckskill Road, East Hampton, from 1:15 p.m. 

Wednesday, December 27

GIRLS BASKETBALL, Pierson at Patchogue-Medford, nonleague, noon.

At a holiday dinner held at the South Fork Country Club in Amagansett earlier this month, John Broich, a triathlete with more than 100 of those swimming-cycling-running events to his credit, was cited as the club’s male athlete of the year; Shari Hymes and Mary Scheerer, inveterate adventure racers, were honored as its female athletes of the year; Lucy Emptage, who recently signed a letter of intent to attend La Salle University in Philadelphia, where she will play lacrosse, and Geo Espinoza, a key member of Kevin Barry’s championship cross-country teams in the past four years, who’s to go to the University of Rhode Island, received $1,000 scholarships, and George Watson, one of the first here to promote athletic events (including wildly popular boxing matches at his Dock bar before insurance costs became prohibitive), was named as OMAC’s community service award-winner.

Broich, who recently retired as a science teacher at Westhampton Beach High School, but remains on as its girls track coach, during an interview this week said he had lived pillar-to-post during his childhood, attending, in all, 17 different schools as he was growing up. 

“I really owe a lot to the high school wrestling and track coaches I had in State College, Pa.,” one of his stopovers; Mattituck, where his uncle lived, was another. “They were hard on me, but I’m glad they were. I respected them. I was heading in the wrong direction. They made me the wrestling and track team’s captain [he’d caught the track coach’s eye after running a 4:44 mile in wrestling practice] and kept me on the right track. . . . They’re the reason that I became a coach.”

“You know,” he added, “when coaches are hard on you, it’s because they’re not giving up on you.”

He owed a lot to Tim Bishop, the former congressman and Southampton College provost, too, Broich said. 

“I was on my own as far as college went. I improvised, I did what I had to do as far as paying my way went. I started at Columbia and transferred to Southampton, picking up some credits from Suffolk Community along the way. . . . When some of my teachers saw ‘blocks’ on my courses, because I hadn’t been able to keep up with tuition payments, they told me to keep coming anyway, and spoke to Tim Bishop. Larry Liddle, the phycologist, ‘the seaweed guy’ — he’s still around — was one of them.”

As a result, through the provost’s good offices, Broich received a state grant for prospective science and math teachers and began tutoring freshman chemistry students “every night in one of the dorms” — sources of income that enabled him to remain at Southampton, after which — again with Bishop as an advocate — he was effectively assured a science teaching job at Westhampton Beach “before I graduated.”

While retired from teaching after a career of 30-plus years, Broich, whose annual turnouts his peers must view with some envy, continues, as aforementioned, to coach.

“I’ve got 48 on the girls squad this winter, though I’ve had as many as 80, two busloads. Thirty-five was my lowest number.”

Over the years he’s coached a number of county and league-championship teams and six high school all-Americans, including Sarena Choi, the latest, whose winning triple jump of 40 feet 103/4  inches at the state meet last spring is the state’s fourth-best ever. “She won the silver in the long jump, at 19-8. She’s at Kent State now.”

“I’ve got a 4-by-4 indoor relay team that’s second in the state. They did a 4:10 last week. . . . I’ve had four mile relay teams go to the Millrose Games, at the Armory.”

Asked how he got into triathloning, the honoree said, “I ran cross-country at Southampton, and we’d always have a long run on Sundays, after which we’d jump into the bay. A friend of mine said, ‘Let’s do a triathlon.’ I bought a crappy bike. It was 1983, that was my first one — a biathlon, a run-bike-run, in Mattituck. I’ve done 29 Mighty Hamptons, beginning in 1986. I’ve done three or four a year every year since.” 

He started out “a terrible swimmer — it wasn’t until 1990 that I mastered swimming. I did it on my own — I taught myself. Biking’s my best leg. I did the Mighty Hamptons bike — it’s 24 miles, 23.9 miles — in 1:01 this year. I can hold 23 miles per hour.”

While he’s always up there in his age group, “How I do in an age group isn’t my focus — I want to compete against everyone.”

Broich, who, with his wife, Deanna, has three children — Olivia, William, and John Jr., the latter a junior at Pierson High School in Sag Harbor, where they live — is 56. He feels fine, he said in answer to a question. “I’ve read some of the research on aging and athletics. While they don’t know everything, it seems if you continue to exercise anaerobically — beyond your aerobic capacity — that activates your genes, which makes you fitter. You can do it your whole lifetime.”

Asked if he competes the year round, Broich said, “I’ll take three to four weeks sometimes where I’ll lay low. Mike Bahel calls that ‘living.’ ” 

As for what may be next, “I’d like to do an ultra-marathon really well. I’m not an ultra guy. I’ve done them, but not really well. To run an ultra really well would be a good challenge. Then there’s the 35-mile mountain bike ride on Brian Monahan’s birthday — that’s always on the first Saturday in April — from Sag Harbor to the Montauket on the Paumanok Trail.”

Having coached six all-Americans and all those championship teams would indicate, this writer said, that when it comes to track he must know what he’s talking about.

“Maybe,” Broich said with a smile.

East Hampton High School’s boys swimming team was atop the League II heap as of Tuesday, with a 2-0 record in league meets — the latest a 92-72 win at Deer Park last Thursday — and a 3-1 mark over all.

Meanwhile, the wrestling team showed signs of life in its season-opener here with East Islip. While they lost 54-28, Anthony Piscitello, the second-year coach, said afterward that he was proud of them. 

The team finished last season with a skeleton crew, leading to talk about possibly combining in the sport with Southampton, but if Piscitello can keep this edition intact, East Hampton wrestling, given the active KID and middle school programs, may indeed be on the way back.

Of those he put out on the mats, Andreas Koutsogiannis, who pinned East Islip’s Chris Molinari in 33 seconds at 195 pounds, Anthony Franzone, who won by a second-period pin at 160, and Conor Brady, who won 12-4 at 106, were particularly impressive, though Piscitello had good things to say about all of his charges, especially Ben Barris, a freshman who, while he lost 3-1 to Anthony DiSanto, “wrestled great.”

Piscitello, who teaches wellness classes at the Ross School, has a Russian, Albert Darchiev, as his heavyweight at the moment, though he is expected to drop down to 220. Darchiev won by a second-period pin, taking his opponent, Kieran Stanton, to the mat twice with trip moves. 

“They don’t wrestle folkstyle in Russia, just Greco-Roman and freestyle,” Piscitello said. “Greco-Roman’s all upper body, you can’t use your legs. In freestyle you can clasp your hands, but there are no moves from the bottom, so he’s got to learn bottom defense.” East Hampton forfeited that day at 113, 120, and 138, but had entries in all the other weights. 

Santi Maya won by forfeit at 99, Cole Shaw, at 132, was pinned midway through the second period by Nick Picece, Charlie DiTullio was pinned with 27 seconds to go in the first period by Mark Shayhew, and Brahian Usma, at 152, lost 8-3 to Peter Carino. 

Marco Rabanal, at 170, was pinned in the third period by Stephen Donohue, who, until he caught Rabanal, was leading 7-6, Martin Soto, at 180, was pinned in the final 10 seconds as he trailed Nick Agresta 3-1 — a result that prompted Craig Macnaughton, The Star’s photographer, and a former high school wrestler, to say, “Never reach up — that’s one of the first things they tell you” — and Carlos Schiappacasse fell victim to a first-period headlock at 220.

Four junior varsity matches were contested as well. East Hampton won one of them.

Back to swimming, the East Hampton-Deer Park meet was originally to have been held at the Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter but was moved to Deer Park given the fact that the Y’s pool was undergoing maintenance.

Craig Brierley’s crew won easily, going one-two in the opening event, the 200-yard medley relay, one-two in the 200 freestyle, one-three in the 200 individual medley, one-two-three in the 50, one-three in the 100 butterfly, one-two in the 100 free, one-three in the 500, one-two in the 200 free relay, one-three in the 100 backstroke, one-three in the 100 breaststroke, and one-two in the final event, the 400 freestyle relay.

“Despite a week’s layoff,” Brierley said in a report, “the boys won easily. We told them to take advantage of the rest . . . they continued to post many best times.”

Most noteworthy was the fact that Ethan McCormac swam a state-qualifying time in winning the 100 freestyle in 48.46 seconds. He also swam a county-qualifying time (1:02.42) in winning the 100 back.

Other county-qualifiers that day were Aidan Forst, in the 500, which he won in 5:24.74, Owen McCormac, in the 50 free, and Ryan Duryea, in the 100 free.

The team was to have swum at Hauppauge, the defending league champion, Tuesday.

The top two seeds in the East End 7-on-7 Soccer League, the Maidstone Market and Hampton F.C.-Bill Miller, went at it in the playoff final at East Hampton’s Herrick Park recently, with the former winning 3-1.

It was the third straight season that the Market, managed by John Romero Sr., has won the playoff trophy. 

The champion finished the regular season in first place, with 20 points, by virtue of its 6-2-2 record. Bill Miller and F.C. Tuxpan, each at 4-2-4 (16 points) and Tortorella Pools, at 4-4-2 (14 points), followed. Bateman Painting, which has won championships in the past, was next to last, with a 3-6-1 mark, and Sag Harbor United, whose record improved to 2-7-1 this fall, rounded out the standings.

To get to the final, the Market shut out Tortorella 2-0 in one semifinal, and Bill Miller prevailed 3-0 in a penalty kick shootout over Tuxpan in the other, after the teams had finished the second half tied.

The final, played under a huge golden moon, began ominously for Bill Miller as its goalie, Olger (Quique) Araya, in coming out to counter a Maidstone attack in the first minute, left the cage wide open behind him, giving Mario Olaya, who’d received a pass from the left, an easy chance, one that he did not pass up.

With Eddy Juarez and Tono Gonzalez orchestrating attacks of its own, Bill Miller did not go quietly, though of the two teams, Maidstone, with its deeper bench, moved the ball with more authority throughout the night.

Gehider Garcia, Bill Miller’s chief striker, had a good opportunity to knot the score in the first minute of the second half, having gathered in a pass from Juarez, but blew it. 

With 10 minutes gone in the second, Antonio Padilla, a particular thorn in Bill Miller’s side, made it 2-0 off a counter, assisted by Ernesto Valverde. 

A diving save by Araya of a high, hard shot by Olaya prevented a third Maidstone goal midway through the final period, but two minutes later Maidstone got it, on a blast by Valverde, who had brought the ball all the way up the sideline. 

Alex Mesa, Maidstone’s goalie, was waved off the field for two minutes with 11 minutes left after taking Andrey Cruz, a Bill Miller forward, down in the penalty box. Gonzalez, after Padilla had put on Mesa’s shirt and replaced him in the goal, converted the penalty kick for 3-1, but that was as close as Bill Miller, whose attacks were frequently stymied that night by Julian Barahona and the Romeros, Mathew and John Jr., was to get.

Back to the semifinals, Maidstone advanced over Tortorella on goals scored by Valverde (with an assist from Barahona) in the first half, and by Mesa, on a penalty kick, late in the second. The penalty kick was awarded after Tortorella’s goalie, Craig Caiazca, whose acrobatic goaltending had kept his team in the game, was charged with taking an onrushing Padilla down in the box.

Rodolfo Marin, one of Tortorella’s defenders, argued the call, and ultimately received a red card for doing so. 

Both teams handled the ball well that night, dribbling with their feet as well as point guards do with their hands on a basketball court, but Maidstone’s attacks were the more organized.

“It went down to a shootout and Tuxpan didn’t have any shooters,” Leslie Czeladko, the league’s correspondent, said when asked the next day how the Bill Miller-Tuxpan semifinal had ended. 

Gehider Garcia gave Bill Miller the lead about 23 minutes into the first half, converting a pass from Cruz, and Juarez was to add another score soon after, for a 2-0 lead. But just before the first half ended, Tuxpan got on the board, a shot having been deflected by Cruz’s raised hand into Bill Miller’s nets.

“Play was very physical and fast in the second half,” Czeladko said in his eastendsoccer.org account. “Time was called several times due to an injured player. . . . With about 12 minutes left, Tuxpan’s Faustino Meza deked Araya, who had come out, and was about to follow up when one of his teammates, Andres Perez, blasted it into the net.”

Scoring in the shootout for Bill Miller were Gehider Garcia, Gerber Garcia, and Jason Granados. Perez, Gorge Santo, and Meza came up empty for Tuxpan.

In other men’s soccer action, the Hampton United over-30 team goes into the winter break in first place in the Suffolk men’s league’s first division, and, by virtue of its 2-0 win over S.F.C. Newcastle Sunday at Hampton Bays High School, as a quarterfinalist in the President’s Cup tournament, the rest of whose games are to be played in the spring.