SOCCER: Clubs Vie Indoors, Out
As the result of semifinal-round victories, Maidstone Market, the nine-time defending champion, and Tortorella Pools were to have met once again in a Wednesday evening 7-on-7 championship game at East Hampton’s Herrick Park earlier this week.
The same teams vied in the summer final in August, with the Market coming out on top 3-1.
Tortorella had the easier time of it in the semis on Nov. 28 as two goals by David Rodriguez, with 75 Main a man down in the second half as the result of Tony Shoshi’s red-carding, put Leslie Czeladko’s team over the top.
Jose Almonsa, a new Tortorella recruit, treated his team to a 1-0 lead in the first half, though 75 Main’s Geovanny Robles’s header, which converted a throw-in by Walter Arias, tied it at 1-1 early in the second, before Shoshi was shown the door, as it were, by the referee, Alex Ramirez.
Fourth-seeded Bateman Painting gave the Market all it could handle in Nov. 21’s first game, which, following a 1-1 tie in regulation and two scoreless overtime periods, went to penalty kicks.
Appropriately, Gehider Garcia, Maidstone’s “Golden Boot” award winner, and the third to go in the Market’s five-man penalty kick lineup, clinched the win for the perennial champions.
“It’s not easy,” John Romero, Maidstone’s manager, said in leaving the field that cold night.
In other men’s soccer action this past week, Virgen del Milagro won its first indoor championship at the Sportime arena in Amagansett Saturday night, shutting out La Calle 2-0 in the men’s open final, and thus avenging itself on a team to which it had lost 2-1 in the regular season.
Missael Piadranarte, arguably the best ball handler on the tiled floor, put Virgen up 1-0 as the result of a breakaway with 2 minutes and 30 seconds left to play in the first half. Although La Calle played stronger in the second half, V.D.M.’s goalie, Juan Guazhambo, was up to the task, making several great saves.
Meanwhile, Virgen del Milagro put the game away when, with 1:16 left on the clock, Franklin Bermeo, after receiving a pass from Eduardo Gavilanes, slipped the ball by La Calle’s keeper, Camillo Padilla, for the 2-0 victory. It was the first time, said Piadranarte (who came very close to scoring twice more in the second half), that he and his teammates had won a title at Sportime.
In other finals that night, Correcamino came back in a men’s 38-plus battle to defeat El Veneno 3-2 in overtime.
El Veneno had taken a 2-0 first-half lead, thanks to goals by Walter Criollo and Jose Pacheo, but with Sergio Morales’s red carding early in the second, which forced El Veneno to play a man down thereafter, the latter team’s defeat seemed inevitable.
Segundo Granda scored twice in the second half for Correcamino to tie the count, and, ultimately, to extend the contest.
Criollo, who apparently was winded, took himself out with a half-minute left in regulation, and, after collapsing on the floor of El Veneno’s bench, was ministered to by concerned teammates and onlookers for a time before he recovered sufficiently to re-enter the game midway through the second O.T.
With 1:40 left, Criollo and Angel Guanga each came very close to beating Correcamino’s goalie, Jose Rupercio, but Criollo’s lofted shot headed for the right corner of the cage bounced out onto the floor, and Rupercio recovered in time to parry Guanga’s bid. Thirty seconds later, a blast into El Veneno’s nets by Fausto Pintado treated Correcamino to its 3-2 victory.
The women’s championship was won by favored Union Latina, whose organized attack, involving Zully Escalante, Claudia Meza, Rosie Velez, and Zonia Martinez, proved too much for Los Andes. Goals by Velez, with 7:23 left in the first half, and by Escalante, with 5:34 to play in regulation, earned the title for Union Latina.
Raymond Naula, who oversees the indoor 7-on-7 leagues at Sportime, said a new season is to begin there Friday, Dec. 14.