Three-Peat in 7-on-7 Men's Soccer for Maidstone Market
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.