While 10 East Hampton High School teams were playing this fall, men’s teams in slow-pitch softball and in 7-on-7 soccer, whose season at East Hampton Village’s Herrick Park is nearing an end, were active as well. McMahon recently won the town men’s slow-pitch championship, sweeping the Corner Bar 3-0 in the final. It was the fourth year in a row that McMahon had won the playoff trophy.
It’s anyone’s guess as to which team will win the Wednesday evening 7-on-7 soccer league’s fall trophy. Three teams, Maidstone Market, F.C. Tuxpan, and Tortorella Pools, were tied for first place as of earlier this week, each with 9 points, with Liga De Gulag (8), Sag Harbor United (8), and the East Hampton Soccer Club (6) close behind.
Indoors, pickup badminton games for youngsters and adults at the Amagansett School began earlier this month under the aegis of Dick Baker, a ranked age-group player who wants more high schoolers to take up “the world’s fastest sport.” This is the Badminton Club’s 43rd season. Games are being played in the school’s gym on Monday and Wednesday evenings from 7 to 9.
Back to slow-pitch, McMahon’s, which, with Riley McMahon as its player-manager, sailed through the regular season at 13-1, its sole loss coming at the hands of the Corner Bar, likewise sailed through the playoffs, sweeping Sand and Sea Construction 2-0 in a semifinal before taking three straight from the Corner.
Keeler Otero, in Bryan Seekamp’s absence, was the winning pitcher in tightly contested games with Sand and Sea. With Seekamp back on the mound, McMahon’s “mercied” the Corner Bar in their first meeting in the best-of-five championship series, with Seekamp (two), John Pizzo, Brendan Hughes, and Pat Silich (a grand slam) finding the fences. The second game wound up 6-5 in McMahon’s favor thanks to a home run by Tom Thorsen, who bats third in the Plumbers’ lineup.
Game three went McMahon’s way by a score of 8-4 as Thorsen (two) and Pizzo homered.
“Bryan’s pitching and our defense really got us through the playoffs,” Thorsen was to say later. “Johnny Pizzo, at shortstop, and Ben DePietro at second, turned several double plays. Kurt Matthews, one of our outfielders, did well in Johnny’s absence in the semifinals. Pat Silich played solidly at third, and our outfield, with Hughes, Maykell Guzman, Otero, Jamie Wolf, and A.J. Bennett rotating, was solid too.”
Thorsen added that “while they weren’t with us in the playoffs, David Moss, Pete Vaziri, and Jeff Sztorc played significant roles in the regular season.”
Soccer Wrapping Up
Turning to soccer, Sag Harbor United, which is led by Donald Martinez, who had a league-leading six goals going into Monday’s games, won the trophy in the spring season of 2022. There were no men’s soccer games contested at Herrick that fall owing to park renovation work, and, in the absence of two light stanchions that used to face out onto the field from the tennis courts’ fence, there was some question as to whether a full schedule could be played this fall. Though apparently the lights that are there have proved sufficient.
To make sure that there is no problem with lighting the field, Monday games were added to Wednesday ones beginning this week. Regular-season-ending games are to be played Wednesday, the semifinals are to be contested on Monday, Nov. 13, at 7 and 8:15, and the championship game is to be played Nov. 15, also at 7.
In games played on Oct. 25, Liga De Gulag evened its record at 2-2-2 with a 1-0 shutout of the East Hampton Soccer Club, Maidstone (2-1-3) won by forfeit over F.C. Tuxpan (3-3-0), and Sag Harbor United, taking advantage of the fact that Tortorella Pools did not have its first-string goalie, Alejandro Bolanos, defeated Tortorella 4-2, with Martinez, Gerson Damian (two), and Maicol Parra scoring the goals.
There have been a number of tie games this fall, evidence as to the league’s parity.
Moreover, each team has had its moments. Tortorella, with Mario Olaya scoring twice, defeated Sag Harbor United 4-1 on Sept. 20; led by Martinez’s hat trick, Sag Harbor United defeated F.C. Tuxpan 4-2 on Oct. 11; the East Hampton Soccer Club, despite being shorthanded, came from being down 0-3 to tie Maidstone Market 3-3 on Oct. 11, thanks to goals by Justin Carpio, John Romero, and Jorge Zambrano; five second-half goals by Tuxpan, four of them by Jeremias Simon, resulted in a shutout of the Soccer Club on Oct. 18, and, with Kevin Guazhambo and Michael Montes De Oca scoring goals, Liga De Gulag shut out Sag Harbor United 2-0 on Oct. 18, “a needed win for Liga De Gulag,” Leslie Czeladko, the league’s manager, said in a report on the game.