Sag Harbor United tightened the East Hampton 7-on-7 men’s soccer league race by defeating last fall’s champion, Maidstone Market, 4-3 at East Hampton’s Herrick Park on July 9.
As the score indicates, the game was hard-fought throughout. Maidstone blew a chance right off the bat as Danny Bedoya Salazar failed to get a foot on an across-the-goal-mouth pass in the opening minutes. Sag Harbor replied moments later with a close-in shot by Melvin Tomas that eluded the grasp of Maidstone’s goalie, Alex Mesa.
With 17 minutes remaining in the first half, Fernando Chavez, the Market’s tall striker, tied the score at 1-1 from in close. After that both teams went scoreless until just before the halftime break, when Maidstone’s Jose Morastitla, in the goal mouth and facing the passer, neatly flipped the crossed ball behind him toward the far post where it was inadvertently nudged over the line by S.H.U.’s Maicol Parra. That own goal sent John Romero’s team into the break up 2-1.
A free kick from about 16 yards out that S.H.U.’s Donald Martinez took moments after play resumed zipped by a three-man “wall” and into the far side of the Market’s nets, tying the count once again at 2-2.
A minute later, with 19:40 to play, a Maidstone veteran, Antonio Padilla, intercepted a Sag Harbor pass around the midfield line and from there kicked a long, low shot through a crowd that beat Sag Harbor’s goalie, Yeiner Garcia, to the left side of the nets.
Martinez was presented with another free kick three minutes afterward, but this time Maidstone’s wall blocked it. Maidstone’s 3-2 lead was to hold up for the next 12 minutes, until Marvin Martinez, having outmaneuvered a defender close to the goal, beat Mesa, knotting the score for the third time that evening.
And, with 6:37 left on the clock, Sag Harbor’s Donald Martinez followed up, gathering in a goal kick taken by Parra, who had been in the goalie box — an apparent violation of the league’s rules — with a blast from 25 yards out that caromed off a Maidstone defender, John Romero Jr., into the right side of the net about chest high, a shot that Mesa, who was screened, had no chance to parry.
Maidstone put on a lot of pressure thereafter, but the shots by its players, Romero and Padilla among them, were just off the mark. Garcia made a terrific, diving save of a Maidstone header toward the near post as time ran out.
In other games that night, Tortorella Pools defeated the winless East Hampton Soccer Club 6-3, tying it with Maidstone Market for the league lead, with each team at 3-1-1, and Liga De Gulag shut out F.C. Tuxpan, the league’s third-place team as of that night, 3-0.
Tortorella, taking advantage of the fact that the Soccer Club began the game with five players, two fewer than it ought to have had, went up 2-0 early on goals by Eddie Lopez and Leo Moron, before the Soccer Club could field the requisite seven.
A converted free kick by the Soccer Club’s Juan Ruiz got one back once the teams were evenly matched, but before the halftime break Lopez had scored again, heading in a shot taken by a teammate, Roger Quinceno.
Esteban Uchupaille, Alberto Zambrano, and Moron, assisted by Zambrano, scored for Tortorella in the second half; Brian Gonzalez and Marek Mikus scored for the Soccer Club.
The win improved Tortorella to 3-1-1 in league play, tying it with Maidstone for the lead, each team having 10 points They were trailed, as of July 9, by F.C. Tuxpan (3-2-0), Sag Harbor United (3-2-0), Liga De Gulag (2-3-0), and the East Hampton Soccer Club (0-5-0).
Tuxpan was shorthanded throughout its game with Liga De Gulag. Liga’s Diego Jaramillo scored twice and Santiago Solis scored once — by way of a penalty kick — in the first half.
When Tuxpan’s Luis Aguilar was yellow-carded in the second half, the referee ended the game with the score 3-0 in Liga’s favor.
In games played on July 2, Sag Harbor United prevailed 6-4 over the East Hampton Soccer Club, a chippy game in which four yellow cards and one red card were handed out; Tortorella shut out Liga De Gulag 7-0, and Maidstone edged F.C. Tuxpan 2-1 thanks to a 30-yard shot by Xavi Piedramartel in the second half.
