Tortorella Pools and Maidstone Market, with 14 points each, continue to contend for the lead — and thus for the playoffs’ top seed — in the 7-on-7 men’s soccer league, whose games are played Tuesday evenings at East Hampton Village’s Herrick Park.
The three games scheduled for Aug. 6 were rained out, as were the games on July 23rd. They’ll be played at the end of the season, the league’s manager, Leslie Czeladko, has said, if they’ll make a difference in the playoff seedings.
Aside from the East Hampton Soccer Club, the youngest team in the league, which as of Monday was winless, the league’s other five squads have been competitive. For example, Liga De Gulag, which was in fifth place going into this week, battled Maidstone Market to a 3-3 tie at the park on July 30, and on the same night the league’s fourth-place team, Sag Harbor United, played to a 3-3 tie with Tortorella Pools.
Tortorella and Maidstone — the winningest team in the league over the years — were 4-1-2 as of Monday, followed by F.C. Tuxpan at 4-3-0, Sag Harbor United at 3-2-2, Liga De Gulag at 2-3-2, and the East Hampton Soccer Club at 0-7-0. Tortorella and Maidstone, which played to a 2-2 tie in their first meeting, on June 18, are to square off again in the first game on Tuesday at 6:30 p.m.
Donald Martinez of Sag Harbor United led both the Golden Boot and Player of the Season lists as of Monday. He had scored 11 goals going into Tuesday’s games, in which the Soccer Club and Tortorella, Sag Harbor and Maidstone Market, and Tuxpan and Liga De Gulag were matched up. Maidstone Market’s Eric Armijos and Antonio Padilla were second in the goals-scored contest, with seven each. Liga De Gulag’s Diego Jaramillo also had seven.
When it came to goals and assists, Martinez led the Player of the Season competition as of Monday with 22 points, while Armijos, Padilla, and Jaramillo each had 14. Tortorella’s goalie, Andrew Panza, led the Golden Glove competition. Other keepers on the plus side when it came to the various criteria were the Market’s Carlos Barahona and Tuxpan’s Brayan Jaramillo.
The league, because of the park’s renovation, has had to play with regulation-size goals this season, ones that are considerably wider than the ones it formerly used, and, as a consequence, more goals have been scored.
Armijos scored two goals and Padilla one for Maidstone in its hard-fought game with Liga De Gulag on July 30. The Market led 2-1 at the halftime break, but Liga knotted the count early in the second half, on a goal by Keith Quihiri, and, after the Market’s Danny Bedoya had been ejected for rough play, leaving Maidstone with five field players, Liga briefly took the lead, at 3-2, on another Quihiri goal, one that Maidstone argued ought not to have been allowed inasmuch as the corner kick throw-in, the Market’s goalie, Alex Mesa, argued — to no avail in the end — had not been lofted not from the corner, but from several yards closer to the goal. Near the end of the game, Armijos netted a penalty kick for the 3-3 final.
Likewise that evening, Tortorella had to come from behind to tie Sag Harbor United 3-3. Sag Harbor jumped out to a 2-0 lead on goals by Martinez (assisted by Cristian Compuzano) and by Gerson Damian. Before the half, Tortorella got one back as Leo Moron converted in-close a deflected direct kick that had been taken by Alberto Zambrano.
Zambrano pulled Tortorella even, at 2-2, when the second half began, netting a shot he took from 35 yards out, but minutes later Martinez treated S.H.U. to the lead again, at 3-2, as he beat Panza from about 30 yards away.
“With less than a minute left,” Czeladko reported, “a hand ball is called against Sag Harbor. Zambrano takes the penalty kick and scores. . . . It was a good game, both goalies [Panza and Sag Harbor’s Yeiner Garcia] made some great saves.”
In a game Sag Harbor and Liga De Gulag played on July 16, Martinez had a hat trick before the first half ended with his team up 4-1, but Liga came back with resolve in the second. Goals by Santiago Solis, Andres Albarracin, and Quihuri tied the score at 4-4, before Sag Harbor’s Jeremias Simon netted a shot from about 15 yards out, wresting the lead back, at 5-4. A goal by Albarracin with time running out capped Liga’s comeback tie.
