Maidstone, Tortorella Win 7-on-7 Soccer Semifinals
(11/24/2009) The Maidstone Market, a soccer powerhouse put together by John Romero, continued undefeated in East Hampton’s Wednesday evening 7-on-7 league on Nov. 18, shutting out the Long Island Rottweilers 2-0
 Jack Graves
Steve Orrego, at right, almost put one by Bateman Painting’s goalie, Duvan Castro, in the early going of a semifinal game played Nov. 18 that Orrego’s team, Tortorella Pools, was to win 1-0 in overtime.
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in a semifinal-round playoff game.
Thus the Market, whose goalkeeper, Alex Meza, had as of that night given up only one goal all season, improved its record to 10-0-1. Bateman Painting’s Winson Elegolda, the runner-up to Maidstone’s Hector Marles for the league’s Golden Boot award, put a ball by Meza on Oct. 7 in a game that wound up tied at 1-1.
Gehider Garcia scored both of Maidstone’s goals on the 18th, heading a long cross past the Rottweilers’ keeper, Alfredo Negrete, in the first half, and capping a crisp series of passes with about 12 minutes gone in the second.
Jefferson Ramirez of the Rottweilers came close to tying the count soon after, but Meza made a diving save of the hard shot, and, with four minutes left to play, Ramirez again fired a rocket that bounced off the upper-left post.
In the night’s other semifinal, Bateman Painting and Tortorella Pools went at it through an hour of regulation with neither team scoring, though each had its chances.
Tortorella came close twice in the first half, when a hard shot that sent Bateman’s tall goalie, Duvan Castro, flying, bounced off the lower-left post early on, and when Castro parried a shot by the very quick Steve Orrego a minute before the halftime break. Tortorella’s goalie, Davio Garcia, was, in turn, called on to make a save just before the referee, Alex Ramirez, signaled the half was over.
Tortorella was awarded two free kicks in close about halfway through the second period, but could convert neither. Meanwhile, the teams battled back and forth, countering quickly whenever they could.
Before the five-minute sudden-death overtime period began, Luis Vas, who had been held scoreless thereto, hectored his teammates in Spanish, the long and short of it being that he wanted the ball.
Near the end of O.T., Vas got it, the ball having been chipped forward by Leonardo Garcia to Rodolfo Marin at the left of Bateman’s goal. Marin headed the ball down across the goal mouth to a sliding Vas, who one-touched it past Castro for the game-winner.
The 1-0 win was the second for Tortorella in the teams’ three meetings. Bateman defeated Tortorella 2-1 on Sept. 30, and on Nov. 4 Tortorella avenged itself by the same score.
Thus Tortorella, the playoffs’ third seed, which lost to Maidstone 1-0 on Oct. 14 and by the same score on Nov. 11, was to have got a third chance in Monday’s final.
In final regular-season games played Nov. 16, Maidstone trounced Bayberry Nursery 10-0, Tortorella and the Rottweilers played to a scoreless tie, and Bateman defeated Tuxpan 2-0.
The Market led Bayberry 1-0 at halftime, but put on a show with nine goals in the second. Hector Marles ended the night with five goals, which put him over the top as far as the Golden Boot competition went, with 11 goals to Winson Elegolda’s nine.
Marles and his Maidstone Market teammates were to have played in an 11-on-11 league semifinal in Westhampton Beach Sunday. The Romero-sponsored team won the summer championship, and presumably is favored to win the fall’s. That league’s final is to be played Sunday.