Sports Briefs: Southold senior plays striker in national soccer final
BOYS SOCCER: Miller plays in national final If Evan Miller is asked to write an essay about what he did this summer when he returns to school, he will have a lot to write about.
For the second time in four years, Miller played in a national cup final with Lake Grove United. This time, however, the result wasn’t favorable to Miller and his teammates.
Miller, a Southold High School senior, started at striker for Lake Grove United in its recent 3-0 loss to Merced Atlas (Calif.) in the boys under-17 super group title game as part of the National Cup XI Finals in Chicago.
“It hurt, but it didn’t hurt as much as I thought it would,” Miller said of the loss. “We’re still proud of how far we went with a team that went as far as it did.”
Perhaps one reason why the loss wasn’t as painful as it might have been was because Lake Grove wasn’t expected to go as far as it did in the national tournament, having lost about half of its players to college.
“When we went to regionals, it was just a brand new team put together,” Miller said. “We somehow made it to the national final and we were all shocked.”
It may have also helped that Miller won a national title with Lake Grove in 2009, receiving a medal and a jacket for his efforts.
Miller played midfield and striker for Lake Grove. He scored five goals in nine games for Lake Grove in this year’s tournament.
Miller, who will be entering his fourth varsity season for Southold, recognizes that most players don’t play in one national cup final, never mind two. “Just getting experience, getting the experience of having the pressure and atmosphere of the game. getting that under your belt, it’s insane having done that,” he said.
BOB LIEPA
BASEBALL: ACBL MVP award shared Center Moriches Battlecats catcher Joe Solomeno (Pace) and Shelter Island Bucks infielder Thomas Roulis (Dartmouth) were named co-winners of the Atlantic Collegiate Baseball League Most Valuable Player Award. Solomeno also collected the league’s Hitting Award, awarded to the player with the highest batting average. Staten Island catcher Gabby Molina (Keystone) earned the slugging award with a .726 slugging percentage.
Southampton lefthander Paul Paez (Rio Hondo Junior College) reeled in the Most Valuable Pitcher Award after leading the league in wins and strikeouts.
Voting was done by a panel of the 17 field managers in the ACBL. The co-MVP honors were the first since 2009 when Jersey’s Ken Gregory and Riverhead’s Peter Greskoff split the award.
Solomeno had one of the best years in the league’s history, leading all hitters in average (.421), hits (61), doubles (14), runs batted in (53) and total bases (96). His year included a five-hit effort on opening night, a 10-9 triumph over Westhampton, and a stretch of 11 straight games in which he had at least one RBI. He was the starting catcher for the Hampton Division All-Star Team on July 19 at MCU Park in Brooklyn.
All Roulis did in his summer on Shelter Island was lead the league in runs scored (41) and stolen bases (24) while hitting at a .399 clip and finishing second behind Solomeno in hits with 59. He sparked a Bucks offense that led the league in runs scored with 281, leading the first-year squad to the Hampton Division regular-season crown. Roulis enjoyed a mid-season stretch in which he had a hit in 14 consecutive games.
Paez, an 18th-round pick of the New York Mets this year, dominated from day one in Southampton, striking out 12 over five innings in his debut against Shelter Island on June 4. He fanned a season-best 13 in Southampton’s victory over Riverhead on July 14, and Paez tied former Riverhead right-hander Nick Tropeano for single-season wins by recording his seventh in the Breakers’ 9-4 triumph over Center Moriches on July 22.
He finished his season with 82 strikeouts, breaking Tropeano’s Hamptons mark of 77 in 2009. It also put Paez just outside the top five in ACBL history. Paez, who was named the starting pitcher for the Hampton Division All-Stars, limited hitters to 35 hits in 60 regular-season innings.
Molina was a mainstay behind the plate for Staten Island, but he also wielded a mighty bat. Of the senior’s 27 hits this season, 16 went for extra bases, including 11 doubles and five home runs.
GOLF: Golfing for Porters The eighth annual Gridiron Golf Classic will be held on Tuesday at Island’s End Golf & Country Club in Greenport, with a shotgun start scheduled for 1 p.m. The fee is $175 per golfer. The tournament benefits the Greenport/Southold/Mattituck/Shelter Island high school football team. For more information, call Darryl Volinski at (631) 477-2523.
