Thursday Games - ESG 2007 June 26, 2007  -  The 2007 Empire State games opened with a number of strong performances as Central defeated Hudson Valley 11-6, Long Island defeated New York City 11-3 and Western defeated Adirondack 11-6.    Each of these first round games was played with 11-minute quarters and each team demonstrated a different area of excellence. Long Island, as opposed to last years stellar midfield, as returned to the 2007 games with a strong attack and defense, while missing the carry-all midfield that the Bratton’s provided in 2006.    Western who came to the 2006 games with a strong goalie and attack play returned this year with an even stronger attack and a once again, an aggressive defense.    Adirondack also came into the games with some high scoring attackman and offense based around them while the Central program seemed to rely on a strong player in the attack as well as many players in the midfield.    New York City, returned with some of the strongest goalies in the first day which even gave perennial favorite, Long Island, a hard fought offensive battle in the first half.    Hudson Valley seems to have many equal players across the board.    The first game of the 2007 Games saw Central defeat Hudson Valley 11-6. Mike Fetterly led the scoring for Central with 4g-1a while Joe Marasco led Hudson Valley’s scoring with 3g. It was a great game to watch, and although Central took a second quarter lead that they never relinquished, that never dampened the Hudson Valley’s efforts. The second half was much better than the first, as the players settled down and played together as a team. Both of these teams made it clear that there are going to be no easy games this year. The full story is available here.    Long Island won their first game by the largest margin of the day, winning 11-3 over a greatly improved New York City team. Although Long Island shut out NYC in both the first quarter (4-0) and fourth quarter (3-0), the second and third saw a much closer 3-2 and 1-1 contest. The goalies for New York City, and the Long Island attack and defense were stand-outs in the first day and showed why these are the best players from across the state. Jeff Cohen, of Long Island, demonstrated a “blue chip” performance, scoring 5 goals, and leading all athletes after the first round of play. Each of the three NYC goals were scored by different players. The full story is available here.    Western won each of the first three quarters 3-2 and the fourth 2-0 on their way to an 11-6 victory over Adirondacks during Thursday’s game. With no lights on the Iona University field, the game, which was called for darkness with 0:45 remaining in the fourth, was hard fought and often felt closer then the score represented. Leading the charge for Western was attackman Joe Resetarits with 3g-2a, while Matthew Crimmins led the Adirondack team with 2g. Both Western and Adirondack saw a majority of their goals from their attackman as 8/11 (Western) and 4/6 (ADK) were scored by the attack. The full story is available here.    The full games stats, leader boards and team stats are now available from the Empire State Games Page.    Given the lack of lights on the Iona University field, and the expected overcast weather reports, the game times for some of the games on Friday and all of the games on Saturday have been moved back (just a little). Check the new times on the Schedule page.    Finally, we want to thank Phil and Lauren Davies of Newsphoto.com for the photographs from Thursday's games.