Miller Place honors teammate Andrew Salgado with memorial soccer game on Thursday

The community is asked to wear blue as the varsity team plays for the 14-year-old who died after a Route 25A bike crash in April

Miller Place has kept Andrew Salgado’s name alive in many ways since the spring. On Thursday, the town will do it on the soccer pitch, where Andrew earned a varsity spot as an eighth-grader.

Fans are asked to wear his favorite color blue and fill the stands while the Miller Place High School boys varsity soccer team plays for Andrew and hosts the first annual memorial game in his honor. The Panthers play Kings Park at the high school at 4:30 p.m.

A flyer promoting the event carries the messages “Let’s Play for Andrew” and “Forever in Our Hearts.”

The game follows months of tributes off the field for Andrew, 14, who was critically injured March 24 when his bicycle collided with a turning truck on Route 25A in Miller Place. He died from his injuries about five weeks later at Stony Brook University Hospital.

In the weeks that followed the tragedy, blue ribbons lined Miller Place and Sound Beach streets, and handwritten signs and soccer jerseys covered the fence at the Miller Place Duck Pond, across from North Country Road Middle School, where Andrew was a student.

“I would do anything to have one more catch outside with you, come watch one more of your soccer games,” Joseph Salgado wrote. “You were going to be great and everyone knows that Andrew.”

He closed with a request to the community that Thursday’s game now answers: “Keep Andrew’s name alive for us.”

_{Top: Andrew Salgao (inset, from flyer photo for the 1st Annual Boys Varsity Soccer Memorial Game for Andrew Salgado) and Miller Place boys soccer game last month (GLI photo).}