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Devin Mollberg steps into mixed martial arts arena

Devin Mollberg, left, trains at Red Dragon Jiu-Jitsu in Centereach. Photo from Mollberg

Some people watch mixed martial arts fights on television and think “that’s brutal,” or “that’s barbaric,” or “that’s too violent.” Some don’t know what it is at all.

But North Shore native Devin Mollberg described the anything-goes, hand-to-hand combat style differently.

“It’s really exhilarating…It’s just an adrenaline rush,” said Mollberg, a 28-year-old Ward Melville High School graduate and a veteran of the United States Marine Corps, about his favorite pastime. Mollberg grew up in Stony Brook, where he returned home from Afghanistan following his second tour of duty in late 2014. His first tour deployed him to Japan and South Korea. During his enlistment, he was stationed in Twentynine Palms, California.

“It’s kind of a tough transition,” Mollberg said in an interview last week about adjusting back to home life after four years in the military. “It’s kind of like, you leave home and then when you come back four years later everything’s a lot different. So it’s kind of tough getting back into the routine of things.”

Mollberg, like countless other veterans, said he realized the importance of finding ways to regain a feeling of normalcy upon returning home. Mixed martial arts has provided him with that.

“I started doing Brazilian jiu-jitsu when I was a teenager,” Mollberg said. “I’d always trained jiu-jitsu and boxing even throughout my entire enlistment. I would train at schools in California.”

Mollberg has been involved in two jiu-jitsu tournaments in his life, one in Okinawa, Japan, and one in 2015 in St. James. He said he decided to use his boxing, jiu-jitsu and military training blend to pursue a mixed martial arts career. Generally speaking, the most successful MMA fighters tend to use a seamless blend of multiple disciplines to create their own style.

He gave MMA a full endorsement as a way for veterans to channel some of their emotions upon returning home.

“It’s definitely a great thing for veterans to get into,” Mollberg said. “It helps you stay calm.”

“Devin’s a goal-setter and a go-getter,” Nick Galatro, a friend of Mollberg’s for about a decade, said in an interview. “When he puts his mind to something he won’t stop until he gets it and he’s probably the most humble guy I know. You will never hear how great he is from his mouth,” Galatro said.

“It’s just an important skill set that I think is something that you should have,” Mollberg said about what initially drew him to fighting. “It’s definitely a passion of mine. I love fighting.” Some of his other passionate interests include rooting for the New York Jets and Knicks. He follows the Jets with the same intensity as a cage fighter.

Though he hasn’t yet been in an MMA “cage fight,” his training and preparation are currently geared toward making that debut in 2016. Mollberg trained for the Brazilian jiu-jitsu tournament in 2015 at Red Dragon Jiu-Jitsu in Centereach. He is in the process of selecting a suitable gym for his foray into MMA.

Long Island natives have experienced some success in the Ultimate Fighting Championship, mixed martial arts’ most popular governing organization.

Chris Weidman, who fights out of Baldwin, spent time as the UFC middleweight division champion. Chris Wade of Islip won his 11th professional bout in a UFC match Sunday.

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Out to pasture
On Jan. 22, police arrested two men from Stony Brook and Setauket for assault with intent to cause physical injury. According to police, the men, ages 22 and 23, punched and kicked another man in the head and face on Sheep Pasture Road in Port Jefferson. The victim was taken to John T. Mather Memorial Hospital while the assailants were arrested at the scene, at 3:08 a.m.

Lean on me
An 18-year-old from Coram was arrested for driving while ability impaired on Jan. 21 after she failed to maintain her lane on Route 25A and was veering onto the shoulder. Police stopped her at the corner of Hallock Landing Road in Rocky Point and arrested her.

Criminal helps police
A drunk driver helped police nab him on Jan. 21 when he mistakenly thought he was being pulled over. According to police, as officers were pulling over another vehicle for a traffic stop at the corner of Route 25A and Chestnut Street in Mount Sinai, the 48-year-old DWI suspect, who is from Ovideo, Fla., also pulled over. Police discovered the man was intoxicated and arrested him at the scene, charging him with driving while ability impaired.

Doing lines to jail
On Jan. 22 at 7:05 a.m., police arrested a man from Centereach on two counts of criminal possession of a controlled substance. According to police, the 32-year-old man was in possession of cocaine.

Bounced behind bars
A 36-year-old woman from Selden was arrested for grand larceny on Jan. 19 after using another person’s checkbook to write several checks to herself between Sept. 2 and Dec. 10. Police said the incident happened at a bank on Nesconset Highway in Port Jefferson Station.

Steal fresh
Between Jan. 20 at 10 p.m. and 8 a.m. the following day, an unidentified person broke into a Subway near Route 112 in Port Jefferson Station and stole the cash register.

Going to the gifts
Police arrested a 50-year-old woman from Bay Shore on Jan. 20 for petit larceny. Police said the woman was in a home improvement store on Middle Country Road in Selden when she took several faucets and falsely returned them for a gift card. The woman received a $475 gift card and left the store without purchasing any items. Police arrested her later the same day.

Make him sweat
On Jan. 18, police arrested a 47-year-old man from East Setauket for petit larceny after he stole two sweaters from a residence on Spyglass Lane. Police didn’t say how the man entered the residence.

Drifting into an arrest
A 21-year-old woman from Smithtown was arrested for driving while ability impaired on Jan. 21. The woman was driving north on Route 25A when police pulled her over for speeding and failing to maintain her lane.

Missing moola
According to police, residents on Old Homestead Road in Port Jefferson reported that money was missing from their home. Police didn’t know how much money was missing but said the incident happened on Jan. 21 at 10 a.m.

Photobombed
On Jan. 23 around 9:30 a.m., someone on Casey Lane in Mount Sinai received inappropriate photos from an unknown person.

Lifting weights, lifting wallets
Someone left their wallet in an unlocked locker at the LA Fitness on Middle Country Road in Centereach. When the victim returned to the locker room for his wallet, it was gone. The incident occurred on Jan. 25 at 5:30 p.m.
Sometime on Jan. 21, someone stole a wallet from a student’s backpack in a classroom at Newfield High School.
On Jan. 25 between 4 and 6 p.m., someone stole a wallet from a student’s bag at Joseph A. Edgar Intermediate School in Rocky Point.

Trucked away
Between Jan. 23 and Jan. 24, an unidentified person stole a 1993 dump truck near Route 25A in Setauket.

A fabulous steal
According to police, on Jan. 24 around 12:30 p.m., someone entered the Marshalls at Route 347 and Hallock Road in Stony Brook and stole assorted clothing.

Swerving Saturn
A 27-year-old man from Brentwood was arrested for driving his 2002 Saturn while intoxicated at about 4 a.m. on Jan. 22, according to police. The man was driving on Old Willets Path near Route 25 in Smithtown when he was pulled over, police said. He was charged with driving while intoxicated.

Credit card swiped
Police arrested a 34-year-old Riverhead woman in Smithtown on Jan. 22 for stealing a credit card. The woman was charged with fourth degree grand larceny for stealing the credit card from a home in Ronkonkoma between midnight on June 12, and 9:30 a.m. on June 13, according to police.

DMV deception
At approximately 3:40 p.m. on Sept. 25, a 57-year-old man from Brentwood entered the Department of Motor Vehicles in Hauppauge and used a fraudulent social security card, according to police. He was arrested on Jan. 20 in Smithtown and charged with possession of a forged instrument.

BMW booked
A 59-year-old man from Commack was arrested on Jan. 22 for driving his BMW while intoxicated, police said. He was driving east on Motor Parkway in Hauppauge just after 3 a.m. when he was pulled over for driving recklessly, according to police. He was charged with driving while intoxicated.

Skating on grass
Police arrested a 17-year-old man from Hauppauge who was seated in his 2005 Honda outside of The Rinx in Hauppauge just before 10 p.m. on Jan. 22. He was charged with unlawful possession of marijuana.

Hit and ran to jail
At about 9:00 pm on May 12, a 33-year-old man from Central Islip, driving in a 2000 Nissan Maxima on Fifth Avenue in Bay Shore, hit and killed a woman, then fled the scene, according to police. The man was arrested on Jan. 22 in Hauppauge for leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death, police said.

Pickpocket punished
A 62-year-old woman from East Patchogue was arrested in Hauppauge and charged with grand larceny for taking more than $50,000 in cash from a woman without permission between May 4 and July 2, police said.

Price-conscious jewel thief
An unknown person stole assorted jewelry from Walmart on Crooked Hill Road in Commack on January 20, police said.

Fighting Irish pub
According to police, two unknown people got into a fight outside Napper Tandy’s Irish Pub on East Main Street in Smithtown in the early hours of Jan. 21.

Punching at the car wash
At about 10 a.m. on Jan. 21, police responded to a fight at Touch of Class Car Wash on Middle Country Road in St. James. One man punched another man, but no medical attention was necessary, police said.

Department store duped
Four unknown women stole assorted merchandise from Macy’s on Veterans Memorial Highway in Commack just before noon on Jan. 21, according to police.

Gas money
At about 7 p.m. on Jan. 22, an unknown person stole cash from a Shell gas station on Commack Road in Commack, police said.

Not playing it straight
On Jan. 22, a 20-year-old woman from Massapequa was arrested after police said she had marijuana in her possession on Straight Path in Dix Hills at 12:15 p.m. She was charged with fifth-degree criminal possession of marijuana.

Trying to ‘shirt’ the law
On Jan. 24, a 20-year-old man from Huntington was arrested at his residence on Delamere Street after police said he grabbed a man by the shirt and hit him in the head with an unknown object at 4:30 p.m. He was charged with second-degree menacing with a weapon.

You’ve got mail
A resident of Blue Sky Court in Huntington reported that his or her mailbox was damaged by an unknown person between 5 and 9 p.m. on Jan. 23.

Fakin’ it
Police said a 55-year-old man from Jericho used a fraudulent New York State driver’s license while at the 2nd Precinct on Jan. 21 at 4 p.m. He was subsequently charged with first-degree offering a false instrument for filing and second-degree possession of a forged instrument.

Riding revoked
A 46-year-old man from Centerport was arrested on Jan. 22 at 10:40 a.m. after police said he said he was driving a 2006 Chevy on Walt Whitman Road with a revoked license. He was charged with second-degree aggravated unlicensed operation of a vehicle.

High tide
A 17-year-old woman from Northport was arrested on Jan. 22 after police said she had marijuana in her possession on Soundview Boat Ramp in Northport at 5:30 p.m. She was charged with unlawful possession of marijuana.

Swerving Lexus
A 63-year-old woman from Dix Hills was arrested on Jan. 23 after police said she was speeding in a 2009 Lexus on Deer Park Avenue in Dix Hills and then swerved across lanes. He was charged with operating a motor vehicle with a blood alcohol content of more than .08.

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Housing committee member Annemarie Vinas addresses the school board at Tuesday’s meeting. Photo by Alex Petroski

With a possible deficit looming, the Smithtown Central School District board of education is moving closer to a decision on the fate of its eight elementary schools, following a public work session on Jan. 19 and a board meeting on Jan. 26.

Discussions between the school board and the community were getting emotional this week.

Superintendent James Grossane, with the help of Assistant Superintendent for Finance and Operations Andrew Tobin, backed up his five recommendations to the school board from a November 2015 housing report with statistics at the work session on Jan. 19.

“I can’t tell you that 2017-18 will be the deficit year, but it’s becoming more and more likely as we look out ahead that 2017-18, maybe 2018-19, if we don’t get those type of increases, we know our expenses are going to go up, we’re going to certainly be facing it at some point,” Tobin said during the work session.

At the work session the board, along with Grossane, discussed the findings of the housing report that made five recommendations, labeled Options 1 through 5, for money saving measures.

Of the five recommendations, all suggested closing at least one of the district’s eight elementary schools. Grossane’s report said that closing one elementary school would save the district $725,000 annually.

Four of the five options included closing Branch Brook Elementary, which caused an uprising among district parents and started a Save Branch Brook movement that included petitions, Facebook pages, presentations to the school board and matching blue T-shirts.

Meredith Lombardi, a resident in the district, made a heartfelt plea to the board on Tuesday night.

“I was in sixth grade and my school district was redistricted,” Lombardi said. “I was ripped from my school. I was told that I was going to be going to a new one.”

Lombardi expressed a fear of putting her three children through the same experience that she had.

“If you allow one of our schools to close, the children affected will never be the same,” Lombardi said.

Lombardi was one of eight “Save Branch Brook” parents who stepped up to the podium to address the board Tuesday night. Katie Healy was another.

“Branch Brook is our most efficient and cost effective school,” Healy said. “Branch Brook is not the school to close. It is the wrong place and the wrong time. Closing Branch Brook will not solve our district’s problems, it will just add more,” Healy said.

At the time that the recommendations were made, it was unclear what lead Grossane to suggest closing Branch Brook as a course of action. Parents from the Save Branch Brook contingent conducted their own housing-committee-style research and concluded that Branch Brook was the elementary school least deserving of closure based on building occupancy, square foot per student, students per usable classroom and utility cost.

They also offered their own recommendation, Option 6, which suggested that based on their findings Smithtown Elementary was the school that should be closed.

It is now clear what led Grossane to suggest Branch Brook for closure, records showed. The number of elementary school classrooms that feed students to the district’s two high schools must be close.

Currently, the eight elementary schools send 116 classrooms worth of students to Smithtown West when they reach ninth grade and 114 to Smithtown East, according to Grossane.

If Branch Brook were closed and district boundaries were not redrawn, 114 elementary classes would still be fed to East, while 96 would be sent to West.

This is a discrepancy that Grossane is comfortable with. Closing Smithtown Elementary, for example, which was put on the table by the community’s Option 6, would result in 114 elementary classrooms for East and 84 for West.

Grossane said that there would be no choice but to redistrict if that was the option that the board selected.

Additionally, the district needs to select a school for closure that does not leave their potential elementary school capacity vulnerable to growing enrollment. Grossane’s report said that even if the board chose Option 5, which would close Branch Brook and Dogwood Elementary schools, the district would be able to handle roughly 800 additional elementary students on top of the approximately 3,700 elementary school students enrolled for 2015-16 across the eight schools.

Closing one or two elementary schools would obviously increase average class size, though Grossane called instances where any classes would reach a district implemented maximum of 28 students “outliers.”

“Every school has a grade level that runs almost to maximum,” Grossane said at the work session. “If we close a building and we operate with seven, those outliers would smooth out. They’d shift. There would still be an outlier occasionally in every building. I’m not going to tell you there isn’t going to be a class in fifth grade that doesn’t have a 28 at some point within the next six years after we close a building, because there definitely will be. But it’s usually one grade per building. Most times, the class averages even out across the district.”

Members of the school board responded to Grossane’s findings as well as the overwhelming public comments from the previous meetings.

“I have been doing a lot of housing committee work over my time on the board,” Theresa Knox, a trustee on the board of education said on the 19th. “I’ve been through this within my own neighborhood, as many of you know. My children were not affected by the closing of Nesconset, but all of the children on the end of my little dead-end block were. And I have to look at them everyday. And they’re doing great.”

Knox responded to parents concerned about which elementary school their kids would be sent to if closures were carried out. “It had better be, that all of our elementary buildings are fine, educational, welcoming, nurturing, caring places.”

Discussions about the sale and/or repurposing of the district’s administration headquarters on New York Avenue in Smithtown are ongoing as well.

Public comments are not permitted during public work sessions. More debate and eventually a decision are inevitable in the coming weeks.

A date has not yet been selected for a vote on the matter.

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Katie Reilly fights to maintain possession as she dribbles the ball up the court. Photo from Huntington athletics

Trailing by double digits after watching one of their best players helped off the court, the Huntington girls’ basketball players had to look deep within themselves.

Instead of folding, the Blue Devils staged a remarkable rally to overcome host Smithtown West, 62-56, Tuesday.

Sophomore Alexandra Heuwetter scored 22 points and had six rebounds and five blocks, and senior Katie Reilly had 15 points and six assists to lead Huntington’s comeback.

Anna Gulizio came off the bench and picked up 11 points and four rebounds. Brooke Baade had 10 points, including a pair of three-pointers, and Abby Maichin had four points and three rebounds.

Befuddled by Smithtown West’s press, Huntington (11-2 overall; 9-1 in league play) had trouble bringing the ball up the court early in the game, repeatedly committing turnovers.

Coupled with the loss of senior Taylor Moreno, who hit the court hard just two minutes into the game and was unable to return to play, the Blue Devils struggled during the opening six minutes before closing hard to cut their deficit to 19-15 by the end of the first quarter.

“We settled the game down a bit after a lot of frantic play,” Reilly said. “It was definitely a scary sight to see one of our best players go down. I think it motivated us to win even more.”

Huntington went on an 18-9 second-quarter run to grab a 33-28 halftime lead, but Smithtown West (7-6 overall; 6-4 in the conference) wasn’t quite finished. The Bulls staged a rally of their own to retake the lead, and the teams battled toe-to-toe throughout the third quarter, with the advantage seesawing back and forth.

The Blue Devils led 46-43 entering the final frame before sharp shooting and stifling defense allowed Huntington to go ahead 58-47 as the clock ticked down. But, once again, Smithtown West rallied to close to within three points with little time remaining.

Huntington hit several crucial free throws in the final minute to put the game on ice.

Unlike most game days that see the junior varsity team play first, Huntington and Smithtown West took the court at 4:15 p.m. after many players on both teams had sat through midterm exams earlier in the day.

“We just had a slow start since we played first and were away, but after we got into our groove and started communicating and playing our game,” Baade said. “We were able to come back.”

Huntington will host Centereach on Friday at 6:15 p.m.

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Kiera Ahern reaches for the ball on a fast break. Photo by Desirée Keegan

The success of the starters is rubbing off on the Kings Park bench.

In the girls’ basketball team’s monster 90-35 win over Eastport-South Manor Tuesday, every single one of the Kingsmen put points on the scoreboard, aiding in the team remaining undefeated with a 10-0 record in League IV. Kings Park is also on an eight-game winning streak.

“I tell the girls I don’t care who’s on the floor whether you’re our best player or a starter or the 12th girl at the bottom of the bench, when you get out there you play hard and these girls did it,” Kings Park head coach Tom Edmundson said. “We didn’t have any girls left off the scoring table. We had 11 3-pointers, two girls who never scored before hit 3-pointers tonight, so it’s great when everyone can contribute the way we did. It was outstanding.”

Kings Park junior guard and forward Tiffany Slicklein scored the first 14 points of her game-high 21 in the first quarter, all of which were the first points for her team. She also finished with 16 rebounds and seven assists.

Tiffany Slicklein muscles her way up to the rim. Photo by Desirée Keegan
Tiffany Slicklein muscles her way up to the rim. Photo by Desirée Keegan

The Kingsmen used fast breaks and a full-court press to force turnovers and steal passes, and converted nearly every opportunity into quick points.

“We stress defense all the time,” Slicklein said. “Our defense leads to our offense and that clearly happened today.”

By the end of the first eight minutes, Kings Park jumped out to a whopping 30-11 lead.

“We started the game with our full-court pressure to try to get them off their game, and every time we get a rebound or a steal, we want to go,” Edmundson said. “There’s nothing better than having the ball and scoring within three seconds while the other team may have the ball and it takes them 25 seconds to score.”

Kings Park continued to limit its opponents’ opportunities at a basket while tacking on close to as many points as it did in the first, to take a 51-16 lead into the halftime break.

Also doing a stellar job for the Kingsmen was senior guard Kiera Ahern, who collected 14 points in the first half on two 3-pointers, three field goals and two free throws. Ahern ended the evening with a career-best 20 points, seven rebounds and three assists.

“She’s so smart out there,” Edmundson said of Ahern. “She doesn’t get the recognition a lot of the time because she doesn’t put up big points, but she really in so many ways is the glue to this team. I’m just beyond thrilled that she had a game like this.”

Eastport-South Manor was able to keep up with Kings Park and maintain a quick style of play, but that fizzled out during the second half as the speed wore down the players over time.

After Kings Park held its opponent to three points over the first six minutes of the third quarter, Edmundson dove deeper into his bench to give the other players some time. The Kingsmen used this to their advantage as several girls scored for the first time, and five girls came off the bench — seniors Francesca Timpone and Shannon Donovan with juniors Lauren DeLillo, Toni Labrador and Shannon Savage — all to score 3-pointers.

Selena Ubriaco passes the ball. Photo by Desirée Keegan
Selena Ubriaco passes the ball. Photo by Desirée Keegan

“It’s nice when you know you have support when you’re coming off the floor that someone else is going to step onto the court and step up and make shots,” Slicklein said.

The bench remained on the court for the final eight minutes of the game, and put up 24 points while holding Eastport-South Manor to 12.

“It’s a great time for us to show off our team skills,” Ahern said. “We’re hoping to win the league, so by making this another statement game it’s a great opportunity to show those teams — and those in the other leagues — that we’re a good team and a tough competitor.”

With the girls playing a makeup game on Monday on account of the weather and with Tuesday’s game being the girls’ “coaches vs. cancer” game, there were a lot of distractions, and Edmundson liked that his team was able to remain focused.

“To play the way they did is a testament to their ability,” he said. “We definitely have the talent, the heart and the dedication to make a county run — we just have to go out there and do it.”

For players like Ahern, she used what the night represented as motivation to shine.

“I played in memory of my uncle and a girl who passed away in our town a couple of years ago and a junior varsity coach,” she said. “I was playing for those who died and survived cancer, so it’s a wonderful feeling to be able to play for them.”

Kings Park is three wins above Hauppauge and Half Hollow Hills West, so if the team can continue its winning ways, the Kingsmen should remain in the top spot. But the girls’ goal is to remain undefeated.

“We’re very confident but we don’t want to get too cocky, so we just want to play our best every day and bring our best to every game,” Slicklein said. “If we continue to do that, I think we’re going to like the outcome.”

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Town unanimously approves comptroller’s plan to breathe new life into aging vehicles through leasing

Smithtown Town Hall. File photo by Rachel Shapiro

Smithtown is going ahead with plans to upgrade its vehicle fleet.

The Smithtown Town Board voted unanimously at its meeting last Thursday night, Jan. 21, to enter into an agreement with Enterprise Fleet Management and gradually upgrade its aging vehicle fleet. Over the next year, the town will begin phasing in 23 new high-mileage vehicles into its fleet with more to come, according to the agreement with Enterprise FM Trust.

The proposal came from town Comptroller Donald Musgnug, who brought Enterprise representatives to the board before a work session earlier this month calling on the town to upgrade its 192-vehicle fleet. Most of those vehicles, Musgnug said, were approaching two decades in age and six-digit mileage numbers.

“Clearly we have an aging fleet,” Musgnug said to the board at the work session. “Enterprise is one of the leaders in this industry. The proposal is on the table.”

Musgnug said Smithtown had about $986,000 set aside in its 2016 budget for the purchasing and maintenance of the town’s vehicle fleet used across various departments, and with Enterprise’s help, the town would be replacing about 173 of its vehicles over the next five years and save money while doing it.

According to the deal, Enterprise would purchase the vehicles directly from various manufacturers and use government incentives while leasing them out to the town for prices Smithtown would not be able to acquire on its own, the Enterprise leasing representatives said.

“We’ve been doing this with a lot of New York entities,” said Jacob Garth, government marketing manager at Enterprise at a work session earlier this month. “We do more than just managing and acquiring vehicles. When we look at the fleet, one of the key objectives we make is to lower the age of the fleet, and a significant portion of your fleet is more than 10 years old.”

Garth said that municipalities like Smithtown typically purchase their vehicles via state contractors, which often limit purchases to only one manufacturer. Enterprise, however, has more than 1.6 million vehicles in its fleet from a range of manufacturers, which Garth argued would give Smithtown more opportunity for savings through open-ended leases.

Fleet consultant Jay Greene of Enterprise also said his group has already signed onto similar agreements with Brookhaven and Huntington towns and started discussing plans with Smithtown back in September.

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Grave markers and headstones at the Lake Ronkonkoma Cemetery have been desecrated. Photo from SCPD

Historical grave markers and headstones were damaged earlier this month and police are searching for whomever is responsible.

Grave markers and headstones at the Lake Ronkonkoma Cemetery have been desecrated. Photo from SCPD
Grave markers and headstones at the Lake Ronkonkoma Cemetery have been desecrated. Photo from SCPD

The desecrated graves were at Lake Ronkonkoma Cemetery on Hawkins Avenue, according to the Suffolk County Police Department, and include some grave stones dating back to the Civil War.

Police said Tuesday that the suspect or suspects did the damage between Jan. 4 and 8, desecrating 14 grave makers and headstones.

Suffolk County Crime Stoppers and detectives from the SCPD’s 4th Squad are looking for the public’s help to identify and locate the cemetery vandals. Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers anonymously at 800-220-TIPS.

Crime Stoppers offers a cash reward of up to $5,000 for information leading to an arrest.

The cemetery is located at the corner of Hawkins Avenue and Smith Street in Lake Ronkonkoma, behind the United Methodist Church.

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Mathew McCauley mugshot from SCPD

A man arrested yesterday allegedly burglarized a bagel store and then biked away from the scene of the crime.

The Suffolk County Police Department said the man burgled Mayfair Bagels on Jericho Turnpike in Commack at about 4:45 a.m. on Monday before fleeing on a bicycle. Officers from the 4th Precinct responded to an alarm at the bagel business and found their suspect in the area shortly afterward.

Police arrested a Lake Ronkonkoma resident, Mathew McCauley, in connected with the incident. The 51-year-old was charged with third-degree burglary, as well as a parole violation.

Attorney information for McCauley was not immediately available. He was scheduled to be arraigned on Tuesday.

According to police, detectives are investigating whether the suspect could have been involved in other recent burglaries in Commack.

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A groundhog makes a weather forecast. File photo

groundhog-wSmithtown has its own groundhog, and his big annual prediction is approaching fast.

Sweetbriar Sam will make an appearance on Sunday, Jan. 31, at 1 p.m. at Smithtown’s Sweetbriar Nature Center at 62 Eckernkamp Dr., Smithtown, and choose between another six weeks of winter or an early spring. The event, which runs through 3 p.m., will also feature a scavenger hunt to learn facts about groundhogs, playing with shadows and events with other animal hibernators and weather predictors.

The event is open to all, and admission is $10 per child and $5 for adults and Scouts. For more information, residents can call 631-979-6344 or visit www.sweetbriarnc.org.

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The Rinx in Port Jefferson is a favorite spot for Suffolk County hockey fans. Photo by Alex Petroski

Through 45 games, the New York Islanders sit in second place in the National Hockey League’s Metropolitan Division, one point ahead of the New York Rangers. On the ice, the first half of their inaugural season in Brooklyn has looked similar to the past few years for the Islanders — they look like a playoff team with the potential to make a run at the Stanley Cup in the spring.

Off the ice is a different view: With 25 of the team’s 41 regular season home games in the books, the Islanders are 28th out of the NHL’s 30 teams in average attendance, drawing a little more than 13,000 people per game, according to approximate figures reported by media outlets, including ESPN.

The league does not confirm official attendance statistics until the end of the season, but reported that the Islanders drew more than 15,000 fans on average during their final run at the Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, in the 2014-15 hockey season.

The trip from Smithtown to Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, where the Barclays Center is located, takes more than an hour and a half by car. Taking the train from the Long Island Rail Road’s Smithtown train station takes about two and a half hours, including a change at Jamaica Station.

In an unofficial TBR Newspapers poll of Islanders fans from Suffolk County, most people said they had not yet been to the Barclays Center in Brooklyn to watch the Islanders this year.

Ron Carlson, a Port Jefferson resident and former village recreation director who had season tickets to the Coliseum for about 10 years, said the trip is too far by car and “I’m not a train person.” He has not been to a home game yet this season.

Erin Morano, of Shoreham, who regularly used to take her family of five to games in Nassau, hasn’t been to a game in 2015-16 either.

“It’s not as convenient,” Morano said. “Parking is tough and expensive in Brooklyn.”

Brittney Skarulis, of Smithtown, used to attend Islander games as a fan and an employee, but not so far in Brooklyn.

“It’s too far to go and the traffic is terrible,” Skarulis said. “I was a guest Islander ice girl when the games were in Nassau Coliseum. It was more convenient to go there than the Barclays Center.”

Some parents, like Ken Hayes from East Setauket, said it’s hard to bring their kids to game due to the long ride home — when games begin at 7 p.m. and end anywhere between 9:30 p.m. and 10:30 p.m., they would get home too late.

Hayes went to his first game in Brooklyn in January. He said that it was fairly quiet for a hockey game.

Distance, lack of convenience, lack of parking and expense of the travel were the most common explanations for those who haven’t yet taken in a game this season. No one had a bad thing to say about the brand of hockey that the Islanders are putting on the ice. With a young core of talented players, the team is trending in the right direction. But fans from Suffolk County are not there to witness it as frequently in 2015 and 2016.

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