June 2, 1994
It was a good week for East Hampton High School baseball — the best so far, in fact. Jim Nicoletti’s team, now 22-2, won the right to represent Suffolk in the State Class C tournament, for the first time since 1991, and advanced to the county small schools championship game.
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Bob Nugent and Kevin Corliss crossed the finish line of Sunday’s Potatohampton 10K road race in Bridgehampton hands clasped and arms upraised, but when Nugent checked the official clock, it was his blood pressure that began to rise when he saw the 35 minute, 25 second reading on the clock.
“We were putting the hammer down,” said the disappointed Nugent. “This was racing at its best. It would have been the fastest 10K out here other than at Shelter Island.”
. . . The course, which should have been 6.2 miles actually measured 7.15 — the result of a wrong turn the lead police car took near the Sagg Store in Sagaponack. Most agreed it was a typical Potatohampton run, in which fun was the goal and pique a result.
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Larry Keller, who has thrown the discus farther than anyone in the state this season, will lead 10 East Hampton High School track and field competitors into the county boys and girls meets tomorrow and Saturday at Longwood High School.
Keller dazzled onlookers at the Division III meet here May 25. All five of his throws exceeded 168 feet. His winning throw, 172 feet, 7.5 inches, was the longest throw in the state this year, according to Bonac’s coach, Mike Burns.
. . . Bonac also has high hopes for its leading pole-vaulter, Ron Gatlin, an Oklahoma State-bound senior, who equaled his school record of 13-6 in winning the event at the division met here. Gatlin almost cleared 14-0 on his third try that day.
. . . The boys team, which went undefeated in the league season, looked to be on its way to winning the 19-school Division III meet that it played host to, but the disqualification of a Stony Brook runner in the 800 enabled a Mount Sinai runner to take eight second-place points, giving Mount Sinai a total of 80 to East Hampton’s 78.5.
June 9, 1994
The East Hampton Bonackers breezed last Thursday to the first county small schools championship ever won by an East Hampton High School baseball team, while a crowd that included college scouts — and reportedly one major league scout — looked on.
Spectators were held spellbound by the home-run power of Bonac’s senior left-handed first baseman, Ross Gload, who may well be the all-time county leader in home runs and runs batted in.
. . . During the course of the impressive 10-5 win over Kings Park, Gload silenced all doubters — if indeed there were any — with an awesome display of power, a single and three towering home runs in four at-bats, with five runs batted in and four scored.
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Larry Keller became the fifth county track champion from East Hampton High School in the past two decades by winning the discus throw at Saturday’s county meet at Longwood High School.
. . . The last Bonac county track champion was Sandy McFarland, of Bridgehampton — East Hampton has been combined in the sport for the past few years with Bridgehampton and Pierson High Schools. McFarland won the county 100 and 200-meter dashes as a junior, in 1991.
Other East Hampton county track champs have been Jack King, in the long jump in 1976; Kathy Ryan in the 1,500-meter racewalk in 1980, and Charlie Ecker, in the shot-put in 1983. McFarland, now a sophomore at Syracuse University, recently placed eighth in the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference’s 400-meter race, in 56.21 seconds, earning All-East honors.