Don McGovern and Kevin McConville, East Hampton High’s boys soccer and girls tennis coaches, have good teams, but they were thinking this week of ways in which they could become even better.

Girls tennis, which was to have had a showdown here with Westhampton Beach Monday, was 6-0 over all as of earlier that day, while boys soccer, at 3-1, was in second place in its league, behind only Amityville, which was 4-0.

During the halftime break in Saturday’s soccer game here with Rocky Point, McGovern told his players, a number of whom are familiar with futsal, soccer’s indoor version, that the outdoor game was different, that instead of playing the ball up in the air, they should bring it quickly down for passing on the ground. Leaving the ball in the air, McGovern said, was “a defender’s dream. . . . They get to play the ball and your body.”

The team’s 1-0 win was thanks to a perfect left-to-right cross by Sebastian Fuquen onto an onrushing Liam Leach, who buried it in the 50th minute of play. Asked afterward if the Bonackers had heeded his halftime advice, McGovern said, “Not all that much, but they’re improving. . . . I’m optimistic. Their ball-handling skills are superior, and they seem to be learning how to deal with these less-skilled, physical teams, which try everything they can to be disruptive and to score on counters and set plays where they can take advantage of their height. You saw how it was in that game with Sayville. Since then we’ve beaten Miller Place and now Rocky Point.”

Though McConville’s team was 6-0 going into Monday afternoon’s match, the opposition had not been all that great, he said earlier that day at the Hampton Racquet club, where he is the head pro.

When this writer said he thought the girls’ second serves could be improved pretty much across the board, the coach agreed, saying that in his opinion the second serve was “the most important shot in tennis. . . . They’re reluctant to accelerate the racket head across the ball. They’d rather swing slow than fast, and so they tap it. Becca [Kuperschmid, his senior number-one] and Juliana [Barahona, his sophomore number-two] have good second serves, but that’s about it. We’re working on it.”

With Kuperschmid, Barahona (a recent arrival from Colombia), Caroline Micallif, and Katie Annicelli, as its singles players, and with the doubles pairings of Olivia Baris and Chiara Bedini, Kaylee Mendelman and Samantha Schurr, and Annelise Mendelman and Eva Wojtusiak, East Hampton has been winning by lopsided margins, but McConville — who, in his first season here coached the boys to a share of the league title last spring — is not willing to let matters rest. “I’ve been working with a lot of them here” at the Racquet club, he said, “and I’ll continue to.”

The doubles teams, he said, had bought into the stagger system he’d taught to the boys last spring, with the teams’ players positioning themselves so as to take advantage of opportunities to close out points at the net, rather than contenting themselves with one player covering the baseline while the other stands statue-like at the net.

His first, third, and fourth singles players had been “rock solid,” McConville said, and the second, Barahona, who as yet speaks little English, has great potential.

He first became aware of her “on our first day of tryouts. . . . She was playing with the jayvee. . . . I heard sneakers squeak squeaking — ah, the sign of an athlete! I called her over to play in our tiebreaker winner-learner matches that we have. If you’re up in the tiebreaker when I blow the whistle, you stay on the court, if you’re trailing, you move down one. Juliana started out on the last court and moved all the way up to the top one where Becca beat her.”

McConville was told that Barahona’s father, Julian, who has played with the topflight men’s soccer teams here, “was a semipro player in Colombia.” “When I asked her if she was a ninth grader or a 10th grader, I said I was hoping she was a ninth grader, for then I’d have her for four years. She hits good topspin groundstrokes from the baseline, and she can slice her backhand too. She’s a fighter and she can move. We’re working on down-the-line, forcing approach shots and dropshots that take her opponent out of her comfort zone when she gets short balls.”

Similarly, Bedini has been working her way up in the doubles lineup, starting as a member of the third team.

The coach said he was thinking of reconstituting his first doubles team Monday, given its disappointing loss to Eastport-South Manor, the result of being sucked into too many moon ball exchanges. “The other team had nothing to hurt my girls. . . . We weren’t picking the right ball to attack. We’d either get into playing their game or get impatient and hit everything hard . . . and either bury our shots in the net or hit them out.”

East Hampton has two sister pairings, the Annicellis, Katie being a junior and Casey being a ninth grader, and the Mendelmans, Kaylee being a junior and Annelise being a senior. 

Cathrine Lefevre, a sophomore, is also on the roster, as are Nicole Lopez, Eve Marsden, and Sara Morgan, who have largely been playing on Fausto Hinojosa’s junior varsity team.

Back to boys soccer, Leach’s goal, a career-first, which proved to be all the team needed to beat Rocky Point, was picture-perfect as he deposited the low cross from Fuquen into the lower right corner of the nets with 30 minutes left to play in the game. Zane Musnicki, a wide-roaming senior defender, a force on both defense and offense, had a number of good opportunities thereafter, but could not finish.

The senior goalie, Kurt Matthews, was his usual staunch self, punching out free kicks and corner kicks. He was downed in so doing in the 56th minute, but after lying on the ground for a while, remained in the game. His best save was his last, when, with a half-minute left, Matthews foiled a Rocky Pointer’s credible bid for a tie.

“It was a great effort,” McGovern told the team afterward. “It came down to who wanted it more. Liam buried that shot. Who’s it going to be in the next game? It takes a team.”

McGovern agreed that East Hampton did not have a scorer along the lines of Mario Olaya, Ernesto or Esteban Valverde, or Nick West this fall, “but there are guys who are stepping up. We’re beginning to play well as a team, I think we’ll continue to grow.”

Musnicki, off a throw-in, Fuquen, with an assist from Musnicki, and Brian Gonzalez, with an assist from Christopher Pintado, had scored in the win over Miller Place, the coach said.

Kathy McGeehan, the veteran coach of East Hampton High School’s girls volleyball team, said in the first week of the season that this edition had the potential to be one of her best. She probably should have said had the potential to be her best, period.

McGeehan has had some terrific players in the past and some very good teams, one of which made it to the state finals in Glens Falls, but this one is firing on all cylinders, whether it be hitting, serving, digging, setting, blocking . . . you name it.

Going into Monday’s match here with Amityville, McGeehan’s crew had been shredding the opposition, no mean feat considering that two of its three wins as of that day had come at the hands of last year’s league co-champs, Sayville (3-0) and Westhampton Beach (3-1).

The team plays with exuberance and grit. Rarely did the ball hit the floor undefended in Friday’s match here with Rocky Point, which the Bonackers won 3-0.

The first set was tied at 5-5 when Elle Johnson, the senior setter, began to serve. By the time she was done it was 10-5. Molly Mamay, the junior libero, served aces for 15-7 and 16-7, and Johnson capped the 25-11 win with an ace of her own.

East Hampton, with Madyson Neff, Hannah Hartsough, a Springs sophomore who comes off the bench, and Johnson serving — the latter serving four aces in her five attempts — jumped out to a 12-2 lead in the second set before the visitors crept back a bit. A resounding kill by Neff made it 23-9, and, at 24-10, Hartsough, again coming off the bench, served it out.

With McGeehan subbing freely, the third set was more closely contested than the first two. A quick hit by Ella Gurney put the home team up by 13-10, after which, with Neff serving, a tip by Mikela Junemann, a sophomore who is East Hampton’s chief hitter, and more aces by Neff extended the lead to 18-10 before Rocky Point sided out.

With the score 22-13, Faith Fenelon, a hard-hitting ninth grader, served an ace to the floor. Junemann’s ace at 24-16 capped the sweep, after which the team extended its celebratory mood by celebrating the 26th birthday of McGeehan’s assistant, Alex Choi. 

Afterward, when questioned, McGeehan, who got everyone in the match that day, said of her team, “They’ve been working hard, all through the summer. They all went to a camp at Penn State and practiced two mornings a week. We’ve got very good leadership. . . . We’re three deep at opposite” — the left-side hitter diagonally opposite the setter when the six-player team takes the court. “Molly, who has a fantastic volleyball I.Q., is always thinking . . . and, as you say, we’re quick — quick to react, quick to the ball. Credit Rocky Point, though. They were scrappy, ready to play; they were going hard.”

As for the stats, Junemann had 14 kills, Neff had seven, and Gurney four. Johnson had five aces, 25 assists, and seven digs. Mamay had 12 digs, and Johnson, as aforesaid, and Neff each had seven. The dig list included Zoe Leach, with five, Junemann, with four, and Julia Kearney, with three, as well.

Johnson, with 13 all told, and Mamay, with 10, led the team in aces going into Monday’s match. Junemann, with 36, Neff, with 25, and Gurney, with 17, were the top three when it came to kills. As for digs, Neff had 37 over the course of East Hampton’s first three matches, Mamay had 30, Leach, 29, and Junemann, 26.

On Sept. 12, the Bonackers won in four at Westhampton Beach, losing the third set 25-23 after winning the first two 25-13 and 25-15. They closed it out at 25-18.

“Yes, it was a big win,” McGeehan said afterward. “We didn’t serve and pass as well as we had against Sayville, but part of that was because they were putting pressure on and we were trying to force the ball away from their all-state libero. Our serving percentage was 77 at Westhampton; it was 86 against Sayville,” and 88.9 against Rocky Point.

“We didn’t serve well in the set we lost, but then we got back on track, and played well across the board. . . . It’s been four years since we’ve beaten Westhampton. I guess you can say [regarding East Hampton’s chances this season] the cat’s out of the bag.”

While the world of professional golf will soon focus on the Ryder Cup competition in France, an event contested by teams from the United States and Great Britain, a similar event unfolded this week at the Maidstone Club in East Hampton.

It was not, however, your typical P.G.A. or local charity tournament, but one that matched a very select group of people who have shared and overcome very trying challenges far removed from the plush green fairways of a golf course.

The Simpson Cup, which annually brings together 13-player teams of injured servicemen from the U.S. and Great Britain to compete in a Ryder Cup format, teed off at Maidstone in the rain and wind Tuesday. The two-day event raises money for the On Course Foundation, a charitable organization that helps men and women injured or otherwise debilitated in the line of duty to rebuild their lives through golf.

In its seventh year, the Simpson Cup is the organization’s marquee event. It has been held at some of the most noted courses in the world here and abroad. Next year, it will be played at St. Andrew’s in Scotland, the sport’s birthplace.

Chad Pfeiffer, the U.S. team’s captain, who lost his left leg when the Humvee in which he was riding rolled over an improvised explosive device in Iraq in 2007, said, when questioned, that golf had saved his life, and added that “the Simpson Cup offers an amazing opportunity for everyone involved to be with other wounded veterans from both sides of the Atlantic. The camaraderie we develop helps all of us realize we aren’t alone in battling the issues that face us. The relationships that we form in these tournaments last a lifetime.”

Hari Budha-Magar, of Great Britain’s team, a Nepali who served with the U.K.’s 1st Battalion Royal Gurkha Rifles for 15 years, suffered life-threatening injuries caused by an improvised explosive device in Afghanistan in 2010. The double above-the-knee amputee, who made his debut here, after being medically discharged in 2014 set about seeing what he was able to do despite having lost both legs. The very long and impressive 

list includes sky diving, alpine skiing, biathlon, archery, wheelchair table tennis, rugby, hockey, kayaking, javelin throwing, mountain climbing, and, ultimately, golf — “a great sport that has done wonders for my self-confidence.”

“I’m so proud,” he added, “to be a part of Team Great Britain and to be here at Maidstone.”

Budha-Magar, who lives in England now, made history last September by becoming the first double amputee to reach the 21,300-foot summit of Mera Peak in the Himalayas. He now has his sights set on scaling Everest, the world’s highest peak, a feat that no double amputee has ever attempted before.

“Climbing Everest is a dream and goal of mine,” he said. “I’m fully aware of the risks, but I know I can do this, and I’m looking forward to it.”

For Alex Happer of Team U.S.A., Maidstone has a special meaning, as he grew up about 50 miles away, in Medford. A scratch golfer, Happer served in the 3rd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment in a variety of roles for four years.

“I am beyond honored to represent the United States, and to be part of such an amazing event and organization,” he said Monday afternoon following his practice round. “It’s also so special to play on a course like Maidstone — it’s the most beautiful course I’ve ever been on.”

Happer, who at 24 was the Simpson Cup’s youngest competitor, took up the game when he was 4 years old, hitting Wiffle balls in his backyard, and later honed his skills in Raleigh, N.C., to which the family moved after his father, a New York City detective and 9/11 first responder, retired. 

He led his high school team there to the state championships and won the A.A.U. North-South junior tournament, but owing in part to the memory of his father’s selfless service on 9/11, enlisted in the Army rather than accept college scholarship offers. 

A rifleman, grenadier, fire team leader, and commander’s radio telephone operator, Happer sustained a traumatic brain injury and severe spinal, hip, and ankle injuries during his deployment in Afghanistan, and later had post-traumatic stress disorder.

He left the Army two years ago and decided to return to the Carolinas, where he had experienced such early success in golf. “I could barely afford to buy new clubs, but the G.I. Bill helped pay off the costs of attending the Golf Academy of America in Myrtle Beach.”

There he met Shawn Whitmore, the On Course Foundation’s national program coordinator, and with Whitmore’s and the charity’s help next week he will begin work as an ass-

istant pro at the Trump National Doral Golf Club in Miami.

“It’s a dream come true. I can’t wait to start, but the Simpson Cup [which was to have ended yesterday] comes first. . . . Some of these guys have lost their legs or arms in battle, or have suffered in other ways, but we all stand together and support each other.”

William Floyd’s junior varsity freshman football team, with about 40 suited up, probably thought that East Hampton’s jayvee would be easy pickings at Friday night’s homecoming game under the lights, but, as it turned out, the Bonackers lit up the place on their way to winning 30-18.

It was the first win of the season for Joe McKee’s team, which had lost in its first two outings, to Hampton Bays and Bayport-Blue Point.

“For half the kids on the team that game at Hampton Bays was the first they’d ever played,” Bob Budd, a mainstay of East Hampton football program, said during the halftime break. 

Mark Mensch, Floyd’s athletic director, who used to be the trainer here, said, when questioned Monday, that the team Floyd sent was “an all-freshman team . . . we’ve also got an all-sophomore jayvee too, though our freshmen are as good as any jayvee East Hampton will see this fall, absolutely.”

Agreeing that it had been a big win for the Bonackers, Mensch added, “We’re happy to do anything we can to bring back Bonac football.”

The visitors were leading 18-8 going into the fourth quarter, after making good on an 11-play, 85-yard drive near the end of the third. But then things began to go East Hampton’s way as Bonac’s defenders, with Christian Johnson chief among them, began to strip the ball from Floyd’s rushers.

A fumble recovery led to the first of East Hampton’s three fourth-quarter scores, a 30-yard run by Danny Ortiz, and another strip not long afterward keyed an 85-yard fumble return by Santi Maya, a defensive back, that treated the home team to a 20-18 lead, to which Ortiz tacked on two extra points.

Maya’s was the second of three electrifying dashes that night, Johnson’s 90-yard carry down the home team’s sideline near the end of the first quarter being the first. Topher Cullen, the quarterback, added 2 points to Johnson’s score, for an 8-6 lead entering the second period, but East Hampton was not to lead again until the strip-and-run heroics of the fourth.

Maya’s score had the homecoming crowd cheering mightily, and slightly more than a minute later it was Kevin Bunce’s turn as he picked up the ball, which had been coughed up at East Hampton’s 25, and ran with it unmolested all the way into the Colonials’ end zone. East Hampton’s third 2-point conversion capped the wild comeback.

“The kids were thrilled,” McKee said during a conversation Monday. “William Floyd’s a big Conference 1 school. We’re definitely seeing improvement in every game.” 

Floyd had a very strong and fast running back who was hard to bring down, “but our defense, while it bent, didn’t break,” said McKee. “Then they began to make mistakes and we took advantage.”

While the game was played under the lights — on portable stanchions leased for the occasion — they were relatively low, which made passing difficult. There were only one or two open-field receptions during the course of the, for Bonac fans, joyous night.

Four Inducted

The next day, three former East Hampton football players, Justin Winter, Michael Sarlo, and Zach Brenneman, were inducted into the school’s Hall of Fame, along with Randi Cherill, who recently retired after a 16-year career as the school’s trainer.

Winter, who graduated in 1982, still holds the school’s 400-meter dash record, at 48.1 seconds, and, with three others, the 4-by-100 relay record of 44.4.

Bob Budd and the former track and football coach, Mike Burns, spoke for the Virgin Islands-born Winter, who lives in Riverhead now, where he heads an electrical contracting company, coaches youth football, and is an associate pastor of the House of Praise Christian Revival Center.

When Budd, in recounting East Hampton’s county championship win over Riverhead, said the Bonackers had won 27-7, Winter, from his seat in the audience, said, “Twenty-seven to six.”

“He had lightning speed,” Budd recalled. “He rushed for 100 or more yards in seven of our games, and 95 in the other, against Westhampton.”

Winter’s plaque says that after earning a full football scholarship to Syracuse, to which he’d transferred from Hobart, he was drafted as a wide receiver by the New York Giants, a stint cut short by injury. 

“You never, never had to ask Justin to work hard,” Burns said. “He never put himself first . . . you were unbelievable.”

Similar praise was rendered by Ralph Naglieri, who spoke for Brenneman, a former professional lacrosse player and collegiate all-American at Notre Dame, and by Jim Nicoletti, East Hampton’s former baseball coach, who spoke for Sarlo, now the town’s police chief.

Sarlo’s plaque says he was “a defensive standout in football, basketball, and baseball, captained the 1988 league-champion basketball and baseball teams, was a member of the National Honor Society, and, as the town’s police chief, continues to give back to this day.”

Nicoletti said it had taken a Major Leaguer — Ross Gload — to break the runs-batted-in record of 44 that Sarlo once held.

“There was never a day,” Cherill’s plaque says, “when her office wasn’t packed with kids, some of whom needed care, but most of whom simply wanted to hang out with Randi. . . . Though her nickname was ‘Part Time,’ she is truly full time in our hearts.”

Saturday’s inductions bring to 69 the number of the Hall’s individual members. Ten teams have been inducted, as well.

Men’s slow-pitch came back to the Terry King ball field in Amagansett this spring following a five-year absence during which many of Amagansett’s former players swelled the numbers in Montauk’s bar league.

“We lost three [teams] and gained two,” Mike Ritsi of the Montauk league said the other day, so instead of eight teams, Montauk had seven this summer. Amagansett had 10, and there were some — most notably Andrew Foglia, a member of two championship teams, Liars’ Saloon in Montauk and Marcello Masonry in Amagansett — who played in both.

Liars’, Ritsi’s team, won the championship series in Montauk last week, taking the fifth game from the Gig Shack, the two-time defending champion, 8-1. Marcello had an easier time of it, defeating Uihlein’s 3-1 in their best-of-five final.

“It’s a different game in Montauk,” Ray Wojtusiak, Marcello’s player-manager, said during a conversation at The Star Friday. “You have to string a lot of singles together out there — there aren’t that many home runs.”

“Maybe there were a dozen homers out here this summer,” said Ritsi.

There weren’t all that many at Terry King, probably given the restrictive-flight bats that are used, said Wojtusiak, whose team, nevertheless, used the long ball to rout Uihlein’s 17-6 in game four, and thus capture the East Hampton Town men’s slow-pitch softball league trophy.

What proved to be the decisive game, on Aug. 22, began with Uihlein’s scoring four runs in the top of the first inning, but Marcello came right back with five in the bottom half, three as the result of a home run by Chris Pfund after Joe Sullivan and Tom Thorsen had singled, and two owing to a homer by Foglia after Andy Tuthill singled. And all of that occurred before anyone had made an out. 

Afterward, Tuthill said it had been his idea to sprinkle the lineup with heavy hitters and not to bunch the lefties — Tuthill, Sullivan, and Thorsen — to keep Jim Hansen, Uihlein’s much-respected pitcher, on his toes, as it were. Thus Dustin Lightcap (who, like Foglia, played in the Montauk league as well) batted 10th for Marcello’s that night. 

He hit into a 6-4 force to end the first inning and grounded into a 6-4-3 double play to end the fourth, but in his first at-bat in that inning he hit a two-run home run, and would have had another in the sixth were it not for a rule, adopted when the season began, limiting teams to five taters, “the idea being,” said Wojtusiak, “to prevent blowouts.” His home run in the sixth, therefore, was treated as a single. 

Others who found the fences for Marcello’s that night were Tuthill and Thorsen.

When, following Thorsen’s two-run homer in the fifth, which treated Marcello’s to a 15-4 lead, Tuthill was asked if there were anyone on the team who hadn’t hit a home run that night “other than Ray,” Tuthill replied, with a smile, “And he won’t either.”

Wojtusiak took the ribbing with his characteristic good nature. “I’ve known Joe, Keith [Steckowski], Tommy, and Andy since they were 12, since I was their baseball coach at the middle school.”

“When Andy pitched,” he added, “I didn’t have to do anything.”

Wojtusiak and Rick White are the championship team’s elders, having played the game together for 20 or so years, “since our days with Bistrian Gravel, when Scott Loper, the best home run hitter I’ve ever played with, was on it. Joe and Keith played on Bistrian Gravel too, but later. Rick and I are the only two left from that old Bistrian Gravel team.”

When this writer made mention of Fred’s Big Guns, who made a lot of noise at Terry King 25 years ago, White said, as he walked off the field, “They would have had five home runs in the first inning.”

Back to the Montauk league, Ritsi said, concerning the final series there, at the Hank Zebrowski field on Edgemere Road, that Liars’ had won games one, three, and five, while the Gig Shack, “Leo Daunt’s team,” had won games two and four.

The fifth game had been his team’s best of the season, Ritsi said. “We scored three in the first — usually in our league it’s the team that gets off to a good start that winds up winning — and added more as we went along. They [Gig Shack] scored their run in the bottom of the seventh.”

Chris Carillo pitched for the winners in the finale, though Wyatt Gibbons was the Saloon’s pitcher in the first four.

Besides Ritsi, Foglia, Carillo, and Gibbons, the Liars’ roster comprised Tyler Davis, Brent Davis, Chris Conroy, Mike Forbes, Brian Powell, Jesse Joeckel, Matt Brierley, Kevin Farrell, Matt Burns, Ryan Burns, and Charlie Collins.

There has been talk of a best-of-three series between Liars’ and Marcello’s, but Ritsi and Wojtusiak were doubtful it would come off. “I wouldn’t want to play if it weren’t my A team, and only six or seven guys responded when I asked how many of my guys wanted to do it,” Wojtusiak said.

However, there would be, he added, a fall league at Terry King, as he said was the case last year, “from mid-September through the first week of November. It would be the same as in the summer, except the playoffs would be single-elimination. You never know . . . but it should come to pass.”

Thursday, September 13

GOLF, East Hampton at Southampton, 4 p.m.

BOYS VOLLEYBALL, Center Moriches at East Hampton, 5 p.m.

GIRLS SWIMMING, East Hampton at Ward Melville, mandatory nonleague, 5 p.m.

Friday, September 14

GIRLS SOCCER, Harborfields at East Hampton, 4:30 p.m.

GIRLS TENNIS, East Hampton at Eastport-South Manor, 4 p.m.

GIRLS VOLLEYBALL, Rocky Point at East Hampton, 5 p.m.

Saturday, September 15

GIRLS VOLLEYBALL, East Hampton at invitational tournament, Eastport-South Manor High School, 8:15 a.m.

BOYS SOCCER, Rocky Point at East Hampton, 11 a.m.

Monday, September 17

GIRLS TENNIS, Westhampton Beach at East Hampton, 4 p.m.

FOOTBALL, junior varsity, Bayport-Blue Point at East Hampton, 4:30 p.m.

BOYS SOCCER, Babylon at East Hampton, nonleague, 4:30 p.m.

FIELD HOCKEY, Hampton Bays at East Hampton, 4:30 p.m.

GIRLS VOLLEYBALL, Amityville at East Hampton, 5 p.m.

BOYS VOLLEYBALL, East Hampton at Bay Shore, 5 p.m.

GIRLS SOCCER, East Hampton at Rocky Point, 6 p.m.

Tuesday, September 18

GOLF, East Hampton at Westhampton Beach, 3:30 p.m.

Sunday’s Mighty Hamptons Triathlon, a memorial to the late Steve Tarpinian, was won by a first-timer, Andrew Kalley, 35, of New York City, in 2 hours, 7 minutes, and 42 seconds. 

Starting in the second, not the elite, wave at Long Beach in Noyac, Kalley’s splits were 30:22 in the 1.5-mile swim, 59:56 in the 40K bike, and 34:44 in the 10K run.

Vicki Ventura, the race director, said there were 473 finishers all told, including the triathlon’s 363 individual competitors and its relay teams, as well as the aquabike, an event in its second year, that drew 27 entrants, who swam and biked, but did not run.

The women’s winner, in 2:23:05, was Tara McWilliams, 32, of New York City. 

Among the local finishers were Didric Cederholm of Sag Harbor, who was 28th in 2:32:32, Mike Bahel of East Hampton, who was 36th in 2:36:21, Angelika Cruz of Montauk, who was 80th in 2:46:45, and Tim Treadwell of Amagansett, who was 185th in 3:08:50.

Ventura said she was particularly pleased to have Karen Smyers, a Hall of Fame triathlete who in her career has won three I.T.U. world championships and a Hawaiian Ironman championship, in the field.

Smyers, who is 57 and lives in Lincoln, Mass., was the 11th female finisher over all, in 2:45:01, and bested the female 55-59 division’s runner-up by 20 minutes.

In a clinic she gave on Saturday, she spoke of “the four Ps — passion, perseverance, positive attitude, and perspective,” and of how important one’s mental state is. 

“In my first world championships, in Orlando in 1990,” she said later in the week, “I very much wanted to get on the podium, having finished fourth the year before. I had a great swim and bike and started the 10K run in second place, behind Erin Baker. I was already imagining what I would wear to the awards ceremony!”

“Then, a half-mile into the run I was passed by Carol Montgomery and Joy Hansen. By mile 3 they had opened up a 15 to 20-second lead and I was wallowing in self-pity. I was thinking how unfair it was to ask a New England girl to run in such heat, on a golf course with no shade. Then Scott Molina, Erin’s husband, cheered for me. ‘Karen,’ he said, when I gave him a weary, hangdog look, ‘you’ve got to want it!’ ”

“That remark cut through the self-pity, and I realized how bad my attitude was. I decided to ignore the heat and began to reel them in. I ended up sprinting past Carol and Joy, who were still running side by side, and Erin.” 

“ ‘Karen is back!’ Carol said to Joy as I passed them. It was if I’d been resurrected from the dead. In a way, I had been. I was a different person with that change of attitude. The difference between a monumental achievement and a race that would have left me disappointed came down entirely to my mental state, not my physical preparedness. Never underestimate the power of your mind to achieve things . . . or to derail you!”

“I think I am probably most proud of the length and breadth of my career,” she said when asked about her proudest moment — “excelling at both short and long distances at the same time and managing to extend my pro career for 27 years.” 

Thyroid cancer kept her out of the 2000 Olympics, yet, she said, “having an Olympic team to try out for was the perfect motivation to help me fly through my cancer diagnosis and treatment. I am thankful that I had that goal at that time in my life, as it was just what I needed to pull me through. And looking at the grand scheme of what this sport has given me over the years I really can’t complain about one missed opportunity.”

Regarding Mighty Hamptons, she said, “I’m so happy to see a race like this — which even predated me! — endure. I remember reading in Triathlete magazine about all the greats [Dave Scott, Scott Tinley, John Howard, and Allison Roe among them] who raced here. Event Power does a wonderful job.”

As for her triathloning future, Smyers said, “Right now I tell people that I don’t want to ever retire because I want to continue to be part of a sport that fosters a feeling of anticipation when you’re about to enter a new age group. I’m personally eyeing the 80-to-84-year-old women’s record at the Hawaiian Ironman. No one has finished within the 17-hour deadline yet! Of course, it will probably be down to around 12 hours by the time I’m 80.”

Joe Vas, East Hampton’s athletic director, was upbeat as he spoke this past week of the large turnouts most of the fall sports teams have enjoyed, of coaching changes that ought to further strengthen various programs, and of work that is to begin soon to improve the varsity baseball and softball fields.

The only downside, he said, had been the heat, which had forced the cancellation of a number of practices and scheduled games. 

And, yes, he said, in answer to a question, there will be a junior varsity football team, as long as the numbers, averaging around 22, hold. That team, coached by Joe McKee, with the assistance of Lorenzo Rodriguez and McKee’s brother Kelly, was to have made its debut Friday at Hampton Bays.

“We’ve been working hard over the last five years to preserve the program. I want it to work. . . . Football across the county is down. Wyandanch has canceled its jayvee. . . . We’re trying to rebuild, we want to keep it alive.”

With the resignation of Robyn Mott, Nicole Ficeto, an East Hampton High School Hall of Famer, has taken over the varsity field hockey team, with Carolina Schaefer as her assistant, and with Danielle Waleko as the junior varsity coach.

Rich King, who led East Hampton’s boys soccer team to county and Long Island championships, and to an appearance in the state’s Final Four, is now coaching golf, its former very successful coach, Claude Beudert, having retired. With Turner Foster, a county champion, Nate Wright, and James Bradley, a very promising seventh grader, on the roster, that team ought to continue its winning ways.

Kevin McConville, the head pro at Hampton Racquet, is coaching the girls tennis team, which as of earlier this week was 3-0 in league play. McConville coached the boys to a league championship last spring, a title they shared with Westhampton Beach. 

Girls volleyball, the subject of another story on this page, ought to be right up there with girls tennis and golf and girls swimming this fall.

Kevin Barry, the boys cross-country coach, has a squad that numbers in the mid to high 20s, the most he’s ever had, and Diane O’Donnell, while she has fewer on her roster, namely nine, nevertheless expects them to give the stronger teams in East Hampton’s league, such as Shoreham-Wading River, Miller Place, and Westhampton Beach, good runs for their money.

Concerning boys volleyball, Vas said that Josh Brussell would keep more than 20 on the varsity, and added that more than 20 had tried out for the jayvee, which Andrew Rodriguez coaches.

“More than 75 tried out for boys soccer,” the athletic director said, requiring that some cuts be made. “Don McGovern has 28 on the varsity, and Mike Vitulli has 31 on the jayvee.”

Girls soccer, which has not fared well in the recent past, is in a power-rated conference this year, meaning that it will be matched up largely with teams of similar ability. The team is coached by Cara Nelson, an East Hampton Middle School teacher who ran marathons on seven continents in seven days this past year. “They beat Hampton Bays 7-0 the other day,” Vas said, adding that Nelson “has a full group, close to 40 over all.”

Homecoming, Vas said, is to be Sept. 22, beginning with a Hall of Fame breakfast in the high school’s cafeteria. The inductees are Zach Brenneman, an all-American who helped lead Notre Dame to the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s men’s lacrosse final, Michael Sarlo, East Hampton Town’s police chief, who was an all-around athlete here, the Rev. Justin Winter, who with Eddie Budd gave East Hampton a terrific one-two backfield punch in football and was a standout sprinter and 400 runner in track, and Randi Cherill, the school’s personal trainer for 16 years, who recently retired. 

Nick Jarboe, an outstanding football player and wrestler when at East Hampton, is the trainer now.

Looking ahead to the spring, Vas said Annemarie Cangiolosi, one of Lou Reale’s protégées, a lights-out pitcher when she was at the State University at Cortland, will take over the softball program. Melanie Anderson, Cangiolosi’s cousin, who played in the N.C.A.A. tournament when she caught at Bloomsburg University in Pennsylvania, is to be a volunteer assistant.

The varsity baseball and softball fields, Vas added, are to be redone this fall so they’ll be ready for the spring. The baseball field, he said, is to get an all-turf infield that ought to cut down on trips to turf fields elsewhere in the spring resulting from a mucky infield here. The grass-covered outfield will remain, he said, inasmuch as “there was concern that balls would skip toward the fence when hit into the gaps.”

The softball staff had been offered a turf infield as well, said the A.D., “but the players and the staff didn’t want it.” That field, considered one of the best in the county when Lou Reale had it redone, is to have its infield “regraded, with a clay surface, and the outfield will be ripped up so there will be no more ruts and bumps, and it will have an irrigation system.” New windscreens would be installed as well. “The field will get a complete facelift.”

Vas said in answer to a question that he did not know how much the field work is to cost, “though all of it has been budgeted for.”

Joe Vas, East Hampton’s athletic director, has had to deal with fall northeasters and rain in the past, but never so much with the heat.

Heat alerts and modified heat alerts had eaten into practice time and into scheduled play in the season’s first two weeks, he said during a conversation at the high school on Sept. 5, causing, he said, about a half-dozen cancellations. And not just outside activities have been affected, but also inside ones, like swimming and volleyball.

East Hampton’s girls volleyball team snuck a match in with Sayville that morning, before the state declared a full heat alert. East Hampton’s gym is air-conditioned, which leaves Kathy McGeehan, East Hampton’s coach, a bit mystified by the outdoor-indoor ban. “I think if we were scheduled to play in the afternoon, it would have been called off,” she said in reporting the good news the next day that her team had defeated last year’s co-league champions 3-0.

It was the first time, she said, in four years that a team of hers had beaten Sayville, a fellow Class A school — a turnabout that obviously augurs well for East Hampton’s season.

East Hampton’s second league opponent was to have been Westhampton Beach, a perennial Class A power, which shared the league title with Sayville last fall. McGeehan’s girls got a chance to scrimmage with the Hurricanes on Sept. 1, and acquitted themselves well, though there were no officials and scores weren’t kept, she said.

Suffice to say, McGeehan has a strong crew, including 11 returnees, eight of whom are seniors. The East Hampton-Sayville stats pretty much tell the story of the 25-20, 25-18, 25-12 win: 17 service aces, 37 kills, and 40 digs.

Strong serving was the main thing, said McGeehan, inasmuch as “it took Sayville out of its offensive sets and perhaps made our defenders’ jobs a bit easier.”

Offensively, Mikela Junemann, East Hampton’s strong junior outside hitter, led the way with 11 kills, but there were others with putaways too, namely Madyson Neff, a senior outside hitter, who had eight kills, and Erin Decker, also a senior outside hitter, who had seven.

Elle Johnson, the senior setter, who had 37 assists, also had seven service aces. Molly Mamay, a junior defensive specialist who shares the free-roaming libero duties with Zoe Leach, another junior defensive specialist, served six aces. Junemann had two, and Ella Gurney, a senior middle hitter, and Decker each had one.

McGeehan starts three seniors and three juniors, but is carrying a squad of 16 to assure some continuity when her eight seniors graduate. 

Other seniors on the team are Mary McDonald, a senior hitter, Nicole Realmuto, a middle blocker, Claire Hopkins, a defensive specialist and outside hitter, Connie Chan, a setter and defensive specialist, and Julia Kearney, an opposite.

Hannah Hartsough, a sophomore outside hitter and defensive specialist, Faith Fenelon, a freshman setter, Brooke Wittmer, a freshman setter, and Sorrel Miller, a freshman middle and outside hitter, round out the squad.

The team has the potential to be one of the best the veteran coach has ever had.

Westhampton Beach, said McGeehan, while always strong, wasn’t quite as strong as last year, she thought, having lost to graduation two outstanding hitters. 

Lenny Zaloga, the team’s coach, “has a new setter and some good hitters, and Westhampton always has good ball control,” McGeehan said, “but they’re not the team they were. We’re ready for them. We’ve jumped right into it by playing last year’s league champions, but I like it that way.”

The East Hampton High School girls swimming team and the junior varsity football team each lost season openers Friday, though discounting the 13 points awarded for diving, Craig Brierley’s girls would have defeated Connetquot, the home team, which wound up a 93-88 winner.

The jayvee football team, which has 25 on its roster, played well in a 20-0 loss under the lights at Hampton Bays that night, according to its coach, Joe McKee, who cited the play of Danny Ortiz, Kevin Bunce Jr., Topher Cullen, John Berti, Nick LaValle, and Alfredo Chavez, “a newcomer who, because of all his tackles, probably was the player of the game.”

A fumble near the end of the first half resulted in a 14-0 deficit going into the break. “We drove the length of the field to open the second half, but turned the ball over on downs at their 15,” the coach said. “It was pretty even after that.”

Cullen, the quarterback, passed well, he said. Ortiz and Bunce ran well and, as linebackers, defended well. Berti, McKee said, had an interception and a long pass reception, and LaValle played well as the offensive line’s center. 

East Hampton will be at home against Bayport Monday at 4:30 p.m. Eighty youngsters, McKee added, signed up for flag football at East Hampton’s Herrick Park Friday. Practices are on Tuesdays at 5:30. Games are played under the lights on Fridays, beginning at 6 p.m.

“Connetquot was second in the county last season, while we were sixth,” Brierley said in an account of Friday’s nonleague swim meet. “It was a very good start to the competitive season, with strong efforts and lessons learned.”

East Hampton, with Darcy McFarland, Nicole Gutierrez, Emily Dyner, and Caroline Hoff, won the 200-yard medley relay; Sophia Swanson won the 200 individual medley; Oona Foulser won the 50 freestyle; Swanson won the 100 butterfly; Caroline Brown won the 100 backstroke, and Jane Brierley won the 100 breaststroke.