The players on East Hampton Little League’s 11-12 and 9-10 traveling all-star baseball teams were depressed for a minute or two after having been eliminated from contention in regional games this past week, but in no time, their coaches, Ken Dodge and Mike Hand, said, they were running the bases, sliding into home, drinking Gatorade, and chasing fireflies.

Bonac’s older team, which had bageled the North Shore Americans 9-0 here on July 10, improving its postseason record to 6-1, lost in the District 36 championship game in Riverhead two days later, by a score of 4-1. 

The younger ones, who had the week before won their second District 36 title in a row, advanced to Section IV’s double-elimination tournament, but lost 11-10 to Sayville in Oakdale on the 10th, and 15-8 to East Meadow in Dix Hills last Thursday.

Neither Dodge nor Hand said their kids had anything to feel bad about, for they had given it their all. 

Jack Dickinson struck out 14, and Tyler Hansen’s two run-scoring hits, a double in the first inning and a single in the second, got the 11-12s off on the right foot in the game with North Shore. A four-run fifth extended East Hampton’s lead to 9-0, which, as aforesaid, was the final score.

The elder Dodge went with his son, Zach, and Nico Horan-Puglia in the game at Riverhead, Dickinson having reached his maximum pitch count. And while they each had pitched well, “Riverhead’s kid [who struck out 12] was lights out. He had a no-hitter going until Milo [Tompkins] singled in the sixth and Tyler drove him in. . . . They beat us, pure and simple, though if it had been two-of-three who knows. One more win and they’ll be going to the states.”

The Little League sectional losses aside, Dodge’s charges remained as of earlier this week in contention to win a Brookhaven summer league 12-and-under title. The Little League playoffs had caused him, he said, to forfeit several of those summer league games, though as of Monday the Tomahawks were 5-7 with two doubleheaders yet to play before the playoffs were to begin.

Andrew Brown, said Hand, the 9-10s’ coach, “pitched a fabulous game for us against Sayville,” but things began to unravel after Brown, having reached his pitch limit, had to come out with one out and one on in the fifth. Nothing seemed to work after that. “Sayville started to put the ball in play — everyone was hitting it. They tied it in the sixth, and scored two more in the seventh. We scored a run in our seventh — we were the ‘home’ team — and had the winning run on second with no outs, but couldn’t get it done. It was a wonderful game against a very good team. That’s the way it is. The umpire told us afterward that we were the better team for five innings.”

East Hampton, it should be said, was the last of three 9-10 Little League teams standing in Suffolk — “us, Sayville, and Half Hollow Hills. We had to beat all three.”

“We went on to lose 15-8 to East Meadow, a Nassau team, but we hung with them. They went up 7-1, but we rallied back to tie it at 7-7. In the fifth they started hitting the ball into the gaps and over the heads of our outfielders. . . . They were the better team that day — they outplayed us. They were good sports too.”

“The next day, if we’d won, we would have had to drive to Westbury, and the way the traffic is now, you could say it was a blessing in disguise. . . .” 

“We did well against tough competition, we hung with the best of them, that’s what we can take from this,” Hand continued. “The future is bright — there’s a lot of baseball ahead. They’re a very friendly group, they have the desire, the ability, their attitudes are great . . . it’s been a great experience.”

With one game yet to play in the summer league (five of his Little Leaguers are on his 10-and-under Brookhaven league team) as of Monday, Hand said there’d be a break until the fall.

Asked if he had seen any signs of wear and tear when it came to his charges, who are playing most of the year round now, Hand said, “Not when it comes to the kids. Though,” he added, with a smile, “I’ve definitely seen wear and tear in the parents.”

Peter Ventura, who was the runner-up at the Robert J. Aaron memorial triathlon in Montauk in June, won the Montauk Lighthouse sprint triathlon Sunday, prompting the announcer, Terry Bisogno, to hail his “resurgence.”

Asked after he’d crossed the line (in 1 hour, 5 minutes, and 25.5 seconds) what Bisogno had meant, Ventura, a 39-year-old Huntington resident, said that he hadn’t been among the top triathletic contenders in the past decade owing to fatherhood. Now, he said, he has more time to train.

The run, though mostly flat, had been tough, he said, in answer to a question. “You have to push yourself.” He nodded when this writer recalled Dr. George Sheehan saying that “if you hurt when you’re training you’re doing something wrong — if you hurt in a race you’re doing something right.”

Tom Eickelberg, the swimming coach at the State University at New Paltz, who has owned this race (half-mile swim, 14-mile bike, and 5K trail run) in recent times, was a no-show for the second year in a row — “he should get a girlfriend and get married,” Ventura said with a grin — but Eickelberg’s sister, Betsy, of Leonia, N.J., who won here in 2016, was among the competitors, finishing second among the women, in 1:12:37.8, to Smithtown’s Caitlin Dowd (1:11:57.5).

Eickelberg, who was the runner-up last year as well (to Kira Garry), is the head cross-country coach at SUNY Purchase. Her brother, she said, was busy at the moment recruiting swimmers.

The big news for the 27-year-old Dowd, who’s a nurse in the electrophysiology department at Stony Brook University Hospital, and thus doesn’t have all that much time to train, is that she qualified last month to compete in the world half-Ironman championships in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, in September.

She had, she said, been a competitive cyclist, but the numerous crashes persuaded her to switch to triathlons. 

Dowd and Eickelberg are friendly rivals. Asked about their head-to-head duel that day, Eickelberg said she’d been first out of the water, at Gin Beach, but that “20 seconds into the bike Caitlin passed me.”

It wasn’t as if Dowd had left Eickelberg in the dust, however; they finished less than a minute apart.

The local winner, and 14th over all, was Mike Bahel, in 1:13:11.6, followed close behind by John Broich of Sag Harbor, in 1:13:19.6. Both are in their mid-50s. 

Asked how he felt, Bahel said, “It gets harder and harder . . . the conditions were perfect in the swim, and the bike was perfect too, with some wind, and the run, as always, was hot and muggy.”

“It’s torture,” interjected Peter Canoll.

Thomas Brierley, 26th in 1:17:11.4, edged his father, Craig, 33rd in 1:18:30.2, by a little over a minute. 

“He’s getting closer and closer,” said the younger Brierley, who is lifeguarding at Nick’s Beach in Montauk this summer and assists his father in coaching East Hampton High’s girls and boys swimming teams.

“It was a gorgeous day for it,” Thomas said, “overcast with the temperature around 70. . . . Now, I’m going to lie down and rest up before work.”

Evan Drutman of Sag Harbor was 37th, in 1:19:06.6, Tim Treadwell of Amagansett was 39th, in 1:19:30.9, Robert Reich of Montauk was 41st, in 1:19:53.2, Katrina Garry of Montauk was 42nd, in 1:20:08.3, Angelika Cruz, who helps in the coaching of the Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter youth swim team, the Hurricanes, was 46th, in 1:20:20.6, and Kevin Barry, who coaches East Hampton High’s boys cross-country team, was 74th, in 1:23:25.1.

Tyler Pawlowski, 15, of Freeport, topping 124 finishers, three-peated as the winner of I-Tri’s youth triathlon (300-yard bay swim, 7-mile bike, and 1.5-mile run) Saturday at Noyac’s Long Beach in  30 minutes and 15.35 seconds.

A sophomore at Long Island Lutheran, Pawlowski also swims for the Long Island Aquatic Club at Eisenhower Park in East Meadow. A freestyler, his strongest distances range from 200 to 400 meters.

Asked after crossing the finish line, somewhat out of breath, if he were going to “warm down,” he replied, “I’m going to sit down.”

His time was a record, for the course was somewhat shorter this year, its race director, Sharon McCobb, said. She had been persuaded to shift everything eastward along the long beach so as not to interfere with town beach users that morning, thus shortening the bike course, which took participants through North Haven to the South Ferry landing and back. The out-and-back run spanned the beach. 

McCobb, I-Tri’s athletic director, who, with about half a dozen others, has been training the fast-growing empowerment program’s junior high-age girls since February, said she changed the start time from late afternoon to early morning “because there’s less traffic.”

Just eight years ago, I-Tri (“transformation through triathlon”), founded by Theresa Roden, numbered 12. There were said to be 135 in the I-Tri photo taken before Saturday’s race began, a number of whom could not ride a bike or swim a stroke before McCobb, Diane O’Donnell, Amanda Foscolo, Jill Raynor, Daniela Medaglia, Alyssa Channin, and Natalie Sisco began training them at the Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter this past winter.

“Some of them couldn’t even put their face in the water,” said O’Donnell, who coaches East Hampton High School’s girls cross-country team. 

“Now, they can all swim,” said Foscolo, who is herself a long-distance swimmer.

Besides the present large group of I-Triers, there were also numerous I-Tri alums — “coaches” now — on hand, among them Tali Friedman, a Ross School graduate and competitive dancer who won this race “a couple of times,” and who habitually was I-Tri’s top finisher. 

“I-Tri gave me more confidence,” she said when asked what her experience with the empowerment program had been. 

“But you were always athletic. . . .”

“I was athletic, but I wasn’t confident,” said Friedman, who, because of I-Tri, learned she could do whatever it was she wanted to do, and could, in turn, help others to do things they hadn’t thought they could do.

“It was so small when I was in it, only Springs and Montauk [Schools]. It’s so big now — it’s been amazing watching it grow. Theresa has been such an inspiration.”

David Powers, a veteran top-notch triathlete who now is a member of I-Tri’s board, advised Pawlowski, a competitive high school swimmer, to give triathlon, beginning with the sprint distances (half-mile swim, 20-kilometer bike, and 5K run) a try.

“You’re outdoors,” Powers began, “no longer staring down at a black line, the music is blaring . . . everyone’s doing the same thing together, it’s much more social.” Looking about him as finisher after finisher received hugs from friends and parents and exchanged high-fives, he concluded, “It’s more of a . . . festival.”

Caelan Clayton, 14, of Huntington was the runner-up to Pawlowski, in 37:26.54. Michael Benin, 14, of East Northport was third, in 39:56.88, and Bella Tarbet, 15, of East Hampton was fourth, in 40:47.87. 

Dylan Cashin, 11, of East Hampton and Isabelle Caplin, 11, of Sag Harbor topped the 11-and-under group, and Leslie Samuel, 12, and Elijah Lam, 12, did the same in the 12-and-under division, which had 55 entries. 

The awards keep coming for I-Tri, which uses triathlon as a fulcrum for boosting preteen and teenage girls’ self-confidence in general.

It is being considered by the International Triathlon Union’s women’s committee as a recipient of its “award of excellence.” Roden said she would learn whether I-Tri had won it later in the summer. The presentation is to made in September in Australia.

The I.T.U., triathlon’s international governing body, said of the award in a release, “Gender equality is a central element of the work that I.T.U. does, and has always been in the DNA of triathlon. . . . There are people the world over doing vital work that helps women, young and old, discover triathlon and to overcome the barriers to participation. This award shines a light on that work. . . .”

In addition, Roden has been invited to attend the U.S.A. Triathlon national championships in Cleveland next month with one of I-Tri’s girls, and is developing a science of triathlon curriculum “that will be integrated into all aspects of our training next season.”

“And we are also in the beginning stages of planning to take I-Tri to the national and, ultimately, to the international level,” Roden said.

Thursday, July 26

WOMEN’S SLOW-PITCH, playoffs, Bono Plumbing vs. Groundworks, 6:45 p.m., and Schenck Fuels vs. Police Benevolent Association, 8, Terry King ball field, Abraham’s Path, Amagansett.

Friday, July 27

SAILING, Fighting Chance sailboat outing for cancer patients, Breakwater Yacht Club, Sag Harbor, 4 p.m. 

MEN’S SLOW-PITCH, makeup games, 7 and 8:15 p.m., Terry King ball field, Abraham’s Path, Amagansett, and Travis Field memorial tournament “bracket bash” party, American Legion Hall, Amagansett, 6:30 p.m.

Sunday, July 29

RUNNING, Jordan’s Run, veterans memorial 5K run/walk, Pierson High School, Sag Harbor, 8:30 a.m.

BASKETBALL, clinics for first through eighth-grade boys and girls, with Marcus Edwards, assistant East Hampton High School boys basketball coach, and Maleek Harris, Sportime Arena, Amagansett, 11:30-1:30 p.m.

Monday, July 30

MEN’S SLOW-PITCH, makeup games at 7 and 8:15 p.m., Terry King ball field, Abraham’s Path, Amagansett.

Tuesday, July 31

WOMEN’S SLOW-PITCH, playoffs continue, Groundworks vs. Bono Plumbing, 6:45 p.m., and P.B.A. vs. Schenck Fuels, 8, Terry King ball field, Abraham’s Path, Amagansett. 

Wednesday, August 1

MEN’S SOCCER, 7-on-7 championship game, Herrick Park, East Hampton, 7 p.m.

Lucy Emptage, who is to attend La Salle University on a lacrosse scholarship, and Eamon Spencer, who won the coach’s award in volleyball and is a distance runner headed for the Naval Academy, recently received the Paul Yuska award given to the senior class’s top athletes in ceremonies at East Hampton High School.

Emptage, the girls lacrosse team’s most valuable player and an Old Montauk Athletic Club honoree this past winter, has also played since fifth grade on the Long Island Top Guns travel team based in West Babylon, a team that vies in regional tournaments throughout the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states.

The Yuska award wasn’t her only one that night: She won OMAC and Booster Club scholarships, was the Molly Cangiolosi outstanding female student-athlete designee, and won, with Spencer, the state public high school athletic association’s zone award as well.

Maddie Schenck, a three-sport athlete who was the M.V.P. in softball and girls basketball, won the Kendall Madison Foundation’s scholarship, which allots its winner $1,000 in each of the recipient’s four years. 

This scholarship, created a quarter-century ago, following the untimely death of Kendall Madison, a popular East Hampton High and University of Connecticut graduate, requires that its winners mentor youngsters here, something that Sharon Bacon, Kendall’s mother, said she was sure Schenck was well positioned to do.

“Her essay was very impressive,” Bacon said during a conversation last week, “and I’m an essay person.”

Bacon added that, curiously, it was the first year in the foundation’s history that a boy had not applied. The same was also true when it came to the Booster Club, on whose board she also sits, Bacon said.

Schenck’s essay said in part that sports had been her passion “ever since I first picked up a softball and touched a basketball.” And while she had loved competing against others, she had also over the years learned, she said, how to become an encouraging team player and leader.

“I have created close bonds with my fellow teammates, which makes it easier to work together on the court or field, and I made sure if there ever was a problem that the girls could feel comfortable in approaching me. . . . I always tried to keep the team’s energy up.”

She had also learned to balance the demands imposed by athletic competition and academic work during her years at East Hampton — a routine that once adhered to “became an easy flow.”

“In college [she’s going to Plymouth State in New Hampshire] I plan to major in athletic training and minor in adventure education, helping people get back into their game through my major, and helping them in whatever ways I can through my minor,” probably through the Peace Corps and Outward Bound.

Participating in sports had provided her, she concluded, “a huge escape in times of stress and struggle. When I’m playing in a game or practicing, all my worries and fears vanish, and the only thing I think about is what’s happening that moment.”

Schenck and four other seniors — Elizabeth Bistrian, Geo Espinoza, Robert Weiss, and Sophia Ledda — were Gold Key winners, an award given to athletes lettering in eight junior varsity and varsity sports spanning grades 10 through 12. 

Bistrian, the M.V.P. in field hockey and coach’s award winner in girls lacrosse, also ran winter track. She and Noah Gualtieri, a swimmer, received the athletic director Joe Vas’s award for having exemplified “the four Cs — character, civility, citizenship, and competence.” 

Espinoza, an OMAC scholarship winner, received the coach’s award in cross-country, and was also on the indoor and outdoor track teams. Weiss between his sophomore and senior years played football and was on the boys cross-country, winter track, and spring track teams. 

He was the M.V.P. in spring track and was the most-improved designee in winter track. Ledda played soccer, basketball, and softball.

Spencer and Schenck were this school district’s nominees for the Butch Dellecave award, whose countywide winners were Alexandrea Harriott of Central Islip and Zach Hobbes of Ward Melville. The award is given to a male and female student-athlete “who shows excellence in athletics, academics, and the community.”

Spencer also received the high school principal Adam Fine’s scholar-athlete award given to a two-sport athlete with the highest grade point average.

United States Army Reserve scholar-athlete awards went to John Pinos Quito and Michelle Barranco Ramirez, two-sport athletes with the second-highest grade point averages.

Scholar-athlete teams with aggregate averages of 90 or better in the past school year were girls cross-country, field hockey, golf, boys and girls soccer, girls swimming, girls tennis, boys and girls volleyball, girls winter track, baseball, girls lacrosse, softball, boys tennis, and boys and girls spring track.

Championship teams in the 2017-18 school year were boys cross-country, which went 6-0 in league competition before winning the Division III and county Class B titles, and girls swimming, the undefeated League III champion at 5-0. In addition, Turner Foster, the golf team’s number-one, was cited for having won League VIII’s individual title.

There was big news on the East Hampton Little League front last week as the 11-12 boys team coached by Kenny Dodge “mercied” two opponents, Southampton and Sag Harbor-Bridgehampton, the 9-10s coached by Mike Hand defeated Hampton Bays 11-1 and mercied Southampton, and the 11-12 girls, on Friday, came very close to shocking North Shore, which went on over the weekend to defeat East Meadow in the Long Island championship game.

First the loss. Tim Garneau, in recounting it, said that North Shore’s pitcher struck out 9 of the first 10 East Hampton batters she faced. But East Hampton, he said, scored three runs in the fifth to take a 3-1 lead, a turn of events that stunned North Shore’s fans and delighted East Hampton’s.

“Gianna D’Agostino walked to open the frame. Then, after a steal and a groundout, Ella Eggert bunted her way on as Gianna came home.”

Garneau’s daughter, Lola, drew a walk and subsequently stole second. “With Ella on third and Lola on second, Katie Bruno hit a hard ground ball to short, which Lola hopped over at the last moment, distracting the shortstop enough for Bruno to reach first safely on a bang-bang play.”

Eggert scored and Garneau, who kept running after rounding third, did too for the 3-1 lead.

“The place was shocked,” the elder Garneau wrote. “There had been a lot of cheering, then silence along the first baseline. Our fans, by contrast, were in a frenzy.”

East Hampton’s joy, however, wasn’t to last. The home team, all of whose members reportedly play travel ball — none of East Hampton’s do — came back with three runs of its own in the bottom of the fifth. 

“After two quick outs, three walks, a hit batter, and a basehit did the Bonackers in.”

The 4-3 defeat ousted Jeff Miller’s team from the tournament, though everyone agreed it had showed that it could play with the best.

East Hampton’s 10-11-year-old softball team is to play its first game Saturday here with Westhampton, on East Hampton High School’s field at 10 a.m.

That team’s roster comprises Kerri O’Donnell, Sophia Rodriguez, Georgia Kenny, Harper Baris, Lila Ruddy, Dakota Quackenbush, Susie DiSunno, Sienna Salamy, Gabrielle Payne, Katie Kuneth, Julia Kuneth, Amina Guebli, Paige Herlihy, and Cloe Ceva.

Back to the boys, Dodge’s 11-12s defeated Sag Harbor-Bridgehampton 13-2 at the Bridgehampton Lions field Monday evening. Nico Horan-Puglia pitched four innings, with Zach Dodge getting the final three outs.

On Saturday morning, the Bonackers bageled Southampton 12-0 at Pantigo. Jack Dickinson, who has grown a lot since last seen, started, throwing fastballs that in Little League terms seemed Sidd Finch-like. Dodge spelled Dickinson after three innings.

The team sports aggressive hitters throughout the lineup, and, according to the elder Dodge, “we’ve got six or seven kids who can pitch,” a pleasing fact inasmuch as travel-league pitch counts must be conjoined with Little League playoff ones.

East Hampton has 12-and-under, 11-and-under, and 10-and-under baseball teams playing in the Brookhaven league, coached by Dodge, Henry Meyer, and Hand. As of Saturday, those teams’ records were 4-2, 5-4, and 3-6 respectively.

In Saturday’s 9-10-year-old game here, which East Hampton won 10-0, Andrew Brown and Kai Alversa, whose father, Vinny Alversa, is East Hampton’s varsity coach, shared the pitching chores. Hand said he had “seven or eight kids” who could pitch.

Both boys teams are steeling themselves for North Shore opponents. Meanwhile, on Tuesday, they were both to have played games at the Pantigo fields in East Hampton.

Thursday, July 12

LITTLE LEAGUE, 11-12 baseball, championship game, site yet to be determined, 5:45 p.m.

WOMEN’S SLOW-PITCH, games at 6:45 and 8 p.m., Terry King ball field, Abraham’s Path, Amagansett.

Friday, July 13

MEN’S SLOW-PITCH, games at 7 and 8:15 p.m., Terry King ball field, Abraham’s Path, Amagansett.

Saturday, July 14

YOUTH TRIATHLON, benefit I-Tri program, 300-yard swim, 7-mile bike, and 1.5-mile run, Long Beach, Noyac, 7:30 a.m.

Sunday, July 15

SPRINT TRIATHLON, to the Montauk Lighthouse, half-mile swim, 14-mile bike, and 5K trail run, Gin Beach, East Lake Drive, 6:30 a.m.

BASKETBALL, Marcus Edwards’s HoopHampton clinic for first-through-eighth-grade boys and girls, $40 per session, Sportime Arena, Amagansett, 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m.

Monday, July 16

MEN’S SLOW-PITCH, games at 7 and 8:15 p.m., Terry King ball field, Abraham’s Path, Amagansett.

Tuesday, July 17

WOMEN’S SLOW-PITCH, games at 6:45 and 8 p.m., Terry King ball field, Abraham’s Path, Amagansett.

Thursday, July 19

LIFEGUARDING, invitational tournament, Main Beach, East Hampton, 4:45 p.m.

Softball Title Eyed

The 10-and-11-year-old East Hampton Little League traveling all-star softball team, coached by Heather Payne, Mike Ruddy, and Andy Baris, trounced Westhampton’s entry 24-1 in a District 36 tournament game played at East Hampton High School Saturday, and was to have played for the District 36 championship at Westhampton Tuesday.

Katie Kuneth pitched Saturday, striking out six in four innings. Among the big hits for East Hampton were a bases-loaded double by Gabby Payne, two doubles by Amina Guebli, and a hard base hit between short and third by Sophia Rodriguez. Ruddy said the players ran the bases well, beginning with Guebli’s steal of home in the first inning.

The roster comprises, besides the above-named: Kerri O’Donnell, Georgia Kenny, Harper Baris, Lila Ruddy, Dakota Quackenbush, Susie DiSunno, Sienna Salamy, Julia Kuneth, Cloe Ceva, and Paige Herlihy.

The sectional tournament is to begin Monday.

A Golfing Albatross

The Ancient Mariner aside, an albatross is a good thing when it comes to golf. Ben Dollinger, who works with the Amaden-Gay Agency, bagged one in an after-hours round on the Maidstone Club’s nine-hole course Monday, playing with Peter Cooper and Greg Schaefer. His tee shot on the par-4, 255-yard eighth hole, a downhill hole off to the left as one drives up toward the club’s parking lot, was stroked with a three-iron hybrid.

“At first,” said Dollinger, an eight-handicap golfer, “I thought the ball had landed across the road — that’s what usually happens. Then I looked in the hole, and there it was.” (An albatross can also be had with two shots on a par-5 hole.)

He had a hole in one, he said in reply to a question, this past fall in a member-guest tournament at the South Fork Country Club in Amagansett. Never before has he had an albatross. It capped a good week for Dollinger that included a member-guest win at Maidstone with Zach Grossman, James Petrie, and T.J. Wirth. 

Hoop Clinics

Marcus Edwards, who assists Dan White in coaching East Hampton High School’s boys basketball team, has begun giving, with Maleek Harris, clinics for first-through-eighth-grade boys and girls “of all skill levels” at the Sportime Arena in Amagansett on Sundays from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.

The clinics, under the aegis of the Kendall Madison Foundation, are to go through Aug. 26. “Come as often as you like,” Edwards said in a flier. The fee is $40 per session. Edwards can be contacted by emailing [email protected] or by calling 631-816-5836.

For the second year in a row, East Hampton’s 9-and-10-year-old traveling all-star baseball team has won the District 36 championship, and its 11-12-year-old team may not be far behind.

The older team, coached by Ken Dodge, won twice over the weekend to finish atop its seven-team pool with a 5-1 record. The 11-12s were to have played a crossover Final Four game with the North Shore Americans at the Pantigo fields here Tuesday. The 11-12 district final is to be played today at a site that was yet to be determined as of press time.

Riverhead, at 5-0, won the other pool, with the aforementioned North Shore Americans the second team, at 4-1. In East Hampton’s pool Moriches Bay also finished at 5-1, “though they allowed more runs than we did,” Dodge said. “We allowed seven, they allowed eight.”

The North Shore Nationals were also in the running for one of the top two spots. “They finished at 5-1 too, but they allowed three runs to Sag Harbor on Sunday, which brought their runs-allowed total to nine, and knocked them out,” said Dodge.

Dodge’s son, Zach, pitched all the way here on Saturday, dispatching, with the help of a grand slam home run by Jack Dickinson and a solo shot by Mike Locascio, the vaunted North Shore team with relative ease. The final score was 6-2, the visitors’ runs having scored as the result of a dropped fly in shallow center field in the first inning.

Each team finished with five hits, though East Hampton’s proved to be the more potent, namely Dickinson’s laser beam grand slam that treated the Bonackers to a 5-2 lead in the third. 

East Hampton, the “visiting” team, began that inning — after Tim Garneau had turned off the outfield sprinklers, which had come on unexpectedly — with a line single to center by Tyler Hansen. Nico Horan-Puglia drew a walk on a 3-2 pitch, and Locascio, following a conference on the mound, during which a pitching change was made, singled sharply through third and short, loading the bases for Dickinson, who, after fouling off a 3-2 pitch, lined the next delivery over the fence in right-center.

A single down the third-base line and a hit batsman put runners on first and second for North Shore, the “home” team, with none out in the bottom of the third. Another single followed, but Dickinson, who was catching, caught the lead runner as he retreated toward third base, and, with runners at the corners, Dodge hung tough, notching a strikeout — one of six he was to record that day — before getting the third out on a comebacker to the mound.

North Shore brought in its third pitcher in the top of the fifth. After retiring Horan-Puglia on a pop-up to second and starting off Locascio, who bats third in the lineup, with a strike, he served up a fat fastball that Locascio deposited high into the trees beyond the fence in left for a 6-2 East Hampton lead.

Dodge ended his complete-game win with two strikeouts.

Dickinson pitched for East Hampton at Hampton Bays the next day, but had to go only three innings, by the end of which the Bonackers led 16-0, triggering the 15-run mercy rule. 

The only bump in East Hampton’s pool play road was a 4-3 loss here to Moriches Bay on July 3. 

Dickinson, who started, and his teammates trailed 3-0 going into the bottom of the fourth, despite the fact that he had by that time struck out 10 Moriches Bay batters.

Facing Moriches Bay’s starter, Braydon Hronada, Locascio led it off with a single over third, and after Dickinson struck out, Dodge singled up the middle, putting runners at first and second with one out for Carter Dickinson, who was fooled by a 1-2 changeup, after which Justin Prince struck out as well.

Dodge relieved Jack Dickinson with the bases loaded and two out in the top of the fifth, but treated the visitors to a 4-0 lead as the result of hitting the first batter he faced before retiring the side on a flyout to left.

East Hampton made a game of it in the bottom half of the fifth as Horan-Puglia smoked a no-out two-run double to left that scored Chase Siska and Isaac Rodriguez, who had been on third and second.

After Locascio struck out, Jack Dickinson was intentionally walked. Dodge, who bats fifth, forced him at second, ending the inning with Moriches Bay leading 4-2.

Two flyouts and a batting-out-of-order call did the visitors in in the top of the sixth, and last, inning, leading East Hampton’s fans to wonder if they could pull it out in the last at-bat.

Carter Dickinson, the number-six hitter, who arguably has the sweetest swing on the team, stoked those hopes as, with the count 0-1, he launched a Ruthian clout high into the trees bordering the railroad tracks in left field, prompting a conference on the mound.

Milo Tompkins swung at the first pitch he saw and fouled out to the catcher. Then Kieran Conlon, with the count full, drew a walk, and Cassius Hokanson singled, putting runners at first and second with one out for Hansen, who flied out to right. Conlon, who had rounded second, barely got back in time.

That brought up Horan-Puglia with a chance to win the game or at least to tie it. 

With the count 2-2, he let Evan Kaloski’s next pitch, which appeared to be low, sail by. 

But the ump thought differently, signaling “Strike three!” as everyone in East Hampton’s camp moaned.

North Shore, mighty North Shore, has fallen! 

This past weekend, East Hampton Little League’s 9-to-10-year-old traveling all-star baseball team, coached by Mike Hand, Matt Meehan, and Andrew Rodriguez, shocked the North Shore Nationals and Americans on successive days to become, apparently for the first time in East Hampton annals, back-to-back District 36 champions.

Having gone 3-0 in the pool play, the young Bonackers, six of whom played on last year’s championship team, faced off against the North Shore Nationals at Pantigo Friday evening, and, with Andrew Brown, Livs Kuplins, and Kai Alversa pitching, defeated the visitors 8-3. 

“Their starting pitcher was good — he was dealing,” Mike Hand said during a conversation Tuesday morning. “They went up 1-0, we came back with a run in the second — we were the ‘visiting’ team — and then we scored five runs in the third, which gave us some breathing room.”

The big hit for East Hampton in the third was a bunt by Bruno Sessler with runners at first and second base, catching North Shore off guard. “The wheels came off — they threw the ball around and two runs came in,” Hand said. “Bruno went all the way to third. Then Livs, who got on base all four times he was up, drove him in. . . . By the end of that inning we were up 6-1. That win put us in the final.”

The district final was played the next day at a complex with six baseball fields “on the Miller Place-Rocky Point border. It was supposed to have been played at a neutral site, but oh well. It was like going into the lions’ den. Their 11-12 team had just come off the field, there were a lot of their fans there, though we had a good showing too.”

Kai Alversa, whose father, Vinny, coaches East Hampton High School’s varsity team, started.

“In the top of the first — we won the coin flip and were the ‘home’ team — their first hitter,” Hand said, consulting the scorebook, “reached on a slow infield grounder, then a bloop single, and a hit batsman to load the bases with no outs. Then there was an overthrow to the catcher on a grounder to second. Bases still loaded, still no outs. Panic was beginning to set in as far as the coaches were concerned. The players were cool, though.”

“The next kid popped out to Kai. He then got a strikeout. A force at third got us out of it with only one run having scored.”

“We took the lead in the bottom half. Kai led off with a walk. Then there was a lineout, and then Luke Rossano doubled Kai in and Andrew doubled in Luke. We sailed from that point on. Kai pitched beautifully. He pitched three innings and VictorEddy Diaz pitched one. We scored nine runs in the second and went on to win 13-1.”

Asked to recount the nine-run second, Hand said, “Trevor Bock, our youngest player, singled, my son flied out deep to left, then there were . . . one, two, three, four singles and a double by Trevor Meehan and a triple by Luke Rossano. They got him at home, though I forget how that went. Then there were three more singles. We batted around. We were up 10-1 after two innings.”

“Kai and Livs have been our top two hitters, but they all played great, the starters, the subs . . . they all, all 12 of them, stepped up,” he added. 

When the team returned here at around 3 p.m., East Hampton Fire Department trucks were at the turnoff near the Il Mulino restaurant in Wainscott to escort them through the village to the Pantigo fields, where they were welcomed by relatives and friends who had not made the trip.

It was on to Section IV play Tuesday, versus Sayville in Oakdale. “There are four teams in the sectional tournament — us, Sayville, Half Hollow Hills, and East Meadow,” Hand said. “The winner of this goes to the states. There will be eight teams in that tournament, which starts on July 21st, two from each of the state’s four sections.”

East Hampton, by the way, has three young teams playing in the Brookhaven summer league. Meehan, with Hand assisting, coaches the 10-and-unders, Henry Meyer, Alversa’s varsity assistant, coaches the 11-and-unders, and Ken Dodge coaches the 12-and-unders. 

“It’s hard work all around — the parents should get a pat on the back too — but it’s paying off,” said Hand. “We practiced in the Montauk Playhouse’s gym on Sundays in the winter, in January, February, and March. The varsity and jayvee coaches have been involved all along. If the kids keep at it, East Hampton baseball will rise again.”