Thursday, December 7

BOYS SWIMMING, Stony Brook vs. East Hampton, Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter, 5 p.m.

GIRLS BASKETBALL, East Hampton at East Islip, 5 p.m.; Pierson at Center Moriches, 7.

Friday, December 8

BOYS BASKETBALL, Pierson at Babylon, and Bridgehampton at Mattituck, mandatory nonleague, 4:30 p.m.

Saturday, December 9

WRESTLING, Frank (Sprig) Gardner tournament, East Hampton High School, 9 a.m.-6 p.m.

Monday, December 11

GIRLS BASKETBALL, Port Jefferson at Pierson, Sag Harbor, 6:15 p.m.

BOYS BASKETBALL, Pierson at McGann-Mercy, Riverhead, mandatory nonleague, 6 p.m., Ross School at Center Moriches, mandatory nonleague, 6:15, and East Hampton at Southampton, nonleague, 6:30.

Wednesday, December 13

WRESTLING, East Hampton at Comsewogue, 6 p.m.

BOYS BASKETBALL, McGann-Mercy at Bridgehampton, mandatory nonleague, 6 p.m.; Mattituck at Pierson, Sag Harbor, 6:15, and Babylon at Ross School, East Hampton, mandatory nonleague, 6:15.

The East Hampton High School boys swimming and girls basketball teams began their seasons this past week, with decidedly different results.

The boys, coached by Craig Brierley, swamped Smithtown — a team that had finished a couple of spots higher than the Bonackers in last year’s county meet — in a nonleaguer Friday at the Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter, and the next day, the girls basketball team, coached by Kelly McKee, was overwhelmed by their Whaler counterparts at Pierson High School in Sag Harbor.

“That’s a good team,” McKee said following the 75-23 shellacking. As for East Hampton, whose numbers are good, and whose attitude, according to McKee, remains great, “we’ve got a long way to go. “

When Kevin Barron, Pierson’s coach, was asked afterward how he thought his team would do vis-a-vis Class C peers, he said, “We’ll be in the mix, but there’s Mercy and Southold and Stony Brook and Port Jefferson — Mercy and Southold especially. . . . We’ll find out.”

Katie Kneeland led the Whalers with 21 points, Celia Barranco had 13, and Chastin Giles, the energetic point guard transfer, whose swift one-arm passes often found Barranco or Jalyn Hopson underneath, and who had no trouble in driving to the hoop, had 9.

Pierson, whose aggressive defense befuddled the Bonackers, jumped out to a 19-0 lead and never looked back. A made free throw by Maddie Schenck accounted for East Hampton’s sole point of the first quarter.

Olivia Brauer made East Hampton’s first basket of the season in the first minute of the second period and, later on, banked in two more before she went down in a scrum under the basket East Hampton was defending with an apparent ankle injury just before the half ended.

She was on crutches when the teams returned from their locker rooms for the second half.

With 16 on the squad that afternoon, McKee frequently subbed in fresh groups of five, but not to much avail. Pierson cashed in on repeated steals, drew fouls, and otherwise created havoc.

Emma Silvera hit a 3-pointer for East Hampton to begin the fourth. Otherwise, there wasn’t much to write home about.

The swimmers, by contrast, made a splash, beginning with the 200-yard medley relay team’s come-from-behind win in the meet’s opening event. Smithtown held the lead going into the anchor leg, but Ethan McCormac overcame it in exciting fashion.

Ethan’s brother, Owen, then won the 200 freestyle handily (with Ryan Bahel second), after which East Hampton placed second (Ryan Duryea), third (Joey Badilla), and fourth (Aidan Forst) in the 200 individual medley, and swept the 50 with Ethan McCormac, Fernando Menjura, and Thor Botero.

Coming out of the diving intermission, East Hampton led 43-19, and while the final score was given as 91-71, the Bonackers forwent some points at the end, exhibitioning in the 100 breaststroke and the 400 free relay, the meet’s last event.

Besides the aforementioned, other East Hampton winners that evening were Ethan McCormac, in the 500; the 200 freestyle relay team of Colin Harrison, Duryea, Owen McCormac, and Menjura; Duryea in the 100 breast, and the 400 free relay team of Ethan McCormac, Joey Badilla, Owen McCormac, and Forst. 

Monday’s mandatory nonleague meet, with Northport, “one of the top four teams in the county,” would probably be a different matter entirely, the coach said.

The Montauk Rugby Club, with an impressive 60-29 rout of the Suffolk R.C. at East Hampton’s Herrick Park Saturday, finished the Empire Geographical Union’s fall Division III season at 3-5, though had the team been at full strength throughout the campaign, Rich Brierley, the Sharks’ coach, agreed that it could have gone undefeated.

“We have 30 on the roster, but only 17 were usually available to us, and of those only six or seven were solid contributors, which made it tough,” said Brierley, who, at 58, often was in the lineup. 

Certainly the younger players — namely Axel Alanis, Brandon Johnson, Jordan Johnson, George Calderon, and Sebastian Antonio — were a plus, Brierley said. He sensed in them, he added, the competitive fire that had fueled Montauk Rugby Club sides of old.

Pretty much everyone got in the act Saturday as forwards and backs — Alanis, Calderon, and Jordan and Brandon Johnson in particular — often charged through gaps in a sagging Suffolk defense for long gainers varying from 30 to 60 yards before being brought to the ground. (It should be added, though, that the visitors, numbering 14, were minus a flanker.)

Aside from the aforementioned, Montauk’s squad that day included Charlie Collins, Steve Turza, James Rigby, Shane O’Keefe, John Glennon, Kevin Brabant, Nick Lawler, Ronan Curran, Mark and Matt Manjuk, and B.A. Anderson, who had come up from North Carolina for the weekend.

Anderson, who didn’t think he’d be playing, managed to borrow what gear he needed, and with his passing, pop kicks, and tries was to make a strong contribution.

Soon after Montauk’s game-opening kickoff, the Sharks began scoring, first with Calderon touching the ball down in the visitors’ try zone, and then with Anderson, Brabant (twice), Alanis, and Turza following suit before the halftime break, by which point, counting O’Keefe’s five extra-point kicks, Montauk held a commanding 40-12 lead.

Suffolk scored right away as the second half began, but Jordan Johnson, assisted by Anderson, replied in kind soon after, and so it went, with Brandon Johnson, O’Keefe, and Calderon tacking on scores before the rout finally came to an end. 

“Montauk and Suffolk should combine — then we’d have a strong side again,” said Kevin Bunce, who coached the Section IX Warriors through a successful season of junior varsity tournaments in Pelham, N.Y., this fall. (The Warriors would have won it had not 4 of their points been deducted after Bunce self-reported the lapse in registration of one of his players.)

But no matter, despite the infraction, he said, his players knew they were winners.

Brierley, when Bunce’s suggestion was relayed to him, said that while it was well taken, “they’re 50 miles away and you wonder how we’d coordinate practices, and, also, nobody wants to let go of the Montauk legacy.”

He would put together some friendly games for the spring and would encourage players to work out over the winter at the MuvStrong and Truth Training fitness studios, Brierley added, when asked what his plans were to keep the side intact in the coming months.

“There’s a tournament at Randalls Island the weekend after St. Patty’s Day, but it was snowed out last year.”

The Sharks were 0-4 through most of the fall until they began to reverse the trend with three wins in their final four games, beginning with a 24-17 win over second-place Brooklyn in Montauk on Oct. 21. With Connor Miller scoring two of the Sharks’ tries, and with Brandon Johnson, who figured prominently in Miller’s clinching second try, and Calderon scoring the others, Montauk thus avenged a 33-5 earlier-season loss to the Empire G.U.’s New York South division’s runners-up.

Montauk avenged itself as well on Rockaway, by a score of 25-15, here on Nov. 4. The Sharks had lost 20-0 to Suffolk in an away game on Oct. 28.

The final New York South standings showed the Long Island R.C. in first place, at 8-0-0, followed by Brooklyn, at 5-3-0, Suffolk, at 2-6-0, Montauk, at 3-5-0, and Rockaway, at 2-6-0.

November 19, 1992

Armed with donations from numerous East Hampton organizations and well-wishers, Tim Egan, a butcher at the Montauk I.G.A. supermarket, flew to Geneva, Switzerland, on Nov. 2 to compete in the World Armwrestling Federation championships. 

Vying with 23 others in the heavyweight class (220 to 240 pounds), Egan finished a very creditable fourth, behind an undefeated Italian, a Swede, and a wrestler from the former Soviet republic of Georgia.

“The competition was incredible,” Egan said on his return. “The world competition made our nationals look like a country fair.”

The championships drew several hundred representatives from 30 countries, including ones in Western and Eastern Europe, the Commonwealth of Independent States, the United States, and South America.

After losing his first match to a Russian, Egan won five in a row, flattening the forearms of opponents from Brazil, Russia, Great Britain, Finland, and Germany. That streak put him into the final-four round of the double-elimination tourney, during which he suffered his second defeat, at the hands of the Georgian.

“Other countries, unlike the U.S., subsidize their armwrestling teams, and provide them with coaches,” Egan noted. While the U.S. team won the most gold medals — four — it was “nowhere near as organized.”

Egan said he liked the former Soviets, who — “after a couple of beers” — had given him some valuable training tips. “We just spoke in sign language, but I learned from the third-place guy that they increase their strength by climbing rope and inching their way along a beam with their fingers. He got in trouble with his coach for telling me this, but it makes sense. Armwrestling is all upper-body strength. You can be sure I’m going to incorporate these methods into my training.”

Paul Blodorn, a 16-year-old Sag Harborite in his senior year at Mercy High School in Riverhead, did Suffolk County proud Saturday as he placed second in the New York State Class C cross-country meet at Sunken Meadow State Park.

With 800 meters to go in the difficult 3.1-mile overland course, along the river road, Blodorn — who had moved from fifth to second place going up Cardiac Hill near the 2-mile mark — took the lead. But Dave Garner, the defending champion from around Oneonta, who was sitting in third, “went into overdrive,” in Blodorn’s words. Garner crossed the finish line in 16 minutes and 18 seconds, with Blodorn following in 16:33, his best time in seven races at Sunken Meadow this year. . . . He and Garner ran together for most of the race, though the sub-5-minute first mile was not to Blodorn’s liking.

. . . Blodorn was not the only local runner at Sunken Meadow on Saturday. Janelle Kraus, a Shelter Island ninth grader who had won the county Class C race, finished 33rd, in 20:56, bettering her county time by three seconds. Tyler Ratcliffe, a junior at Pierson High School in Sag Harbor who had placed sixth in the county meet, ran a creditable 18:42.

Thursday, November 23

RUNNING, East Hampton Town Recreation Department and John Keeshan Realty 3 and 6-mile Runs for Fun, Montauk Circle, 10 a.m., check-in from 8 to 9:30, $15 day-of-race fee.

Saturday, November 25

BOYS BASKETBALL, East Hampton at Mattituck, scrimmage, 10 a.m., and McGann-Mercy at Pierson, scrimmage, 11.

GIRLS BASKETBALL, Pierson-Bridgehampton at Shoreham-Wading River, nonleague, noon.

Sunday, November 26

MEN’S SOCCER, Hampton United over-30 men’s team at Inter United, Baymen Soccer Complex, Sayville, 2:15 p.m.

Monday, November 27

GIRLS BASKETBALL, Pierson-Bridgehampton at North Babylon, scrimmage, 4:30 p.m.

MEN’S SOCCER, 7-on-7 playoff semifinals, fourth seed vs. first seed, 6:30 p.m., and third vs. second seed, 7:40, Herrick Park, East Hampton. 

Wednesday, November 29

BOYS BASKETBALL, East Hampton at Wyandanch, scrimmage, 5 p.m.

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

When Aziza El, the 5-foot-9-inch middle hitter, went down with a rolled ankle near the end of Friday’s girls volleyball practice session at Pierson High School, Donna Fischer, Pierson-Bridgehampton’s coach, rolled her eyes, as if to say, “Oh no.”

As well she should, for the Whalers were on the verge, for the first time in the program’s history, of playing in the state Class C Final Four at the Glens Falls Civic Center.

El’s ankle injury — it was swollen when the team arrived at Glens Falls, though she insisted on playing anyway — undoubtedly played a part in Pierson’s 1-5 record in Saturday’s pool play, though Fischer wasn’t saying afterward that that was the only reason the team hadn’t made it to the second day. Yes, the Civic Center was cavernous, and yes, the crowd noise was disconcerting — not to mention the fact that frenzied AA and A games were being contested on adjacent courts — but it was largely the up-tempo game that is played at the state level, she said, a pace requiring more rapid physical and mental agility, that did the Whalers in.

El did start, in the first set of pool play with Portville, the eventual champion, but after serving out and — obviously bothered by ankle pain — netting a hit, Fischer sat her, replacing the Bridgehampton junior with her 6-foot freshman schoolmate, Gylia Dryden. El played only sporadically after that. 

“I even recorded crowd noise to try to get them used to it,” Fischer said, with a laugh, on the team’s return. “I’m hoping we’ll be back next year, and better prepared. I’m so proud of the way we played, so proud that we came this far. We did make history by winning our first county and Long Island and regional championships, and we’re only losing one senior [the captain, and valedictorian, Leigh Hatfield, who’s applied to Harvard, the University of Virginia, and Brown]. It will be different next year. Leigh said as much in her interviews with Newsday and The Sag Harbor Express.”

Samantha Cox, her sophomore lights-out hitter, made the all-tournament team, Fischer said, and more postseason awards will be announced, she said, at the county volleyball coaches dinner Monday.

Meanwhile, while she’d like all of her charges to play travel ball — two of them, Cox and Olivia Cassone, the libero, were recently accepted by The Blaze, based in Center Moriches — none, including her eighth-grade setter, Sofia Mancino, who played travel ball last year, are at the moment.

When told that Kathy McGeehan, East Hampton’s veteran coach, who always fields highly competitive teams, had only one go upstate in all of her years of coaching, Fischer said she appreciated the fact. “Kathy made sure I knew how special this was,” she said.

She had told Cox and Cassone she’d drive them back and forth to practices, said Fischer, who used to assist McGeehan with the East End Waves and Joe Siegel with another travel team, at Sportime, that dissipated.

Looking ahead, she can expect next fall to have as returnees, along with El, Cox, Cassone, Dryden, and Mancino, Sophie Borzilleri, a junior outside hitter, Celia Barranco, a junior outside hitter, and Hannah Tuma, a junior middle hitter. “I’ve also got three good jayvee players [Lucy Beeton, a ninth grader, Lilith Bastek, a ninth grader, and Caleigh Hochstedler, a sophomore] coming up.”

She added the latter three to her squad for the playoffs. She “felt terrible,” she said, that she didn’t get them in in the team’s final set with Voorheesville (which also finished with a 1-5 record).

Asked if there had been a parade, Fischer, whose team arrived back in the Harbor at 9:30 p.m. Saturday, said there hadn’t been, “but we did get a parade when we won the county championship, and when we left, at 8 o’clock Friday morning, the entire school came out to say goodbye on Pierson’s hill.”

She would definitely give some clinics in the off-season, and maybe even start a travel team, she said in signing off.

Two of the captains of East Hampton High School’s league-champion girls swimming team, Madison Jones and Lucy Emptage, were the focus of attention at the high school on Nov. 14.

Emptage, at 1 p.m., signed a national letter of intent to attend La Salle University in Philadelphia on a lacrosse scholarship, and, at 1:30, Jones, Channel 12’s scholar-athlete of the month, was interviewed and filmed in the high school’s halls and, later, at the Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter’s pool.

Emptage, who also is soon to be feted as the Old Montauk Athletic Club’s female high school athlete of the year, began playing lacrosse with the Long Island Top Guns travel team based in West Babylon when she was a fifth grader at the Amagansett School. Jones has been a member of the Y’s swim team, the Hurricanes, for the past 10 years, and both have been on Craig Brierley’s standout varsity team throughout their high school careers.

Both, as you can imagine, are self-motivated, and personable, and are ocean lifeguards. Jones worked with East Hampton Village crews this past summer; Emptage, on weekends, with town crews in Montauk. On weekdays, she was a Devon Yacht Club camp counselor.

Asked what it was she loved about swimming, Jones, an A student — as is Emptage — said, “It’s an escape for me . . . it helps me to balance academics and athletics. . . . I love swimming in the ocean too.”

Emptage comes by her athletic ability naturally. Her mother, the high school’s strength and conditioning coach, was a Junior Olympics gymnast, and her father played lacrosse at Lynchburg College. 

It was her mother, she said, in answer to a question, who encouraged her to play lacrosse initially, a suggestion that has borne fruit. Emptage is just the latest of a number of East Hampton High School female lacrosse players to win scholarships — Maggie Pizzo, now a senior at Yale, and the Seekamp sisters, Amanda and Carley, the former at Hofstra, the latter at the United States Naval Academy, and Jacqui Thorsen, who matriculated at Wagner this fall, having preceded her.

Not only her mother, but her Top Guns coaches, Bill and Shannon Smith, and Erin Tintle, who oversees the girls youth program here, had been helpful, Emptage said, in taking the next step.

Emptage gave La Salle a verbal commitment when she was a sophomore, and is now signed, sealed, and delivered, as it were, though, when this writer said she could let her grades slide now, she said, with a smile, that she could not.

Both honorees have been heavily involved in extracurricular pursuits, Emptage primarily with the Old Montauk Athletic Club and with Paddlers 4 Humanity — she made the 18-mile Montauk-to-Block Island crossing on a stand-up paddleboard with the group this past summer — and Jones with the high school’s U.N. club, which she and Myra Arshad have headed for the past four years. 

In model U.N. conferences in New York City she had been, she said in answer to a question, a representative from France, a representative from Sierra Leone, a representative from Oman, from Switzerland, and from Swaziland.

“I went to Africa this past spring,” Jones added, “with my A.P. government class. There were about 15 of us. We helped build a school in Malawi during spring break. It was an amazing experience. The children were so happy to see the photos we took of them — they swarmed around us, they don’t have mirrors, they don’t get to see what they look like.”

As for the mock U.N. round-table discussions and debates, here and in New York, “I love them,” said Jones. “They’ve helped broaden my perspective.”

As for Emptage, who plans to major in elementary education, she said she was grateful that lacrosse — the Top Guns play in regional tournaments throughout the Northeast and mid-Atlantic states for most of the year — had given her an opportunity to broaden her perspective. Coaches at showcases, she said, with a smile, often refer to Long Island as “Strong Island” when it comes to lacrosse.

Asked what the girls’ season would be like this coming spring, Emptage, who loves to run and who as a midfielder loves to play offense and defense, said, “We’re hoping to make the playoffs. . . . I’ve been going through the halls recruiting. It’s a go-go game. If they like to run, we’ll show them how to catch the ball!”

Jones, who’s also a clarinetist in the school band, said, in answer to a question, that she has yet to make a college decision. She’s applied to a dozen colleges, Vanderbilt, the University of Virginia, the University of Southern California, and Southern Methodist University among them, and wants to major in business — a career in finance appeals to her. Math had begun to click, she said, when she encountered Barry Mackin. 

“I wasn’t great at math until he became my teacher last year. I like all my teachers, but he’s a great one — one of the best. I take two A.P. calculus classes with him.”

Channel 12 — the interview is to air Tuesday — has given Jones a $1,000 scholarship check, and she stands a chance to receive even more should she be picked as the channel’s top recipient in June.

Emptage said she liked it that other La Salle recruits against whom she’s played in tournaments, players from Pennsylvania and Maryland, will be with her at the university. “It’s like a family,” she said.

In swimming, said Jones, “there’s a good balance challenge and teamwork. We challenge each other, but we also work together. It raises the level of all of us.”

Sunday, November 19

MEN’S SOCCER, over-30 men’s league, Charruas 1950 vs. Hampton United, Hampton Bays High School, 2:30 p.m.

Monday, November 20

MEN’S SOCCER, 7-on-7 league, Tortorella Pools vs. Bateman Painting, 6:30 p.m.; Sag Harbor United vs. Maidstone Market, 7:25, and Hampton F.C.-Bill Miller vs. Tuxpan F.C., 8:20, Herrick Park, East Hampton. 

Wednesday, November 22

GIRLS BASKETBALL, Patchogue-Medford at East Hampton, scrimmage, and Riverhead at Pierson, scrimmage, 10 a.m.

MEN’S SOCCER, 7-on-7 league, Tuxpan F.C. vs. Sag Harbor United, 6:30 p.m.; Tortorella Pools vs. Hampton F.C.-Bill Miller, 7:25, and Bateman Painting vs. Maidstone Market, 8:20, Herrick Park, East Hampton. 

November 5, 1992

Bears Lose by Grisly Margin

Any member of the East Hampton High School football team will tell you Saturday was a perfect day for football, but for the Stony Brook Bears it was a cold and bitter day indeed.

Bonac used the occasion of its annual homecoming game to demolish the outclassed visitors 47-28, rolling to a 20-0 first-quarter lead and scoring 27 more points before the halftime gun sounded.

The winners used a punishing ground attack to seize control of the game early before going to the air to put the Bears away for good.

The victory left the Bonackers with a 3-3 mark and kept their playoff hopes alive; Stony Brook dropped to 2-4.

. . . East Hampton must get in front of fourth-place Southampton (4-2) to qualify for the playoffs, so the remaining two games on the schedule are musts. The team travels to Port Jefferson Saturday and gets the first-place team in the conference, Mount Sinai, at home the following week.

November 12, 1992

Saturday afternoon was pretty in Port Jefferson, with fall light slanting through the turning shade trees that ring the high school’s football field. And for the East Hampton High School football team, Saturday proved to be a lot of fun, probably the most fun the Bonackers have had all season.

By the time the shadows lengthened, East Hampton had routed the home team 39-14, scoring six touchdowns to the Royals’ two, and virtually everyone had gotten into the act, especially the offensive line, which continually blazed trails for the chief ball carriers, Todd Carberry, Max Finazzo, and, later, Rob Balnis.

Carberry rushed for a gargantuan 292 yards in 28 carries, an East Hampton “first” in the athletic director Dick Cooney’s memory.

. . . With the offensive linemen, Mike Vasti, Paul Poutouves, David Barbour, John Hayes, and Shane Davis, pushing their counterparts around, Carberry and Max Finazzo took turns reeling off yardage. 

. . . The linebackers, Poutouves, Ron Gatlin, Trevor Darrell, and Will Stedman, came up big defensively, as did the linemen — Davis, Gus Gomez, Gavin Menu, and Hayes — the cornerbacks, Carberry and Kenny Brabant, and the free safety, Brendan Collins.

. . . East Hampton did it on the ground and in the air. Carberry tallied three times, on runs of 26 and 22 yards and on a 20-yard reception. Steven Quick, the tight end, caught a 31-yard touchdown pass from the quarterback, Marcus Borowsky, who also scored on a 6-yard keeper. Balnis, a quick sophomore, completed the rout with a 36-yard ramble near the end of the game.

Janelle Kraus, a Pierson-Shelter Island harrier, a small but strong freshman, captured the county Class C cross-country title at Sunken Meadow State Park Friday, in 20 minutes and 59 seconds.

Kraus is the latest in a string of success stories orchestrated by Cliff Clark, the Team Shelter Island guru, who is aiming high despite the low combined enrollments of Pierson and Shelter Island High Schools.

“We’ve been watching her since she was in the sixth grade,” Clark said this week. “She was a real competitor, but nothing forewarned us that she would be this good.” Kraus hung with Melissa Lingle of Stony Brook and Sandy Kutzing of Port Jefferson for over two miles, and blew by both about three-quarters of the way up Cardiac Hill, a steep incline that has been the traditional bane of runners who test the Sunken Meadow course. Once on top, she accelerated quickly and coasted to a 13-second victory over Lingle.

In recent postseason action, the East Hampton High School boys cross-country team, the county Class B champion, followed form by placing ninth last weekend at the state meet.

The meet was held near Rochester on a 23-degree day, and the 5K course, at Wayne Central High School, was said to be icy and muddy. Ryan Fowkes was East Hampton’s first runner to be scored, placing 63rd in the 127-runner Class B field in 18 minutes and 12.20 seconds. 

Fowkes was followed by Omar Leon (100th in 19:07.50), Ethan McCormac (103rd in 19:15.80), Gio Espinoza (105th in 19:29.80), Nicolas Villante (116th in 20:24.20), and Frank Bellucci (125th in 21:00.20).

Kal Lewis, of Shelter Island, won the Class D race, in 16:44.60, and his team placed fourth. East Hampton’s Ava Engstrom, a ninth grader, placed 87th among 187 entries in the state’s girls Class B race.

Pierson (Sag Harbor) High School’s girls volleyball team is to make its first-ever appearance in a state Final Four this weekend, at the Glens Falls Civic Center. The Whalers, coached by Donna Fischer, bested Stony Brook 3-1 in the county Class C final and then knocked off East Rockaway, also by 3-1, to advance to the Final Four.

Pierson’s boys soccer team, coached by Peter Solow, also advanced to the state Final Four in Middletown this past weekend  — also a “first” in Pierson annals — where it lost 2-0 to Lansing. 

In golf, East Hampton’s Turner Foster, the defending county champion, placed second this time around to Port Jefferson’s Shane DeVincenzo. Foster defeated DeVincenzo in a one-hole playoff last year. This time, DeVincenzo topped the field by 6 strokes. 

Double bogeys on the par-4 ninth and 10th holes did him in. He had been one stroke back after the first eight holes on the second day. 

“Still, Turner didn’t do badly,” said East Hampton’s coach, Claude Beudert. “He had rounds of 72 and 74 — he had a 148 last year. Shane shot a two-under 140, so both of them improved. There were 25 golfers hoping to make the states. Turner will be one of the nine going. The state tournament will be at Cornell from June 1 through 4. Turner finished fifth last year. This is Turner’s second year at the states. He could be one of a handful from Suffolk to play in the states three years in a row. Ian Lynch did — in 2010, 2011, and 2012.”

East Hampton’s team placed 10th in the county tournament among the 56 schools that vied in it. Westhampton Beach was fourth, and Pierson was tied for eighth. “We lost to Pierson by two shots at our place [the South Fork Country Club in Amagansett],” said Beudert. “Otherwise we would have had a share of the league title. . . . We haven’t won in the last two years. Before that we won 14 in a row.”

At the athletic awards ceremony at the high school on Nov. 6, Beudert named Foster as the team’s most valuable player, Nate Wright, the team’s number-two, as its most-improved player, and Hunter Medler as the recipient of the coach’s award.

Foster was named to the all-county team, for the second year in a row, and Wright was named to the all-conference team, as was Jackson Murphy, East Hampton’s number-three.

Other m.v.p., most-improved, and coach’s award recipients this fall were: Fowkes, Bellucci, and Espinoza in boys cross-country; Liana Paradiso, Ava Engstrom, and Isabella Tarbet in girls cross-country; Elizabeth Bistrian, Rianna Helier, and Julia Short in field hockey, and Wilmer Guzman, Marco Gutama, and Noah Gualtieri in boys soccer.

Lucy Short, Yeymi Chavez, and Alden Powers in girls soccer; Sophia Swanson, Patricia Figueroa, and Angela Dolan Jeffrey in girls swimming; Rebecca Kuperschmid, Olivia Baris, and Pamela Pillco in girls tennis; Logan Gurney, James Foster, and Eamon Spencer in boys volleyball, and Mikela Junemann, Madison Smullen, and Olivia Brauer in girls volleyball. Dance did not give out a most-improved award. Claire Belhumeur was its m.v.p. and Valeria Luna Mendez was its coach’s award recipient.