Having enjoyed a fine fall sportswise, with the boys soccer and boys and girls volleyball teams playing for county championships — and with soccer winning it all, for the second year in a row — Joe Vas, the East Hampton school district’s athletic director, expects a rather cheery, if cold, winter.

    Numberswise, boys swimming, now coached by Craig Brierley — Jeff Thompson stepped down last spring after becoming a father — stands out, inasmuch as there are at the moment 33 on the roster — 4 seniors, 12 juniors, 9 sophomores, 5 freshmen, and 3 eighth graders.

    Two extremely versatile juniors, Thomas Brierley and Trevor Mott, undoubtedly will lead the way, though in a post-season interview last March Thompson also singled out the contributions made by Rob Rewinski, Kyle Sturmann, Robert Anderson III, Tyler Menold, Shane McCann, Andrew Winthrop, Chris Kalbacher, Thomas Paradiso, and Baxter Parcher, all of whom are returnees.

    The numbers are also good at the junior varsity level of girls basketball. Robyn Mott has 20 on the jayvee squad, a sign that that program, headed by Howard Wood and Louis O’Neal, is becoming stronger.

    Wood and O’Neal’s task, as it has been in the past few years, will be to spread the scoring out so that Kaelyn Ward, the team’s star, and a senior now, won’t have to try to do it all.

    Boys basketball, with four players returning who saw significant action last year, namely Thomas King, Danny Mc­Kee, Thomas Nelson, and Juan Cuevas, ought to be fun to watch. “We finished at 6-6 in the league and qualified for the playoffs last year,” said the head coach, Bill McKee. “We average around 6-1 or 6-2. We don’t have anyone who’s 6-6, but all our guys can rebound.”    

    As for the league, “It ought to be competitive — the other teams all have most of their kids coming back. We’re young, but I look for us to be competitive.”    

    Other returnees include Andre Cherrington, a tough senior inside player who sustained a deep thigh bruise in the football team’s final game, sidelining him for the moment; Rolando Garces, a senior guard, and Joey Sandoval, a junior guard.

    Up from the jayvee are Brandon Hughes, David Moss, Jack Ryan, and Nikko Bachelor, all junior forwards. Charles Barranco, a junior center, is, said McKee, a first-timer.

    The team was to have scrimmaged Tuesday at Center Moriches, and will be home tomorrow, at 6 p.m., to Eastport-South Manor, a nonleague opponent.

    “Last year, we relied a lot on Thomas King, and he came through, but we’re expecting other kids to make contributions  this year too. We’ll play the same up-tempo style, scoring in transition when we can. We should be all right.”

    The McKees pretty much have basketball covered here: Joey McKee is returning as the boys jayvee coach, and Kelly McKee, who formerly coached at the Ross School, is coaching the sport with Steve Redlus at the East Hampton Middle School.

    The bowling team, a coed group coached by Pat Hand, was the first Bonac team to get a taste of league competition, on Tuesday at Westhampton.

    There are seven boys on the roster and six girls — a ‘first’ here. Hand said she expected Jacob Grossman, the sophomore son of Ian and Dot Grossman, each of whom recently bowled perfect games at the East Hampton Bowl, which he manages, to lead the team. “He’s got a 190 average,” she said, “but he hasn’t bowled in any matches yet.”

    Hand said she also expects Jackson Clark, a junior, and Gaby Green, a senior, to be solid scorers. “Eastport-South Manor will be the strongest team in our league, though other than that we should be in the mix,” the coach said.

    The only winter sport to see a drop-off in numbers — a slight one — has been wrestling. “Steve Tseperkas and Lou Russo have 18 on the squad, but the kids they have are working hard,” said Vas.

    That team’s first outing will be at the Frank (Sprig) Gardner invitational tournament here on Dec. 8.

    Before parting, the athletic director said that the Hall of Fame committee is accepting nominations for the 2013 Class. Applications, he said, can either be obtained at the high school or online through the school’s Web site, ehufsd.org, “by going to links and hitting ‘athletics.’ It’s all there.”

    Moreover, he said that the East Hampton Coaches Association had recently donated $10,000 to go toward the purchase of 10 trophy and memorabilia display cases that are to run the length of a 50-foot wall opposite his office between the gymnasium doors.

    “We hope to have them up by Christmas,” he said.

    Maidstone Market, the nine-time champion, not unsurprisingly headed into the men’s 7-on-7 soccer league playoffs at East Hampton’s Herrick Park yesterday having clinched the top seed, though going into the final night of regular-season play, on Monday, there was a chance that three teams — Maidstone, Bateman Painting, and Tortorella Pools — might wind up in a three-way tie for first place, with 18 points each.

    “It’s been very competitive this season — the top four have been beating each other,” said Leslie Czeladko, of Tortorella, who also oversees the league’s Web site.

    On Monday, Maidstone defeated Bateman Painting 3-1. Gehider Garcia, the league’s leading scorer, had two of the Market’s goals, and Wilson Betancur had one, all coming in the first half. Esteban Uchupaille scored for Bateman, also in the first frame. Espo’s was to have played Tortorella in the evening’s opener, but forfeited. Tuxpan, which narrowly missed making the playoffs, defeated 75 Main 4-2 in the nightcap.

    The 7-on-7 outdoor final is to be played at Herrick Monday at 6:30 p.m. In addition, the finals of 7-on-7 futsal leagues overseen by Raymond Naula at the Sportime arena in Amagansett are to be played Saturday night, with the women’s final set for 8, the 38-plus men’s final at 9, and the men’s open final at 10.

    In other recent 7-on-7 outdoor games, Maidstone Market crushed Tortorella Pools 5-1, knocking Tortorella out of first place, but was upset 1-0 by 75 Main, a game in which the Restaurateurs’ Geovanni Robles, a very quick forward, was the sole player to score.

    Robles’s all-important goal came midway through the first half. Taking possession at midfield, he dashed forward, and after vaulting over Hector Marles’s attempted slide tackle, went one-on-one with Maidstone’s goalie, Alex Meza, beating him to the lower left corner of the cage from about 15 yards out.

    The Market was the more aggressive team in the first half, though 75 Main, which counter-attacked whenever it could, had the better chances. Cesar Galea narrowly missed making it 2-0 when his 30-yard high, rocketed shot soon after Robles’s goal bounced directly down from the underside of the crossbar.

    Still, it didn’t seem as if that one-goal lead would hold up — Maidstone’s forwards, Antonio Padilla, Gehider Garcia, and John Romero among them, are always formidable — but 75 Main’s defense was sufficiently tenacious in the second half to assure a shutout.

    The win enabled 75 Main to take over second place and ousted F.C. Tuxpan, which had defeated Tortorella 2-1 earlier that night (Nov. 21), from playoff contention.

    Romero had three goals and Padilla three assists in Maidstone’s blowout of Tortorella on the 19th. Tortorella played most of the game a man-down because of David Rodriguez’s ankle injury. Still, Tortorella managed to keep the Market off the scoreboard in the first half.

    The second half was a different story. Romero got it going, one-touching a chest-high ball past Tortorella’s goalie, Craig Caiazca, that Padilla had fired goalward from 10 yards out. Four more goals were to follow — two more by Romero and one each by Wilson Betancur and Gehider Garcia. A breakaway by Steven Orrego accounted for Tortorella’s scoring.

    In other action that night, 75 Main and Bateman played to a 1-1 tie. Following a scoreless first half, Uchupaille got Bateman on the scoreboard, assisted by Julian Munoz. But Geovanni Robles, assisted by Tony Shoshi, salvaged the tie.

    Tuxpan, which shut out Espo’s 4-0 in the nightcap with Nettie Sanchez netting two goals and with Alberto Larios and Juan Velasquez scoring the others, kept itself in playoff contention with its aforementioned 2-1 win over Tortorella on the 21st, though its dreams were to vanish two hours later with 75 Main’s 1-0 upset of Maidstone Market.

    Last night’s semifinals were rematches of Monday night’s games, with Bateman Painting, the fourth seed, versus Maidstone, and with Tortorella vs. 75 Main. The final, as aforesaid, is to be played Monday at 6:30 p.m.

    Another record number turned out for the East Hampton Town-John Keeshan Realty 3 and 6-mile Turkey Trots in Montauk on Thanksgiving Day.

    Seven hundred and forty had registered, 641 finished — 551 in the 3-miler and 90 in the 6 — and the weather couldn’t have been better.

    Two days later, in Sag Harbor, far fewer turned out for the Old Whalers Community House 5K, which is in its second year — the Montauk races were celebrating their 36th anniversary — though the 74 Harbor runners were no less enthusiastic.

    Kira Garry, a 19-year-old Yale sophomore, won the 6-miler, in 36 minutes and 49.56 seconds. Jason Hancock, a 38-year-old Amagansett School teacher, was second, and Jim MacWhinnie, who has in the past few years made a remarkable recovery from a nigh-fatal accident, was third.

    Entire families flock to the Thanksgiving Day races in Montauk, and if there were a family prize it probably would have gone to the Garrys (though the Brierleys and the Naulas would also have been in the running). Kira’s younger sister, Katrina, a Friends Academy junior, topped the females in the 3-miler, placing 18th over all in 19:27.62; Kira and Katrina’s father, Bill (who has once again qualified for the world triathlon championships), was 16th in the 6-miler and placed second in the 50-to-59-year-old age group. The girls’ mother, Louisa, placed fourth in the 6-miler’s female 40-49 group in 47:15.81.

    Tim Rossi, 20, an Emory College cross-country and track runner from New York City whose family has a house on Shelter Island, was the 3-miler’s winner, in 17:04.

    It was his third time at Montauk and his best finish — he was third last year, he said, adding that he had run with a pack to begin with before taking the lead at mile 2.

    The Old Whalers 5K winner was Spencer Carlson, a philosophy major at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, in 19:05.58. The women’s winner — eighth over all — was Julia Marino, a 17-year-old Sacred Heart High School runner from New York City, in 22:03.88.

    Liz Yennie, one of the church’s elders, said the proceeds would help underwrite the costs of keeping its community house, “a building that dates to 1840 or ’60, even longer than you’ve been around, open to any group that wants to use it.”

    Among those that do at present are Sag Harbor’s Food Pantry — “the oldest on the East End,” said Yennie — Weight Watchers, and Alcoholics Anonymous.

    “Eventually,” said Bruce Beyer, who heads the church’s property committee, “we’d like to fix it up — it needs a new floor and ceiling — so that it can be available for such occasions as wedding receptions or baby showers.”

    A northeast wind was whipping over the water as he spoke, a few feet from the finish line, leading Beyer to recall that “the water was the highest I’ve ever seen it during the hurricane. It was over the top of that bulkhead, but there ­wasn’t too much damage. Winds out of the northeast here generally switch around to the south — that’s what it did during the hurricane.”

    Dermot Quinn, 43, of Springs, who was seventh, in 21:57.79, and who had two days before placed 18th among the 6-milers in Montauk in 43:23.81, said, when asked about the wind, “For the most part the course was pretty sheltered — it’s a nice course. And we had the wind at our backs when we finished, which was great.” Quinn’s son, Adrie, who’ll be 3 years old in February, ran with him in the final yards.

    Back to the Montauk races, George Watson, whose son, Chris, recently revived the 3.4-mile Dock race over which his father used to preside, confided to this writer as he walked by that he too could be counted among the white men over 64 who’d voted for Obama.

    Watson, 68, who placed 254th in the 3-miler in 30:05.80, good enough for second place in the men’s 60-69 division, behind the fleet 65-year-old Eddie McDonald (24:21.92), wondered, as did Kevin Barry, where John Conner was. In San Remo, Italy, they were reminded, attending a cousin’s ordination.

    Before he left for Italy, Conner, a former three-time world track record holder and the coach of a number of runners here, was interviewed in these pages. Watson said, with a smile, that he’d read it and had duly “sent John an insulting message.”

    Erik Engstrom, one of the young runners Conner coaches — as do Barry and Bill Herzog — was to have run, along with Adam Cebulski and Jack Link, in the Foot Locker invitational in the Bronx this past weekend.

    Engstrom, 14, reportedly the second-ranked freshman runner in Suffolk County, ran the 6-miler on Thanksgiving, finishing fourth in 38:18.77.

    Veteran Turkey Trotters remembered the days when, in the words of one of them, “it would take a long time for the turkeys [frozen ones provided by John Keeshan] to come out.”

    Bob Beattie, who timed both last Thursday and Saturday’s races, recalled the hand-held days some 20 years ago, when he’d have volunteers strip off the bottoms of the runners’ number bibs as they came through the chute, after which they’d put them in order on a spindle. The names, ages, and genders on the strips would then be aligned with the clicked-off times by Beattie, who, in turn, would record the results by hand.

    “I’d get the results out about an hour later. . . . We didn’t use tongue depressors, though it was basically the same thing.”

    “Now,” Beattie said, “we’ve got two $50,000 rigs and a state-of-the-art Jaguar timing system, which has 70 percent of the market. It was invented by an R.F.I.D. [radio frequency identification] technician who was also a triathlete, and who kept saying to himself, ‘There’s got to be a better way.’ ”

    “Racing’s done out here for the season — this is the last one,” Beattie added, “though we’ve got a race in Patchogue coming up and one in Connetquot. Also, we’ll be doing two in New York City, for the first time. My brother, Ron, will be doing the one in Central Park and I’ll be doing the one in Riverside Park.”

    “Bob actually got his start using an abacus,” said Ron, who was listening in.

    As for the coming year, Bob Beattie said, “We’re definitely going to have an Andy Neidnig 5K — on this course, in the spring, probably in May. His house, you know, is the one-mile mark. We should have a big crowd.”

November 5, 1987

    The East Hampton-Pierson cross-country team continued its stellar season Saturday by adding the Conference Four title to the league championship it had already won.

    Led by Jim Lattanzio, East Hampton-Pierson won five of the top 10 places in the 3.1-mile race over the hilly Sunken Meadow State Park course to easily defeat its rival, Stony Brook, 25 to 38. East Hampton and Stony Brook, in turn, bested Mattituck, Westhampton, Hampton Bays, LaSalle Military Academy, and Center Moriches.

    Among the 22,000 New York City marathoners Sunday were at least several local participants who came away with buoyed spirits, and bodies that apparently were not unduly affected by the rigorous 26.2-mile ordeal.

    “It was like being in the Super Bowl,” said Tim Fitzpatrick, a former Bank of New York East Hampton branch employee, now a mortgage consultant with Southold Savings Bank’s main office, who finished 918th in 2 hours, 58 minutes, and 16 seconds.

    Johanna Pfund, 32, of Montauk, who was running New York for the first time, did a cartwheel at the finish line, but the TV cameras, as had been the case with the tape-breaking of the winner, Ibrahim Hussein, missed it.

    . . . It was not a personal best for either Billy O’Donnell or Pfund — he had run a 2:56 at Atlantic City, N.J., in 1978, and she had run a 3:32 in her first venture four years ago — though both were pleased to report they felt good at the end.

November 17, 1987

    Two East Hampton High School football team linemen, David DiSunno and Bill Barbour Jr., have been named by League Seven’s head coaches to the all-Suffolk County team.

    “It’s the first time in a long while that East Hampton has had two players make all-county,” said the team’s coach, Ted Meyer. DiSunno, this year’s captain, and Barbour, the captain-elect, made the all-league team as well, as did another lineman, Nick Algios, and a running back, Mauricio Castillo.

    There was the drumming of gunfire along the Mohawk and beyond this week with the opening of this year’s deer-hunting season.

    . . . State wildlife officials are anxious to see adult doe quotas “realized” so that population buildups due to lower-than-usual hunting success can be reversed.

November 26, 1987

    Beginning next spring, scientists from the County Health Department will make the first concentrated effort to sample the kinds and amounts of organic nutrients entering East End bays. The nutrients are thought to feed the brown algae, called Aureococcus anorexefferens, the creature responsible for wiping out the million-dollar local scallop industry, and for chasing a great variety of finfish from their natural haunts.

    . . . “It’s time to get to the guts of it, to look at the action in the bay,” said Chris Smith, a county Sea Grant agent and chairman of the county’s algae task force. “We don’t know the relative inputs of sewage treatment and road runoff into the bays. . . .”

Thursday, December 6

BOWLING, Rocky Point vs. East Hampton, East Hampton Bowl, 3:30 p.m.

Friday, December 7

BOYS BASKETBALL, East Hampton at Pierson, nonleague, 6 p.m.

GIRLS BASKETBALL, East Hampton at Hampton Bays tournament, 5:15 p.m.

RUGBY, holiday dinner, Page restaurant, Main Street, Sag Harbor, 7 p.m.

Saturday, December 8

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

Sunday, December 9

BOYS WINTER TRACK, East Hampton at crossover meet, Suffolk Community College-Brentwood, 2 p.m.

Monday, December 10

BOYS BASKETBALL, East Hampton at Greenport, nonleague, 6:15 p.m.

GIRLS WINTER TRACK, East Hampton at crossover meet, Suffolk Community College-Brentwood, 5 p.m.

Tuesday, December 11

BOYS WINTER TRACK, East Hampton at crossover meet, Suffolk Community College-Brentwood, 5 p.m.

GIRLS BASKETBALL, East Hampton at Miller Place, 4 p.m.

BOYS SWIMMING, East Hampton at Sayville, 4:30 p.m.

Wednesday, December 12

GIRLS BASKETBALL, East Hampton at Southold-Greenport, nonleague, 6:15 p.m.

   To return to the Suffolk County Class A boys soccer final, East Hampton High’s team underwent two severe tests, battle royals with Miller Place, in the first round here Friday, a game that East Hampton won 1-0, and with Eastport-South Manor, in the semis here Saturday, a game the Bonackers came from behind to win 3-2.

    The Panthers and the Sharks were tall, bruising teams, but the Bonackers, who have been well coached by Rich King and Don McGovern, are just as tenacious in contesting 50-50 balls as they are skilled in ball-handling and passing.

    Monday’s championship game with Elwood-John Glenn at Dowling College marked the third time in the past four years that East Hampton, the defending champion, has played in a county final. East Hampton has also been the league champion in three of the past four years.

    Nick Tulp, the sophomore goalie, made four great saves in the first half of Friday’s game to keep East Hampton, which has characteristically played stronger second halves this season, in contention. A free kick just before the horn sounded by sophomore midfielder Nick West (about whom more later) from 20 yards out, which was saved by Miller Place’s goalie, proved to be East Hampton’s best chance in the opening period.

    Going with the wind, and with the sun to their backs, the Bonackers picked up the pace in the second frame, though Tulp remained active.

    In the 48th minute, Donte Donegal headed a corner kick just wide of the right post. In the 53rd, the Panthers’ keeper came out to swat away another corner kick by West, and, in the 57th minute, Donegal just missed getting to two successive passes across the goal mouth from Esteban Valverde.

    A hard ground-hugging shot by J.C. Barrientos zipped just wide left in the 56th minute, and, in the 68th, an acutely-angled rocket by Donegal was parried at the near post. Donegal put another one off the near post in the 76th — with four minutes remaining in regulation — and then, in the 78th minute, East Hampton’s relentless attackers finally got on the board, the result of a short pass from Barrientos to Bryan Ordonez, his fellow midfielder, who, rather than pull the trigger, lifted a soft shot high into the left corner of Miller Place’s nets. It was, Ordonez said amid the exulting afterward, his first goal of the season. It couldn’t have come at a better time.

    There was still a minute and a half to play. Miller Place’s coach brought everybody up, including the goalie, who stood near the midfield mark, though long clears by Barrientos and Nick Quiroz ran the clock out.

    Ordonez, a senior, sat on the bench for the first half of the season, but has stepped up his play as the fall has gone along, as has also been the case with a number of others, including Quiroz, Jonathan Chunchi, Christian Calle, and Juan Patino. There are only four seniors on this team: Barrientos, Calle, Ordonez, and Alex Serna.

    On Saturday, East Hampton was matched against Eastport-South Manor, on whose roster are 12 seniors. It was more of the same, only more so. The senior-heavy, third-seeded Sharks were well organized, moving onto the ball in threatening fashion whenever they could, and they were definitely motivated, having come off a double-overtime 2-1 win the day before over Shoreham-Wading River.

    East Hampton scored first, however, as, in the 36th minute, Serna, one of three staunch Bonac defenders (Denis Espana and Alvaro Aguilar being the others) alertly headed in the rebound of West’s free kick from the 20 that had bounced down from the crossbar and up into the air.

    Eastport-South Manor came on strong in the second half. “Their seniors were facing the possibility that it might be the last 40 minutes of soccer they were to play for the school,” King said afterward by way of explanation.

    Espana, fronting Tulp, made a sliding save of what would have otherwise been a goal four minutes into the second half, but lightning struck in the form of two Eastport headers resulting from long throw-ins in the 47th and 49th minutes. Cody Kull, a senior defender, set up both scores, the first by Matthew Hayes, the second by Daniel Cheeseman, by lofting the ball from 20 to 30 yards out into the goal mouth.

    Those goals fired up the visitors and their fans, and set the Bonackers back on their heels for moment — but for just a moment. Soon they were back to battling. In the 53rd minute, Michael Flynn tripped Donegal at the 35, presenting West with a free kick, which sailed just wide to the left of the left post. Tulp came up with a big save a minute later, following a free kick awarded Eastport-South Manor, Cheeseman sailing by him into the nets as he gathered the ball in.

    Tulp came up big again in the 61st minute, punching a shot off the right post. In the 63rd minute, a hands call on an Eastport defender amid a feeding frenzy in the penalty box presented East Hampton with a chance to tie the score, and West, who took the shot, was not found wanting, easily putting a ground-hugger by the visitors’ keeper, Ryan Flaherty, into the left corner.

    Barrientos had to come off in the 68th minute, following a collision near Eastport’s goal, but, to everyone’s relief, re-entered the game six minutes later, just before the winning play, which began with Serna’s chip up the right side to Donegal, whose subsequent cross West, who had just been switched by his coaches from the right to the left side of the field, neatly buried.

    The Bonackers held the hard-charging visitors off in the final minutes for the heady and hard-won win. Afterward, King said, “Our backs were against the wall, but we responded resiliently, with heart and intensity. For a young team to do that . . . it was a solid group effort. I’m so proud of them. Though we’re not done yet. We want to win the county, Long Island, and state championships.”

   Goals by Nick West 6 minutes and 13 seconds into the game and with 10 minutes and 24 seconds left to play earned the East Hampton High School boys soccer team the county Class A championship at Dowling College’s Brook­haven campus Monday, by a 2-1 score over Elwood-John Glenn.

    It was the second year in a row that the Bonackers have won the county title, and the third time in four years that they’ve contested it. The exciting win set up a rematch with Jericho for the Long Island championship yesterday, also at Dowling.

    West was switched by Bonac’s coach, Rich King, from right wing to forward in the second half of Saturday’s semifinal here with Eastport-South Manor, a move that resulted in a game-winning goal by his sophomore phenom, and he continued to play forward Monday.

    After his early goal, a well-placed ground-hugger from the top of the box that wound up in the left corner of Glenn’s net, it seemed East Hampton would continue on in the same fashion, but Glenn, which tied the Bonackers 1-1 and lost to them 2-0 during the regular season, proved to be tenacious, especially the senior forward, Adan Cruz-Velasquez, who was arguably the fastest player on the field.

    The Knights tied it up on a goal by Christian Molina, a recent call-up from Glenn’s junior varsity, in the 24th minute. “It was a broken play,” Glenn’s coach, Lou Hanner, said later, “and the ball wound up on Christian’s foot. He shot it on the ground to the far post from about 10 yards out. It was his first varsity goal.”

    With Molina’s score the battle was joined. In the minutes leading up to the half, the Knights put a lot of pressure on Bonac’s defenders, though they, and East Hampton’s fine sophomore goalie, Nick Tulp, were up to the task.

    During the halftime break, King and his assistant, Don McGovern, urged their charges, who went against the wind in the second frame, to play their game, which features crisp passes on the turf and relentless attacks.

    “We regained our focus in the second half and returned to our constantly attacking style, which paid off,” King was to tell sportswriters afterward.

    Cruz-Velasquez pounded a shot just over the crossbar in the opening minutes of the second half, though the Bonackers were to have the best of it thereafter, frequently playing the ball either to Esteban Valverde, Donte Donegal, or J.C. Barrientos in the corners, hoping the skirmishes with Glenn defenders would result in a corner kick by West.

    Meanwhile, Barrientos was everywhere, thwarting Glenn’s forward progress repeatedly and initiating East Hampton attacks. Later, King said his senior center midfielder, Bonac’s best all-around player, had been “on fire.”

    And yet, in the 63rd minute, Cruz-Velasquez loomed large again, eluding his defender and breaking in on the goal one-on-one. Only a great sliding save by Tulp averted disaster.

    Then, in the 70th minute, East Hampton did it. Valverde dashed with the ball down into the right corner. Marked closely, he tapped it to Barrientos, and Barrientos’s centering pass found West, who easily beat Glenn’s goalie, Max Karen, to the left corner as Bonac’s players and fans cheered.

    At that point, King moved West, who has mainly played right wing this fall, into the back in order to bolster the defense. East Hampton hung tough for the remaining 10 minutes even with only two strikers.

    King, when asked by Newsday’s reporter about West, said, “I couldn’t ask for more from this kid. He busts his butt in practices and in the games. I’ll hold off on the superlatives because he’s only a sophomore and I’m sure there are many more wonderful things to come. He plays much larger than his age.”

    As for Barrientos, the coach said, “J.C. was on fire. He was all over the field, going up for airballs, distributing the ball . . . it’s the third time he’s played in a county final.”

    “J.C.’s one of the best players in the county,” said West. “When he has the ball I’m more confident, and I try to move to where he can find me.”

    “I love playing forward!” added West, whose older brother, Brandon, the goalie at top-ranked Messiah College and about to play in Division III’s Sweet 16, was in the crowd.

Thursday, November 22

RUNNING,  3 and 6-mile Turkey Trots around Fort Pond, The Circle, Montauk, 10 and 10:10 a.m., registration, 8-9:30.

Saturday, November 24

RUNNING, Old Whalers 5K, benefit Old Whalers Community House Fund, West Water Street, Sag Harbor, 8:30 a.m., registration from 7.

BOYS BASKETBALL, scrimmages, Pierson at Mattituck and Bridgehampton at Center Moriches, 10 a.m.

GIRLS BASKETBALL, Pierson-Bridgehampton at Miller Place, scrimmage, 11 a.m.

Monday, November 26

MEN’S SOCCER, 7-on-7 league, Espo’s vs. Tortorella Pools, 6:30 p.m., Bateman Painting vs. Maidstone Market, 7:25, and 75 Main vs. F.C. Tuxpan, 8:20, Herrick Park, East Hampton.

Tuesday, November 27

BOWLING, East Hampton at Westhampton, 4 p.m.

GIRLS BASKETBALL, scrimmages, Hampton Bays at East Hampton, 4 p.m., and Half Hollow Hills West at Pierson, 6:15.

BOYS BASKETBALL, scrimmages, Ross at Port Jefferson, 4:30 p.m., and East Hampton at Center Moriches, 6 p.m.

   This past weekend marked the third time that East Hampton High’s Marina Preiss, a junior, has competed in the New York State championship girls swimming meet.

    Preiss, who first swam at the state level as an eighth grader, and who went up last year as well, did herself proud, placing fifth in the 50-yard freestyle in a personal best time of 24.42 seconds, and ninth in the 100 free — usually her stronger race — in 52.90.

    Her mother, Meg, who is Marina’s coach in the off-season, said, “She would have had a ‘p.r.’ in the 100 too except for the fact that at the midway point in the final she flipped too soon and got no push off the wall.”

    Marina had tied for 12th in the preliminary 50 heat, in which Catholic and private school swimmers vied with swimmers from public high schools. Spared a swim-off to break that tie — an extra race she was just as happy not to contest — she was told if she won Saturday’s B final, she’d be scored as if she had swum in the A final, which included two girls from Catholic schools.

    “That served as a great motivator,” said Marina’s mother.

    Marina peaked at the right time, Meg Preiss added. “Going into the state meet, her winning times in the county 50 and 100 races were the best she’d done this season.”

    “It was an amazing performance,” said East Hampton’s coach, John McGeehan, especially considering the fact that public high school state swim meets are open ones, not subdivided, as in soccer, track, volleyball, and the like, into enrollment classifications.

    Preiss’s next goal, said her mother, will be to qualify for the U.S. Swimming junior nationals. The qualifying time for the 50 is 23.0; it’s 51.0 in the 100.

    The junior nationals will be held in March, “in Florida,” said Meg Preiss. “There will be a sectional meet in Buffalo either in late February or early March. . . . She plans to swim in college. We’re not sure just where yet.”

   The Lt. Joseph J. Theinert 3-on-3 Basketball Tournament will be played at 1 p.m. on Saturday at the Shelter Island School to benefit the Lt. Joseph J. Theinert Memorial Fund, which supports programs for military families and veterans in need.

    Lieutenant Theinert, who grew up in Sag Harbor and on Shelter Island, once played the sport at the Shelter Island School, wearing the number 15 jersey, which was retired last year. He was killed in action in Afghanistan on June 4, 2010.

    Jimbo Theinert, one of his brothers, said last Thursday that the fund-raiser is “lighthearted and fun, as was Joe.” Held on Thanksgiving weekend, as it has been for the past three years, it brings people back for a positive experience, he said.

    And then there’s the competition. This year, Jimbo Theinert, who is now a teacher at the school, said he had recruited two top freshmen and brought back key players to his team, the Wrenches. He is its co-captain with John Goodleaf, who he said came up with the nickname Joe the Wrench for Lieutenant Theinert.

    The lieutenant’s high school coach, Mike Mundy, said he remembered his outstanding work ethic. “He was tenacious in everything he did . . . he never gave up, even if we were down by 20.” He recalled that Lieutenant Theinert’s last game at the school was his best.

    Tournament teams consist of three to seven players, and each must include at least one female and one student from any high school.

    Kelsey McGayhey, who was an all-county basketball player at the Shelter Island School last year, scoring more than 1,000 points in her career and having her jersey retired, has offered her services, though it has yet to be announced what lucky team will get her.

    “It is important to keep members on the same team from year to year,” Jimbo Theinert said, as it adds to the rivalry. Lieutenant Theinert’s family is split up among a few teams, he said, with his stepfather, Col. Frank Kestler, who has just returned from Afghanistan, playing on a team with his stepbrothers and stepsister. His brother Billy is on another team with some of Lieutenant Theinert’s close friends.

    Jimbo Theinert is getting younger kids from Shelter Island involved too. He said the tournament is one of the better events “for them to get to know Joe’s friends and family in a less serious light.”

    Some of the lieutenant’s friends whom he went to college with in Albany will also play, as will Dustin Mulcahy of Shelter Island, who is serving in the Army and stationed at Fort Drum, where Lieutenant Theinert also spent time.

    Carla Cadzin, a co-founder and organizer of the tournament, said there is a team from Greenport to look out for, and another called Jameson All Around Every Round, named in remembrance of the lieutenant.

    For some players, fashion takes precedence over skills — pink tutus are expected to be worn by a team called Pink Warrior Ninjas.

    New this year is the ability to play from anywhere in the world. The I Played for Joey part of the tourney offers participation and the chance to donate online.

    In addition to the basketball action, there will be snacks and a raffle contest, with prizes including gift certificates to Sweet Tomato’s on Shelter Island and the Wolffer Estate Vineyard in Sagaponack. Airbrushed tattoos will be offered in return for donations to the cause, as will memorial T-shirts, locally designed and printed this year by Cat Brigham of Shelter Island Clothing Company.

    Holding the tournament around the holiday season gives family and friends a new tradition during a time that can be hard for many people. “The event is about Joe,” said Jimbo Theinert, “the early years, the fun memories, the simple things in life. . . . He is a large part of it in a very positive way.”