Where has all the smoked whiting gone? There was a time when it seemed smoked whiting was everywhere. Bars in Montauk put it out for snacks. Not putting out a smoked whiting appetizer at Christmastime was considered a grave social faux pas. In barter transactions, smoked whiting was stable currency.

    Michael Potts, captain of the Blue Fin IV charter boat, reported that during a productive day of fishing on Sunday — “no dogs, a beautiful day to start, then rough in the afternoon with a southwest wind” — 32 cod were caught along with two dozen sea bass. The sea bass were returned to the sea, as the season closed at the end of December. They shouldn’t even have been there if the winter had not been so mild.

    Potts said his customers, from upstate, reeled up between 80 and 90 ling cod that they intended to put in their smokers. They cut them like you prepare whiting, an angled cut behind the head that leaves you with a gutless, headless body ready for the brine.

    It was the eagerness with which his customers attacked the ling that caused the veteran charterman to wonder at how rare smoked whiting had become.

    A call to the Seafood Shop in Wainscott might have solved the mystery. Seems that regulations have become stricter for smoking houses.

    Ken Milman, director of quality control for Acme Smoked Fish Corporation of Brooklyn, said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration put out new regulations in April of last year. “It’s affected smoking. Lots more documentation, but it’s all to improve food safety. I don’t know why you don’t have it out there. We make it almost every day and send it all over the country.”

    Maybe it’s because the regs have shut down smaller commercial operations. Thankfully, the supply of whiting is fairly steady offshore. Perhaps it’s time to find a friendly draggerman and dust off the old, backyard smoker.

    Word has it that there seems to be a relative lack of enthusiasm among sportfishermen for the march on Washington, D.C., planned for Wednesday. The Long Island Commercial Fishing Association and the Viking Fleet of party boats (both based in Montauk) have sponsored a bus that will depart the Viking Fleet’s parking lot at 5 a.m. that day.

    Two years ago, the first Washington fishing rally drew thousands of fishermen from all over the country to complain about how the Magnuson-Stevens Act (the body of U.S. fishing laws) was being applied. Some positive changes resulted from the protest, but Bonnie Brady, executive director of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, said that the 10-year deadline imposed in 1996 to bring fish populations up to “sustainable” levels set by the National Marine Fisheries Service was unrealistic.

    “The fallout has been the economic strangulation of [fishing] communities without a shred of scientific evidence to support the 10-year timeline,” she said.

    Captain Potts said on Tuesday that the lack of enthusiasm from the sportfishing industry, compared to the 2010 rally, might be due to a slight loosening of restrictions on summer flounder (fluke) regulations, and “porgies have loosed up, too — the interest is about half.”

    “There’s not even a bus out of Freeport yet. We need bodies down there,” Captain Potts said.

   The Killer Bees of Bridgehampton had, according to Carl Johnson’s assistant, Joe Zucker, a pretty good chance to win Saturday’s state Class D Southeast regional playoff game against Livingston Manor.

    The Bees, who wound up losing 69-53, took a 2-point lead into the halftime break, and were confident, “but our lack of experience and failure to get back on defense a few times in the second half turned the tide,” said Zucker.

    Caanan Campbell, who Zucker thinks ought to make all-county, finished “a great career” with 21 points, Jason Hopson, a junior forward, had 12, as did Josh Lamison, one of two eighth graders — the other is the point guard, Tylik Furman — who started this season. “Our two eighth graders played really well,” said Zucker. “Josh had countless rebounds to go with his 12 points.”

    With “four good players coming back — Jason, Josh, Tylik, and, hopefully, Davion Cooper — we should compete again to go upstate next year. I think what hurt us this year was our lack of experience. Eleven of Livingston Manor’s 12 players were seniors.”

    In other recent postseason action, the Pierson (Sag Harbor) High School Whalers, who won Suffolk’s Class C championship — the first such a Pierson boys team has won since 1994, when the Whalers, then led by Tyler Ratcliffe, won the D title — were ousted 63-27 in the Long Island final by East Rockaway. Pierson went into the game without its sparkplug sophomore point guard, Ian Barrett, who was sidelined by an ankle injury.

    A Whaler partisan, when asked for a recounting, said, “We just didn’t have any life.”

    As is the case with Bridgehampton, most of Pierson’s players — all of whom play the year round — will be back next winter.   

   Mark Crandall, who’s hopeful that the Hoops 4 Hope program he’s overseen in Zimbabwe and South Africa for the past 18 years will continue to grow, is nevertheless mindful that, despite the organization’s fine reputation, fund-raising has been a continuous struggle, he said during a conversation at The Star before flying to Africa the other day.

    “We’ve got 2,000 pairs of sneakers at the Neighborhood House,” he said, “but, while everyone wants to give you sneakers, they don’t necessarily want to raise the money so that you can send them across the world. . . . In Zimbabwe we’re in over 100 schools, but we don’t have basketballs.”

    Well-wishing was well and good, he said, but Hoops 4 Hope, which uses basketball as a gateway to its life skills courses in such topics as H.I.V. prevention, gender equality, and leadership, courses aimed at redirecting at-risk youth, needs to become “sustainable. . . . We want to take our model and share it farther and wider, but we can’t undersell it anymore. We need $1 million to become sustainable, and in order to do that we need corporate sponsorships.”

    “We led a $100,000 grant from the German government that reached 1,000 kids and 120 coaches in Cape Town during the World Cup. It was about upscaling these amazing coaches and investing in them. It allowed us to go out from the city into rural areas. It allowed us to show our model and made it clear how much money we should be spending. Angela Merkel came down and checked it out and was pleased. But now that money is gone.”

    Crandall, while he still remains a volunteer C.E.O. after all these years, has hopes for the Internet. “We’ve dived into social media, the word’s definitely getting out, we are getting more exposure, but we’ve got to harness it. It’s amazing we’ve been able to do so much with so little.”

    There had, he said, been some especially good news recently, in the fact that Cape Town had agreed to turn over an indoor-outdoor recreation complex in the center of the city to Hoops 4 Hope’s management. The complex will serve as the organization’s center there.

    “There’s an all-purpose pitch, indoor and outdoor basketball courts . . . a weight room, a stage, offices. . . . The city has the facilities, but can’t afford any programs. We have programs, but, until now, no space. So it’s been a good partnership.”

    The Amagansettter added that “the family and friends of a guy from Brooklyn who visited our pilot program in Mozambique last year with his son, and who died in the fall, are raising money so that we can refurbish the outdoor court and name it after him, Steve’s Memorial Court. A recent party in the city raised $8,000 so we can do this and pay a coach too.”

    “We have a big presence in Cape Town, but we’ve been on austerity the last couple of years. This center, in the heart of where we’ve had our programs over the years, and which has an indoor gymnasium, will provide us a fun and safe place where we can deliver our curriculum.”

    The center would also serve as a home court for Hoops 4 Hope’s all-star club team, some of whose members, he said, have gone on to play for provincial and national teams.

    Hoops 4 Hope had also served, Crandall said, as a stepping stone for its all-star coaches, alumni leaders whom the organization had made “as employable as possible. . . . We are making an impact on these people’s lives.”

    Hoops 4 Hope’s Zimbabwean center, in Harare, has had Internet access for the past two months, he said; the one in Cape Town as of yet did not. “We’ve got an Internet clubhouse ready to go, but we need a corporate sponsor. Then we could tell their story and show their logo and prove our programs are working.”

    Speaking of Harare, “United States consulate people there are going to send one of our girls to the N.C.A.A. women’s finals in Denver, and two of our coaches are going to the men’s N.C.A.A. finals. . . . The N.B.A. has enabled us to benefit from the sale of tickets to the Broadway play celebrating the lives of Magic Johnson and Larry Bird. I’m hoping that will help us get our word out in New York. That’s where we need to be. We’re trying to find office space in the city, in an incubator space or with a like-minded organization — a place where we could have an intern. It would have to be basically free. We can’t pay rent.”

    East Hampton Bowl was packed Sunday morning with the parents, teachers, and friends of 60 young bowlers with disabilities who, in high spirits and urged on by the applause of their elders and peers, participated in a tournament that capped two months of practice.

    “Special Olympics enables disabled athletes to compete with their peers,” said Whitney Reidlinger, an occupational therapist at the Springs School who introduced Special Olympics bowling here five years ago. “You can see how they take to it. We’ve got bowlers from 8 years old to 21, from Sayville, Southampton, Springs, Montauk, and East Hampton — the elementary school, middle school, and high school. It’s wonderful for socialization, having them all together. Friendships are built here. . . .”

    Looking about her, she added, “It’s a great event, it’s nice to see the community come together like this. We had the Springs School band play the national anthem. Girl Scouts and Brownies are selling Girl Scout cookies. We even have a D.J.” — Josh Brussell.

    In a separate conversation later in the week, Reidlinger said in answer to a  question that the range of disabilities among the participants included Down syndrome, autism, intellectual disabilities, and visual impairment. “And,” as she said the other day, “they very much like the competition and the socialization, which helps them with developing independence. Some of them two years ago had to have others put their shoes on and to carry the ball. Now, they can do these things themselves.”

    As for the dance party afterward — Brussell volunteered his time — “the kids love it,” she said. “It’s wonderful for their socialization, it gives them a chance to relax. At the states, they have a dance — it’s almost a formal.”

    The Springs PTA donated sandwiches that day, and the hot dogs and chips were paid for through a January bake sale put on by that district’s special athletes. The cookies and cakes, baked by the kids, “were in the shape of different planets and stars . . . in connection with their astronomy and living skills lessons.”

    “They’re shy in the beginning,” said one of the bowlers’ aides, Vanessa Edwardes, a paraprofessional at the John M. Marshall Elementary School who was, along with Pam Carroll, helping 11-year-old Luke Brierley. “And then they blossom.”

    After slapping high-fives with Acie Harris, a 14-year-old Montauker, Ha­leigh Schellinger said, “Today’s his birthday.”

    Erin Abran, a third-grade teacher at John Marshall and the high school varsity softball team’s assistant coach, said, “The bowling alley’s been very generous. Today is free and they let us practice at discounted rates. It’s amazing, they’re having fun, they’re cheering each other, which is what it’s all about.”

    An open Special Olympics bowling tournament is to be held June 3 at the Sayville Lanes, and an Islandwide track and field meet for Special Olympians is to be held at the Connetquot High School on May 6. Those events will be qualifiers for the state’s Special Olympics competition in Buffalo in June.

    “They’ll have just about everything at the track and field meet but the hurdles,” said Reidlinger. “Sprints, the shot-put, the long jump, the high jump. . . . In one of the meets I was at, a blind athlete, tethered to a guide rope, ran the 800!”

    Sunday’s gold medal winners, all from East Hampton, were: Mary Kate Kopka in the female 8-to-11-year-old division; Jennifer Brito Belo, female 12-15; LeMy Hoang, female 16-18.

    Yonathan Dias, male 8-to-9; Adam Gebo-Rosenthal, male 10-11; Bryan Chacon, male 12-15; Robert Brodrick, male 16-18; Anthony Palacios, male 19-year-olds, and Joseph Hodgens, male 20-year-olds.

    The ramp bowling winners were Kerri Schieder of Montauk, female 8-to-11; Paul Retana of Springs, female 12-15; Luke Brierley of East Hampton, male 8-11; Isaiah Brodie of Springs, male 12-13, and Kendall Vorpahl of Montauk, male 14-15.

    Montauk’s fishing community was saddened by the death of Bobby Huser on Monday. Most will picture him at the wheel of his classic Nova Scotia-style lobster boat, Teddy Boy. The Muskrat, as he was known, was a popular presence on the Montauk docks for decades. He will be sorely missed.

    Monday’s cold snap was preceded by a good day of cod fishing on Sunday aboard the Viking Star. Capt. Carl Forsberg reported six to eight cod on the line around the boat at all times in the morning, with solid fishing at the trip’s end after a midday lull. Mavros Bennis was the high hook with 23 keeper cod. Montauk’s veteran angler Freddy Shay ended up with 16. He’s got the touch.

    Peter Spacek went after cod on Friday aboard the Star and reported tough fishing with more fish caught from the stern section than in the bow section where he was. However, Spacek did come in second in the pool, and caught a few ling to boot. Those aboard the Star witnessed whales feeding with plenty of birds including gannets. Herring were most likely what the whales were eating.

    Plenty of herring were reported in the New York Bight to the west of us, with striped bass feeding on big schools of them. Mackerel are around as well. Unfortunately there are plenty of dogfish to steal clam baits before the terminal gear even reaches the bottom.

    At least one UpIsland charter boat has been advertising catch-and-release striper trips in the Bight. The State Department of Environmental Conservation allows catch-and-release fishing for bass. The regular season will start on April 15.

    On Monday, March 21, busloads of recreational and commercial fishermen will descend on Upper Senate Park in Washington, D.C., to protest what is being called the unjust administration of the nation’s fishing laws. So far, one bus will depart from Montauk for the rally at 5 a.m. on that day. More information about the rally can be found at keep ­fishermenfishing.com.

Friday, March 9

GIRLS BASKETBALL, Smithtown Christian eighth-grade team at East Hampton Middle School, 4:30 p.m.

Saturday, March 10

BOYS BASKETBALL, New York State regional finals, Class C bracket, Pierson-East Rockaway winner vs. Pine Plains-Tuckahoe winner, 2:45 p.m.; Class D bracket, Bridgehampton vs. Section I/IX winner, 4:30 p.m.

Sunday, March 11

LIFEGUARDING, training, evaluating and testing for 2012 summer junior lifeguard program, ages 9 through 14, Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter, 1:30-2:30 p.m., through June 17; skills and conditioning for lifeguard trainees, ages 15 and up, Y.M.C.A., 2:30-4:30 p.m., through April 18.

Monday, March 12

GIRLS BASKETBALL, Montauk eighth-grade team at East Hampton Middle School, 3:30 p.m.

WRESTLING, Southampton at East Hampton Middle School, 4:30 p.m.

Tuesday, March 13

SOFTBALL, Hampton Bays at East Hampton, scrimmage, 4 p.m.

Wednesday, March 14

GIRLS LACROSSE, William Floyd at East Hampton, scrimmage, 4:30 p.m.

LIFEGUARDING, skills and conditioning for lifeguard trainees, ages 15 and up, Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter, 7-9:15 p.m

   Basketball is arguably the most exciting game inasmuch as the presumptive victors can become the vanquished in the blink of an eye.

    Such was the case Saturday at Oswego State’s Max Ziel gymnasium as a line-drive N.B.A.-length 3-pointer by Eastern Connecticut’s Brian Salzillo with 2.5 seconds left in the second overtime period stuck a dagger into Hayden Ward and his Laker teammates’ hearts.

    As a result of the stunning 70-69 loss, Oswego State, which, with the 6-foot-6-inch Bonac graduate making major contributions, had gone through the regular season undefeated, was ousted from the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s Division III tournament.

    The night before, Ward and the Lakers had come out on top of another thriller, turning back Endicott 72-71 in OT. It was the second year in a row that Oswego State had lost in the second round of the N.C.A.A. tournament.

    “It was a battle the whole game,” the junior from Montauk said during a conversation Monday afternoon. “Very much like Friday’s game. We were able to force two overtimes. We were down by 5 points in the last minute of the first one. . . . We never gave up; we weren’t going down without a fight.”

    In Friday’s first-round contest (both of the weekend’s games were played on the higher-seeded Oswego’s court), Ward, who normally hits 80 percent of his free throws, suffered at the line, going 3-for-10, including two misses at the end of regulation that could have clinched it for Oswego.

    Ward’s fellow forward, Chad Burridge, saved the day, however, scoring all 6 of the Lakers’ points in O.T. Endicott managed to can a half-court shot at the buzzer, but this time, with Oswego having been up 72-68, the 3-pointer was moot.

    Further testimony to Oswego’s never-say-die grit can be found in the fact that the Lakers came from behind in both games — from 13 points down in the second half of the game with Endicott, and from 10 down in the second half of the game with Eastern Connecticut, as well as from 5 down in that game’s first overtime period.

    Ward, who finished Friday’s game with 18 points and 14 rebounds, made 6 of 7 free throw attempts the next night, including two that tied the score at 54-54 with 32 seconds left and forced overtime.

    Eastern Connecticut, according to an account on Oswego’s Web site, “went on a 6-1 run in the first four minutes of the overtime, but a 3-pointer by Sean Michele, a senior from East Rochester, with 15 seconds left, gave the Lakers new hope.”

    “After the Warriors missed two free throw attempts on the other end, the Lakers brought the ball up the floor, down 60-58. Michele drove the lane and found an open Chris Gilkes right under the basket with three-tenths of a second left, sending the game into a second overtime.”

    “Ward hit a 3 early in the second OT and Burridge added a free throw, but a quick 5-0 run put the Warriors up 65-64 with 1:50 to play.”

    “Ward put the Lakers back in front with a bucket in the paint, and a Warrior miss allowed Oswego State to run some time off the clock.”

    “Ryan Sheridan drew a foul with one second left on the shot clock, and hit both free throws for a 68-65 Laker lead.”

    “With 12.1 seconds left, Eastern Connecticut put back an offensive rebound for 68-67 and fouled Michele. Michele made one of the free throws for 69-67. The Warriors came down and, with 2.5 seconds left, Brian Salzillo hit a deep 3-pointer from the top of the key. Much like the night before, Burridge threw a long pass to Ward at the top of the key for one final shot, but the Warriors defended it well, the shot fell short, ending the game and the Lakers’ season.”

    While he hadn’t seen Salzillo’s game-changer, which had been “pretty well defended,” Ward said fans had told him later it had followed a line-drive trajectory. “Unfortunately, it went in. . . . While it was a tough loss, there was no better way to lose.”

    A business administration major with a minor in coaching, Ward, who was recently named to the all-SUNYAC first team, said he would take a couple of weeks off before resuming weight training and individual skill work.

    And next year? “We’re graduating five or six seniors, but we have a strong junior class. I’m confident we’ll have a very good year, that we can repeat as the SUNYAC champion and, hopefully, get a chance to go deeper into the national tournament.”

    Yes, he agreed, basketball was an exciting game, “though sometimes it doesn’t go the way you want.”

    Asked during a conversation in between county classification contests last Thursday how his team, the Pierson High School Whalers, got to be so good, Dan White, who’s in his second season coaching boys basketball in Sag Harbor, said, “The big thing is that the kids are playing year round.”

    Last year’s senior-heavy team, whose players didn’t play the year round, went 5-9 in league competition, but this winter White reaped a bonanza as Jon Tortorella’s 12-2 junior varsity moved up.

    Before this campaign began, White, who played in New York State’s Final Four Class C tournament in 2005 with Hoosic Valley High School’s team, and who later was a guard at Springfield College in Springfield, Mass., made a gentleman’s bet with his former-New York Knick assistant, Eric Anderson, as to how the 2011-12 Whalers would do.

    “Anderson said he thought we’d go 10-4, and I said 11-3. He won.”

    While there are no D-1 prospects on the team, Pierson’s players are energetic, tough, well drilled, and they’ve benefited, their coach said, from “playing against guys who are more athletic than they are in the off-season.”

    Pierson finished one game behind Stony Brook in League VIII and then went on to topple the Bears 34-32 in the final second of the county Class C championship game thanks to the sophomore Forrest Loesch’s 3-pointer from 22 feet out on the left wing.

    That victory — the first county boys basketball championship the school had won in 18 years — followed an equally exciting semifinal with Port Jefferson played in Pierson’s gym on Feb. 17. Loesch came up big in that one too, scoring all 4 of the Whalers’ points in O.T. on the way to a 36-35 final.

    “These guys play together on travel teams in the spring, summer, and fall — I set it up,” said White, whom Anderson has described as “a perfect coach — he’s a basketball junkie, and he’s got that number-one thing every A.D. looks for — that motor, that energy.”

    Joe Zucker, Carl Johnson’s assistant at Bridgehampton, had nice things to say about White as well before the county’s C-D game was played by Bridgehampton and Pierson at Farmingdale State College on Feb. 22. “He’s done a great job with his team,” Zucker said. “They run a tough man-for-man defense, they’re good with the ball, they run the clock, and they can all shoot.”

    It was true, White said last Thursday, “they were always good shooters. But there’s more to the game than that. We’ve been working with them on such things as ball pressure, running the floor, finishing. . . . Now they’re starting to become physically and mentally tough. There are no stars; they play as a pretty solid unit, with mutual respect.”

    “Ninety percent of the time,” he said, in reply to a question, “we play man-for-man defense. We played man against Port Jeff and man against Bridgehampton, but if a team has a couple of good shooters who can give us trouble, like Stony Brook had, we’ll play a match-up zone.”

    He was looking forward, he said, to the following day’s county B-C-D game with Class B champion Center Moriches “because they play a style we’re not used to. They constantly press — pressure, pressure, pressure. It will be an excellent warm-up for the state tournament.”

    Pierson is to play East Rockaway in a state regional semifinal at Farmingdale on Tuesday at 5 p.m. The winner of that game is to play the Section I/IX winner at the State University at New Paltz on March 10. Bridgehampton is also to play at New Paltz that day, versus the Section I/IX Class D winner.

    White said he saw East Rockaway, a team that bested the Killer Bees 73-60 in the Beehive in December, defeat Friends Academy on television recently. “Their inside men are a little bigger, but I think our guards are a little better.”

    Speaking of guards, Pierson’s coach said his sophomore point guard, Ian Barrett, “makes us go . . . Jackson Marienfeld [a junior] is good too.”

    Eric Anderson, he said, “has brought Sam Miller, our inside man, a long way — he’s been close to averaging 10 points and 10 rebounds a game for us in the second half of the season. . . . And Joey Butts, while at 5-7 he’s not physically imposing, is a shooter. He’s great coming off screens, he has a quick release, and can beat guys off the dribble. We look for him to shoot 10 to 15 times a game.”

    “Our defense,” White added, “has been giving up 43 points on average, which is pretty good, and we try to take 55 shots a game. If we score 50 to 60 points and play good defense we ought to be able to win most of the time.”

    League VIII was topsy-turvy this winter. The Whalers, for instance, handily defeated Bridgehampton twice in league play, but lost both times to Greenport, which, in turn, was routed 73-50 by the Bees in the recent county Class D championship game. Pierson split with Ross, losing 65-30 to the Cosmos on Feb. 7, and the Whalers split, as well, with league-champion Stony Brook, losing 60-35 to the Bears at home on Jan. 17 but rebounding to defeat the Brooksters 49-45 on Feb. 13.

    “The second time we played Stony Brook, when we beat them at their place, I began to think we might have a good playoff run,” said White, “that if we played our game we could go pretty far.”

    While he’s taking it one game at a time, Pierson’s young coach is aware that Pierson hasn’t won a state boys basketball championship since 1978. However the Whalers do in the state tourney this year, White is secure in the knowledge that “we’re turning things around.”

    It was “complete dumb luck” that he had ever come down here, he said, in answer to another question. “I had graduated from college and I was about to become an assistant coach on the college team when Jeff Nichols [Pierson’s principal] called. He’d seen my résumé online. It was July of ’09. I hopped on a ferry and gave a lesson in European handball to a group at the middle school. But I think he liked it that I had a basketball background. I was offered a job that day, and here I am.”

    “It’s easy,” he continued, “when you work with kids who want to learn. I work with the middle school kids too. Joey Butts never stops working, so why should I?”

   The Bees may be back, but the Whalers are too, and so it was that in the county C-D boys basketball game at Farmingdale State on Feb. 22, Sag Harbor’s players took the measure of their Bridgehampton counterparts by a score of 57-41.

    The outcome, however, was moot insofar as the state tournament was concerned. Both teams had already made it by virtue of county championship wins — the Class D Bees over Greenport and the Class C Whalers over Stony Brook. Yet Pierson will have to scale one more hurdle — on Tuesday at Farmingdale State, where it is to meet East Rockaway — before the Whalers can join Bridgehampton in Southeast Regional competition at the State University at New Paltz on March 10, the Bees having been granted a pass because there are no Class D schools in Nassau County.

    The Whalers were to go on to lose 68-36 Friday to a full-court-pressing Center Moriches team in the county B-C-D game, a contest that Pierson’s coach, Dan White, said he hoped would help prepare his charges for the state tourney.

    Last week’s clash between the Killer Bees and Whalers was the third of the season for the South Fork schools, who played in League VIII, the Whalers having won both regular-season games by comfortable margins.

    Before it began, Joe Zucker, who assists Carl Johnson in coaching Bridgehampton, said, with a smile, “I don’t know, we just seem to struggle against them. Greenport clobbered them in one of their games and Ross waxed them in one of theirs, but we can’t seem to beat them. . . . Pierson outhustled us in the first two games. It will come down to who executes the best and who wants it the most.”

    It was Pierson that turned out to have more desire that day, as evidenced by its energetic man-for-man defense that only Caanan Campbell, the Bees’ 6-foot-5-inch star, who finished with 21 points, could withstand, and by its swift ball movement at the other end of the court, which frequently found the open man.

    The teams played toe-to-toe throughout the first one and a half quarters, though, at that point, the Whalers began to pull away a bit thanks to two foul shots by Patrick Sloane, a 3-pointer from the top of the key by Jackson Marienfeld after Sloane had picked Jason Hopson’s pocket, and a basket by Sloane, who was fed by Forrest Loesch — the sophomore hero of the Whalers’ 36-35 Class C semifinal win over Port Jefferson and the 34-32 win over Stony Brook in the Class C championship game.

    The hero role this time, however, fell to Joey Butts, a hard-working 5-7 junior guard who was to finish with a team-high 17 points. A coast-to-coast layup of his after he’d stolen the ball from Hopson got the third quarter going and increased Pierson’s lead to 13. A 3-pointer of his in the final two minutes of the third period extended the Whalers’ lead to 45-27, and back-to-back fast-break layups by him, driving the margin up to 17, earned Butts and his fellow starters seats on the bench, and applause, as their coach brought on the subs.

    Butts, as aforesaid, finished with 17 points. Sloane had 12, and Sam Miller, the senior inside man, had 10 to go with 10 rebounds.

   Hayden Ward, who played on back-to-back East Hampton High School state Final Four basketball teams in 2008 and ’09, has kicked it up a notch at Oswego State, which with his considerable help went 21-0 in conference play before sweeping through tournament games this past week with New Paltz, Brockport, and Cortland to become the State University of New York Athletic Conference champion.

    The last time the Lakers, who take an overall record of 25-3 into the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s Division III tournament, wound up at the top of the SUNYAC heap was in 1965, almost 50 years ago.

    A junior who is 6 feet 6 inches tall and weighs 220 pounds — 20 pounds heavier than he was in high school, “most of it muscle” — Ward has been a force underneath for Oswego State the past two seasons. He was named by the conference’s coaches to the all-SUNYAC first team Monday, two days after his 24-point, 13-rebound performance — his eighth double-double of the season — led Oswego State to a 66-57 win over Cortland in the SUNYAC final. He was named to the all-tournament team, and a teammate of his, Chad Burridge, was named the tournament’s M.V.P.

    As a result of its conference championship, Oswego State is one of 62 teams in the nationwide N.C.A.A. tourney, and is to play host this weekend to first and second-round games. The Lakers are to play Endicott (20-8) tomorrow, and, should they win, the Eastern Connecticut State-Medaille winner at home Saturday. Eastern Connecticut takes a 22-5 record into the tournament, Medaille, a Buffalo school, comes in with a 25-2 mark. 

    Sectional games are to be played at sites yet to be determined on March 9 and 10. The Final Four games are to be played in Salem, Va., at the Salem Civic Center, over the March 16 to 17 weekend.

    The affable Montauker said during a telephone conversation Monday that he had been pleasantly surprised to see his family in the stands at the final — “It’s a long trip, eight to nine hours” — and pleased, as well, to receive a congratulatory phone call afterward from his former coach, Ed Petrie, who had watched a Webcast of the game.

    It was the third time in a row that Oswego State had beaten Cortland, but going through the league undefeated, said Ward, who has averaged 16 points and 9 rebounds per game, “was by no means a walk in the park — we could have lost a couple of those games.”

    Asked to what extent he had improved since his high school days, Ward said, presumably with a slight smile, “I’m a little bit stronger and a little bit smarter.” He had worked hard on his vertical leap off-season, he added.

    Petrie, who told this writer that Ward had “played a terrific game,” remarked in the post-game conversation on his protege’s “hard work down low” and on the way he’d gone after rebounds.

    Ward’s coach, Jason Leone, had this to say in an e-mail message: “Hayden has had a phenomenal junior season during which his game has reached new heights because of his hard work. In addition, he’s become a more committed defensive player and is more physical around the basket, which has allowed him to shoot more free throws per game and thus improve his scoring numbers. He is an integral part of our team and I’m proud of him.”

    When asked about the coming N.C.A.A. tournament, Ward said, “We’ve got a very strong team — we’ve been playing together for three years now. We’re confident. If we play as hard and compete as well as we did in our conference tournament, I think we can play with anybody in the country.”