25 Years Ago in Bonac Sports 03.21.13

March 3, 1988

    There’ll be no trip to the state playoffs for Bridgehampton High School’s Killer Bees this year. The Bees, who last lost a county Class D championship game in 1983, were defeated in the D contest Saturday by Eastport, 60-46.

    . . . “We’re young,” said the Bees’ coach, John Niles. “We’ll be a very good team in two years — that is, if we keep the school,” he added, referring to the petition for a referendum to transport Bridgehampton’s upper grades either to Southampton or East Hampton.

    The East Hampton Town men’s slow-pitch softball league will hold an organizational meeting at the East Hampton Village Annex at 7 p.m. March 21.

    Dan Mazzeo, a league spokesman, said the 12-team, two-division league will remain the same size, although Rivera Landscaping is moving up and Sam’s is moving down.

    A trophy that’s to be awarded each year to the winner of the Mecox Ice Yacht Club’s DN series has been named in memory of the late Ed (Rock) Hildreth, “the father of DN racing on Mecox Bay — a designer, craftsman, builder, innovator, and friend of every iceboater. His competitive spirit and championship racing record brought recognition to our club.”

March 10, 1988

    Eric Kaufman, the 1987 East Hampton High School graduate who wrestled at 118 pounds for Cornell University this season as a freshman, learned following the Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association tournament at Syracuse last weekend that he had been selected as the Ivy League’s wrestling rookie of the year.

    What was said to be the first scratch 600 series ever bowled by a junior at East Hampton Bowl was recorded last week by Peter Maxey, a Springs School seventh grader, in winning the B division of a Coca-Cola-sponsored handicap tournament.

March 24, 1988

    John Conner, Springs’ rapid 53-year-old realtor, won his age group’s national indoor mile and two-mile titles last weekend at the Athletic Congress’s masters championships at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.

    Conner, who competes in the 50-to-54-year-old division, won the mile in 4:53.62, and the two-mile in 10:37.63.

    The last time Conner won a national indoor title (in the mile) was in 1977, although in 1985 he won the national outdoor 1,500-meter race for 50-to-54-year-olds in 4:27.6. . . . The mile record for 53-year-olds is 4:49.3.

March 31, 1988

    Kenny Wood, East Hampton’s 6 foot, 5 inch junior center, who led the county in scoring, averaging 30.6 points per game, was named as the county’s most valuable player at the Suffolk County Basketball Coaches Association’s dinner in Riverhead last Thursday.

    “We’re thrilled,” said East Hampton’s athletic director, Richard Cooney. “It’s fantastic. I don’t remember a junior ever winning it. Also, I don’t believe an East Hampton player has ever won it.”

    While he won an Athletics Congress Eastern States regional masters indoor mile at the Carrier Dome in Syracuse, N.Y., Sunday, John Conner, the veteran Springs runner, failed in his bid to break a world record for 53-year-olds.

    In winning the senior mile in 4:52.9, Conner bested a dozen over-45 entrants, but missed the 53-year-old mark he was aiming for by 3.6 seconds.

    “The reason I didn’t get it was because there was no fear in me,” he said. “I didn’t have a pacer, no person who was a known quantity, so I didn’t attack. I ran the first half in 2:27; I should have run it in 2:20. I wasted that first half. . . . World records are world records because they’re hard to break.”