25 Years Ago in Bonac Sports 04.12.12
March 12, 1987
It’s Glens Falls, Ho! for the Pierson High School girls basketball team, which on Tuesday night easily defeated Alexander Hamilton of Elmsford in the state Class D Southeastern Regional championship game at Sachem High School, 81-59.
After three minutes of to-and-fro, at which point Pierson held a slim 11-10 lead, the Whalers, using their height and well-executed fast break to advantage, left the younger and less-experienced Westchester County team farther and father in their wake.
“That’s what we wanted to do,” said Pierson’s coach, Larry Foden, afterward — “play an up-tempo game and control the boards. Offensively, we wanted to attack them in the paint, and, defensively, since we knew their outside shooting was shaky, we packed in our zone.”
. . . It was the fifth straight year in which Pierson’s girls team had made it to the state tournament. The motivation to win a state title is certainly there, for two years ago, when Katie Browngardt, Kyle Beyel, and Irene McMahon were sophomores, Pierson lost 59-58 in overtime to Morrisville-Eaton in the final.
Eric Kaufman wrestled one of the most exciting matches of his high school career and one of the most disappointing at the New York State championships in Syracuse last weekend.
The 112-pound Cornell-bound senior, who had on March 7 become the first East Hampton student ever to win a county title, reached the state semifinals in rousing fashion at the Onondaga War Memorial as he came from behind to pin Mike Reese of Elmira Southside, who earlier had upset a two-time state finalist, Shannon DeRouche of Massena.
The third period of the quarterfinal ended at 5-5 as Kaufman was awarded a point in the last three seconds for attaining a neutral position. In overtime, which was divided into three one-minute periods, Kaufman had fallen behind 5-2 when, with 10 seconds to go in the match, he pinned Reese, using a lateral drop to put him on his back for 5 points before pinning him at 8:52. The comeback had the crowd, estimated at 3,500, on its feet.
“The place went wild,” said East Hampton’s coach, Jim Stewart. “My heart was in my throat. Eric was interviewed by a lot of reporters from papers up there. The match caught the eye of a lot of college coaches.”
Kaufman pinned Gil Soto, the Public School Athletic League champion, in 4:56, using a half nelson. At the time of the pin Kaufman led 17-3.
That brings us to Kaufman’s most disappointing match, an 18-2 technical fall loss in the final on Saturday to Olean’s Jeff Prescott, a two-time state champion who had been undefeated in 119 matches going back to his freshman year.
Prescott, the tourney’s most outstanding wrestler last year, used combinations of takedowns and tilts to build up an insurmountable lead. “Eric was never in danger of being pinned,” said Stewart. “You can’t pin somebody with that move, but Prescott excels at it.”
. . . Kaufman thus wound up his career with a 105-12-1 (32-2-1 this season) record. He and two teammates, Amasa Winter and Orlando Blowe, sixth-place finishers in the county tournament, will be honored at an awards dinner in Smithtown on April 8.
Paul Annacone’s game is getting better and better. Ask Ivan Lendl, who was the top seed in the recently completed $1.8-million International Players Championships at Key Biscayne, Fla.
The eventual runner-up to Miloslav Mecir, Lendl had never lost a set to the East Hampton pro, but had to come back from being down two sets to one to best Annacone in a second-round match, 5-7, 7-6 (7-3), 4-6, 6-2, 6-2. Annacone, ranked 46th in the world at the moment, broke Lendl’s serve five times in the first three sets, but was unable to do so thereafter as the world’s top-ranked player prevailed in 80-degree heat.
March 19, 1987
The Killer Bees are dead, the Killer Bees are dead . . . Long live the Killer Bees. . . .
The state high school boys basketball championships and Bridgehampton have practically been synonymous, but this year there’ll be no trip to Glens Falls for the feisty, fast-breaking team that had until recently been ranked as the number-one small school in the state. The Bees, or Bridgies, as they are also known, lost 81-79 to Alexander Hamilton of Elmsford in Saturday’s state Class D Southeastern Regional final at the State University at Old Westbury.
Twice — at the outset and midway through the second quarter — the Bees went up by 10 points, but each time the psyched-up White Plains area opponent, whose shooting was uncannily accurate, came back.
. . . “It just doesn’t seem real that Bridgehampton won’t be going to Glens Falls this year,” said one fan. “It’s weird.”
Troy Bowe broke Carl Yastrzemski’s longstanding Bridgehampton School scoring record of 1,253 points with his 16th point, and wound up the game with 21. Duane White, who fouled out with 2:23 to go, was second-high for the Bees, with 19. “Duane played a helluva game,” said John Niles, Bridgehampton’s coach. “He asserted himself.” Bowe also had 11 assists, 8 rebounds, and 6 steals. His 1,259 career points were scored in a little over three years of varsity play.
. . . Bridgehampton, whose high school enrollment was 56 last fall — 26 boys and 30 girls — has won five state Class D championships in the past 10 years — in 1978, ’79, ’80, ’84, and ’86. The team was the runner-up in 1985.
The Racquet Club of East Hampton, which lies near the Long Island Rail Road tracks off Buckskill Road, has received permission from the Town Zoning Board of Appeals for four indoor tennis courts.
. . . The indoor tennis club, whose president, John Carr, expects to have it opened by the fall, would be the first indoor club east of the Hampton Tennis Academy in Quogue, which, for East Hamptoners, is a 40-minute drive away. . . . The project still is subject to site plan approval by the Town Planning Board before the courts and proposed pre-engineered metal-sided building to house them can be built.