25 Years Ago in Bonac Sports: 10.12.17

October 22, 1992

Wedge blocking has been around since football began in America. Pudge Heffelfinger, Yale’s fabled left guard, solved the Flying V in the 1888 Princeton-Yale game by leaping and planting both feet in the point man’s chest after taking a running start, paving a path to the ball-carrier.

Heffelfinger’s zealous response is no longer allowed, though the wedge — a massed formation of linemen behind which the fullback plows forward — can come tumbling down if the defensive linemen stay low and cut the legs out from under the point man.

Sad to say, East Hampton’s defensive line did not do enough of that on Saturday. Coupled with Babylon’s success at running the option play — faked handoffs to the fullback followed by quarterback sweeps of the flanks — the wedge did the Bonackers in 40-25.

. . . The season is now really on the line for East Hampton. The team, it appears, must win all of its remaining games — with Hampton Bays, Stony Brook, Port Jefferson, and Mount Sinai — to make the playoffs.

The Springs Youth Association hopes to attract fourth, fifth, and sixth-grade boys and girls from all over town to play flag football behind the Springs School from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Saturday. Kelly McKee, Jeff Brown, and Steve Scott will be in charge.

Lara DeSanti scored both goals as the Smith College field hockey team defeated Babson 2-0 Saturday, while her high school coach, Ellen Cooper, watched. Cooper’s daughter, Becky, an East Hampton senior, also came to the game.

Carolina Vargas, another Cooper protégée, played an inside forward position for Babson. “I think the Babson coach will find that Carolina will play better at left wing,” said Cooper. “She’s like an eagle with her wings clipped.”

October 29, 1992

Kathleen McManus and Hannah Smith, East Hampton High School’s doubles entry in the Suffolk County girls tennis tournament, won the school’s first county title in doubles on Tuesday by defeating Patchogue-Medford’s Meredith Dragonette and Eileen Thompson 6-3, 6-0.

“Kathleen and Hannah played terrifically,” said John Goodman, a veteran boys and girls coach, who helps Jeff Yusko with the girls team. “Any coach would have been proud of the way they played — they kept the ball low, made the others hit up, played sequences of shots that led to putaways, and didn’t make too many errors. They were confident and had fun, which is what playing sports is all about.”

As they have all season, the senior team breezed through the tournament without losing a set, extending their match skein to 18-0. Dragonette and Thompson were also undefeated going into the final.

East Hampton’s field hockey team was not to be denied Friday, as it shut out Southold-Greenport 5-0 to close out the season as the undefeated League Five champion.

Bridget Behan, a junior, smacked in two goals, and Ellamae Gurney, a junior, Heather McCormack, a sophomore, and Kelly McMahon, a freshman, each had one. Gurney also had two assists. “We played the whole second half with our second-stringers,” Ellen Cooper, the coach, added.