Boys, Girls on the Upswing

   The East Hampton High School boys basketball team came up big at Elwood-John Glenn Monday night, defeating the Knights 59-52, thus improving to 5-3 in league play, good for third place, behind 7-0 Amityville and 7-1 Mount Sinai.

    Danny McKee, who hit three 3s, led the way with 21 points; Thomas King had 16; Juan Cuevas, 9; Patrick McGuirk, 7, and Thomas Nelson, 6. McGuirk also had 8 rebounds.

    Games remain with Bayport-Blue Point, Shoreham-Wading River, Amityville, and Westhampton Beach. Bayport is to play here tomorrow at 6:15 p.m. The Bonackers are to go to Shoreham Tuesday. Amityville plays here on Feb. 11 at 11:30 a.m., and Bill McKee’s team is to finish the regular season at Westhampton Beach on Feb. 14.

    It was the second time the Bonackers had defeated Glenn. They have wins over Westhampton, Shoreham, and Bayport, though they edged Shoreham by 1 point and Bayport by 2.

    East Hampton’s girls, who are to play at Bayport-Blue Point this afternoon, lost 50-30 here to Elwood-John Glenn on Friday, but Howard Wood said that for much of the game his team was competitive.

    “Allison McKenna [of Glenn] scored 27 points, but — I know it sounds strange to say this — we defended her well,” Wood said the next day. “Sarah Johnson did a great job on her. McKenna’s 6-2 and she can play, but she had to work for her points. . . . I’ve never seen Sarah play so well — it was great to see. She was going up and getting them. She’s become a lot more confident, she’s picked her game up.”

    Johnson finished with 11 points, “and she rebounded in double figures too.”

    It was 14-14 after the first quarter, during which Glenn’s coach was heard to tell his girls during a timeout that East Hampton “came to play.” Glenn led 26-20 at the half.

    Kaelyn Ward, who frequently draws box-and-one defenses and is double-teamed, also finished with 11 points for the Bonackers, leading Wood to say, “We do need one more scorer. The other teams are wearing Kaelyn down — she can’t be expected to do everything. We need a little more balance. That way we won’t be so predictable. I need one other girl to step up and say, ‘I can do it too.’ ”

    As for the playoffs, Wood said the team would have to win three of its final four to earn a berth, a tough row to hoe inasmuch as three of the four have wins over the Bonackers — Bayport by 47-35, Amityville by 44-43, and Shoreham by 54-28. Westhampton, which East Hampton defeated 43-41 the first time around, is to finish the regular season here on Feb. 14.