The Bridgehampton High School Killer Bees are not tall, though they proved to be a tall order for East Hampton High’s boys basketball team in the championship game of the Kendall Madison Tip-Off tournament here Saturday, Dec. 14.
Eventually, the Bonackers were to prevail 52-42, but only after switching from a man-for-man defense to a 2-3 zone at halftime.
“That was a smart move,” Carl Johnson, the Bees’ veteran coach, said afterward of East Hampton’s coach, Dave Conlon. “You’ve got to be more patient when you’re up against a 2-3 zone, and we weren’t. Our offense was virtually nonexistent. We’ve got to settle down, we’ve got to work on maintaining our composure.”
Faced with that learning experience early on in the season is, however, a good thing insofar as the Bees’ statewide Class D aspirations are concerned. With his two Newsday Top 100 players, Jai Feaster and Alex Davis, having been bolstered by four talented transfers — Jordan Harding, Jaylin Harding, and Jackson Harding, sons of J.P. Harding, who ruled the paint when Bridgehampton won a state championship in 1996, and Xavier Johnson, the coach’s cousin — the elder Johnson has good reason to think that the 2024 Bees have it in them to go all the way. Should they, it would be the 10th state championship for the tiny school, and its first since 2015.
The Tip-Off tournament has been played since 2014 in memory of Kendall Madison, a bright and gifted East Hampton and University of Connecticut athlete who died young, on Jan. 23, 1995, at the age of 21. Soon after his death, a foundation in his name was set up with the New York Community Trust to provide college-bound awardees here with mentoring scholarships, requiring that they give back to their successors.
One of the foundation’s founders, Peter Goodson, said at the time, “This is about helping as many kids, boys and girls, to be as good as they can be. It’s not just about being smart. We’re more interested in community service and leadership — in stewardship. That was what Kendall was about.”
Friday’s openers, which matched Bridgehampton with the Ross School and East Hampton with Shelter Island, were blowouts, the Bonackers routing Shelter Island 79-39 and the Bees trouncing Ross 52-25.
Saturday’s consolation matchup between the Ravens and Hareleggers, as could be expected, proved to be a tightly contested one, with Shelter Island prevailing 54-53 thanks to the crunchtime 4-for-4 foul-shooting of Harrison Weslek.
A Shelter Island 3-pointer at the buzzer tied the first-quarter score at 15-15. Shelter Island took a 27-25 lead into the halftime break, and increased its lead to 6 points going into the final period.
With about a minute to play, Harrison Weslek, who was fouled as he went for a fast-break layup following Evan Weslek’s steal, made one of the two free throws for a 50-46 S.I. lead, but Ross countered with a fast-break basket by Rowan O’Brien, who was fouled as he laid the ball in. He missed the subsequent free throw, after which Harrison Weslek drew fouls and worked his magic at the free-throw line, his last swish putting the game out of reach, rendering moot Wyatt Yektai’s 3-pointer in the last three seconds.
In the final, Bridgehampton, playing fiercely, jumped out to a 13-5 first-quarter lead, and remained ahead, by 22-18, at the halftime break.
East Hampton’s Toby Foster, who was to be named the tourney’s most valuable player, was shut out in his six first-quarter attempts. He got on the scoreboard as the result of a 3-pointer with two minutes gone in the second period, and went on from there.
A made free throw by Bonac’s point guard put East Hampton up 32-31 in the final seconds of the third, and he took over the game in the fourth.
With East Hampton up 36-35 after three minutes were gone in the final period, Foster, after stealing the ball, converted a 3-point play, after which free throws by his fellow guard, Mason Jefferson, who drew a blocking foul as he went to the hoop, and Foster, following a technical foul assessed one of the Bees, upped Bonac’s lead to 43-35. Another basket by Foster made it 45-35 with four and a half minutes remaining, a lead that the Bees were not able to overcome.
Foster finished with a game-high 23 points, 11 of them coming in the fourth quarter, thus earning him the M.V.P. nod. Joining him on the all-tournament team were Jefferson, Bridgehampton’s Jordan Harding, and O’Brien of Ross.
