May 29, 1999
Victory seemed to be within the East Hampton High School baseball team’s grasp Tuesday as Mike Talmage, the Bonackers’ third hurler of the afternoon, speared a line drive off the bat of Rocky Point’s Tim Villeran, and, with a triumphant look, turned to complete the double play that would end the county playoff outbracket game and send the surging Bonackers home 5-4 winners.
But what seemed to be a game-ending double play transmogrified, within a fraction of a second, into a game-ending error when Talmage overthrew Steve Finazzo, East Hampton’s third baseman.
The overthrow allowed the Eagles, who had had the bases loaded, to plate both the tying and the winning runs and left the Bonackers, who had pushed their way into the playoffs by way of a surprising, gutsy sweep of the League VI and defending county Class B champions, Harborfields, utterly stunned.
Talmage, who deserved far better, for his steady pitching had won two of those games with Harborfields, was left, with his teammates, to rail at Fate as the Eagles, who had enjoyed last-inning comebacks to best East Hampton twice before during the regular season, piled on one another in glee.
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The ball didn’t quite bounce the Montauk Rugby Club’s way in Chicago last weekend, and because it lost the first of two games played, the local side will not go to the Division II Final Four, as it did last year.
Nevertheless, when all was said and done, Montauk ended its 15s season with another top-10 finish, ranked ninth nationwide.
. . . Some of the Montaukers won’t have much breathing space, for Montauk will play host to a rugby 7s tournament on June 12, one of four tourneys sanctioned as qualifiers for the national 7s tournament, the others being held in Worcester, Mass., Newport, R.I., and Princeton, N.J.
“We’re the defending champs for the past three or four years,” said Frank Bistrian, Montauk’s spokesman, “but each year it gets tougher. More and more clubs are adding 7s sides now.”
Montauk’s 7s squad also finished ninth nationally last year. “We have a little more depth this year,” said Bistrian, “so, hopefully, we’ll improve on last year’s finish, and also improve on our ninth-place finish in 15s.”
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. . . Summing up the first season of boys lacrosse here, Ralph Naglieri, who coached the jayvee team with Ed McGintee, said, “I didn’t think the sport would catch on this quickly, but obviously it got people — students and parents — pretty excited.”
East Hampton will continue with a junior varsity team only next spring, and will introduce a seventh-and-eighth-grade team at the junior high level, said Naglieri.
“While we had a successful inaugural season, we can’t be comfortable. We want to get better. We want the kids to improve their stick skills and to go to camp. With the Tuesday and Thursday summer league, we’ve started to build a program, though it would be nice to start a Pee Wee league too, like Little League.”
