The Raptors, a Montauk team made up largely of Daunts and Davises who have, according to Brian Pfund, "been playing together since we were 15-year-olds," won the 16th Travis Field Memorial softball tournament Sunday night, besting Taste Our Sauce 4-3 thanks to a walk-off hit by Anthony Daunt. In the B bracket, Bonac Vice, a team of college freshmen, was wiped out 15-2 by the Jetty Grinders, a team whose roster included John Robertson, Matt Burns, and the Mannix brothers, Kyle and Alex.
The Terry King ball field's parking lot was packed throughout the four days of the double-elimination tournament in which 16 coed teams vied. The tournament memorializes the late Travis Field, who died in a motor vehicle accident on May 15, 2008, at the age of 20. Alexa Wolf, a board member of the Travis Field Foundation, which each year gives out scholarships in his name to East Hampton High School seniors, estimated that Sunday evening's games drew about 300 fans.
"We didn't have an East Hampton High School team this year, as we have in the past," said Wolf, "though next year we will, and two of Travis's first cousins, Ella Field and Aidan Stone, who weren't alive when he died, will be on it. So, we will have come full circle."
This year's award winners, each of whom received $1,200 scholarships, were Luke Castillo, Katie Kuneth, William McGuire, Ryleigh O'Donnell, and Sara Stuckart. McGuire and O'Donnell threw out the first balls Thursday evening.
The Raptors won the championship by taking two of three from Taste Our Sauce, which pulled even by winning the first of the two games that were to be played by these teams on Sunday evening.
In that second encounter — the first of Sunday's double-header — the Raptors took a 1-0 lead in the top of the first inning, thanks to an r.b.i. bases-loaded single by their cleanup hitter, Jack Spillane, but a 2-run home run by Taste Our Sauce's Tom Thorsen wrested the lead back in the bottom half.
And so it stood until Taste Our Sauce tacked on two more runs in its fourth, Keeler Otero, who was to be the winning pitcher, and Pete Vaziri getting the r.b.i.s.
A bases-loaded single by Leo Daunt, followed by a bases-loaded walk enabled the Raptors to pull to within one, at 4-3, in the top of the fifth, but Taste Our Sauce effectively salted away the 6-3 win with r.b.i.s. by Thorsen and Pat Silich in the bottom half.
Henry Gant, Kelly McKee, Andy Tuthill, and Riley Duchemin umpired throughout the tournament, behind the plate and in the field. Brian Anderson Sr. was the play-by-play announcer, and Sondra Vecchio kept track of the scorebook.
Hoops 3-on-3
On Saturday in the Sportime Arena next door to the ball field, Mark Crandall and Anthony Allison's Hoops 4 Hope life skills organization that works with Zimbabwean and South African youngsters, held a 3-on-3 basketball tournament contested by eight teams. The winner was Take the L's (Bobby Lubin, Mackey Lubin, Laurence Jolicoeur, and Alexander Liptak). We Like Basketball had edged a largely local trio, the Pistols — Anthony Providenti, Victor Quirolo, and Peter Rickenbach — in the semifinal round.
Cameron Gurney of Amagansett was one of three who made the final round of a free throw contest after each had made 14 of 15 foul shots. The reigning champion, Gurney has been availed of a daily free slice of Fini pizza throughout this past year, but Will Szymanski, one of We Like Basketball's players, won the free Fini slice prize this time.
"If you make a halfcourt shot at the Barclays Center, where the Nets play, you get a free slice for life," said Crandall, who grew up playing pickup basketball behind the Amagansett School with Allison, "whose Converse sneakers were held together with duct tape."
Hoops 4 Hope's ubuntu mantra ("I am what I am because of who we all are") has been mirrored on the courts here too in the mentoring provided, for instance, "by the McKees and Scott Rubenstein, and by the moms and dads who drove to and from Biddy league games. . . ."
"It's the spirit of giving back that we're trying to promote — gratitude. Our coaches in Africa, who help teach the seven life-skill tools that you need on and off the court, grew up in our program, and now they're giving back. It's all about who you are on the court and who you are off the court. . . . When we played pickup games behind the school, the winners stayed on. That's what drove us to get better — we all wanted to play for Coach Petrie someday. You can't buy resiliency and grit — you have to earn it."
