Sports

A repeat was not to be for the Sag Harbor Whalers in the Hamptons Collegiate Baseball League this year, given their semifinal-round series loss last week to the South Shore Clippers of Bellport.

After coaching East Hampton High School’s boys basketball team for the past seven years, Dan White resigned last week to coach at Pierson High in Sag Harbor, where he teaches.

East Hampton Town’s men’s and women’s teams won the Hampton Lifeguard Association’s invitational tournament last Thursday at East Hampton Village’s Main Beach.

A benefit softball game between the staff and members of the South Fork Country Club last month raised $30,000 for the East Hampton, Springs, and Montauk food pantries.

If I truly wanted to catch a fluke, for all practical purposes I would need to hop aboard one of the several fine party boats that set sail from Montauk, which are significantly closer to the more productive fishing grounds.

The defending-champion Sag Harbor Whalers have been in a playoff fight this week with the South Shore Clippers, losing the deciding third game Thursday at Mashashimuet Park.

For years, the East Hampton Town summer sailing program was beloved by many, giving people 12 and older a fun and affordable way to learn to sail on Gardiner’s Bay, but for the second summer in a row the popular program is off the calendar, leaving people to wonder if it will ever return. “The town intended to continue offering the program last summer and this summer, but was unable to fill the program director position," said the recreation superintendent.

The invitational East Hampton ocean lifeguard tournament is to be held Thursday, July 27, at East Hampton Village's Main Beach and will be bigger than it's ever been, what with 14 men's and nine women's teams. Distance swims, landline rescues, rescue board relays, beach run relays, run-swim-run relays, and beach flags are to be contested.

Pickleball, says Erin McHugh, who gave a talk on the popular paddle sport at BookHampton not long ago, “takes a minute to learn and a lifetime to master,” favoring strategy and finesse.

I-Tri’s youth triathlon at Noyac’s Long Beach and the Hampton Lifeguard Association’s run-swim-run at Amagansett’s Atlantic Avenue Beach led off a big weekend for athletic events here.

The fishing for fluke has continued to deteriorate in Block Island Sound where dozens of boats used to drift their baited hooks on a daily basis in summer. Looking at my log book on the ride out, I noted that I had made two trips last summer and we failed to land a keeper. Not good.

Saturday’s Hamptons Collegiate Baseball League’s all-star game, played at Sag Harbor’s Mashashimuet Park, the summer home of the Sag Harbor Whalers, ended, for the first time in its 10-year history, in a tie, at 9-9. Sunday’s sprint triathlon to the Montauk Lighthouse, an event that attracted a field of 447, was won by last year’s runner-up, Matthew Raske, in 1 hour, 6 minutes, and 25 seconds.

Cole Brauer, a 2012 graduate of East Hampton High School, recently became the first female ever to win the Bermuda One-Two sailing race, which began with a single-handed 668-nautical-mile leg from Newport, R.I., to St. George’s, and ended with a double-handed St. George’s-to-Newport leg.

The benefit Rell Sunn Surf Contest will be held on Saturday at Ditch Plain Beach in Montauk, with several of Montauk’s top-ranked young surfers competing, among them Chase Lieder and Chloe Coleman, both of whom graduated from East Hampton High School in June, and Tucker Coleman, 20.

From the Hampton Lifeguard Association’s Run-Swim-Run in Amagansett, to I-Tri’s youth triathlon at Noyac’s Long Beach and the Rell Sunn surf contest at Ditch Plain in Montauk, to the Hamptons Collegiate Baseball League’s all-star game in Sag Harbor, to the Montauk Lighthouse sprint triathlon.

The popular Montauk Grand Slam charity fishing tournament will be held this weekend at Uihlein’s Marina in Montauk. At 5 p.m. Sunday, the tournament will crown Capt. Frank Braddick as the Fishing Legend of the Year.

“It’s tough,” John Grisch, who coached the East Hampton Little League’s 11-and-12-year-old entry in the District 36 tournament, said following Saturday’s 11-10 loss to Riverhead in the title game played at Riverhead’s Stotzky Park.

East Hampton’s 11-and-12-year-old Little League all-star team shut out the North Shore Nationals 4-0 in Rocky Point Thursday evening to advance to the District 36 final at Riverhead’s Stotzky Park on Saturday at 10 a.m.

“These kids, in all shapes and sizes, and from all sorts of backgrounds, coming from all over the world and putting aside their differences to play together on a team for the summer,” Coach Jack Tobin said of the Sag Harbor Whalers collegiate baseball team. “It gives you hope for the future of the planet.”

“Soldier Ride,” said Peter Honerkamp, an owner of the Stephen Talkhouse in Amagansett, where Soldier Ride was conceived, “became a rehabilitative tool so the wounded could get out of their hospital beds, empowering themselves and their fellow wounded, setting an example for the incoming wounded, and going out into the communities they sacrificed so much for.” This year's ride returns on July 15 with a 24-mile cycle taking participants from the Amagansett Firehouse to East Hampton and Sag Harbor before returning to its starting point.

East Hampton’s 11-and-12-year-old Little League traveling all-star boys team finished pool play at 4-0 thanks to an 8-2 win over North Shore American at the Stephen Hand’s Path fields here Saturday morning. They’ll play in the District 36 semifinal Thursday night at Rocky Point.

John Loeffel bested a field of 250 in 25 minutes and 13.51 seconds, comfortably ahead of Sergey Avrimenko, the runner-up, at Southampton’s Lake Agawam park on Sunday.

“Definitely, the better fishing has been out at Montauk,” Ken Morse of Tight Lines Tackle said Monday. “The bass fishing remains solid and there are acres and acres of bluefish between 10 and 18 pounds roaming around.”

James Bradley, 16, has qualified for the U.S.G.A.’s national junior amateur in South Carolina in late July, and Michael Clifford-Levy, 15, won the Long Island Golf Association’s boys championship in Smithtown on June 21.

Lots of bass between 30 and 50 pounds continue to be caught and released off Montauk. Finding fish in the new smaller slot size has been a challenge at times. Plenty of bluefish are mixed in too.

Earl Hopson, a wide receiver in football, shooting guard in basketball, and all-county long-jumper, Erin Bock Abran, an all-county field hockey and softball player, and Kim Valverde-Solis, a four-time all-county girls volleyballer, are to be inducted into East Hampton High School’s Hall of Fame in the fall.

Things were looking up on the local diamonds last week, from Little Leaguers up to the Hamptons Collegiate Baseball League’s Sag Harbor Whalers, who are hosting a number of day camps and clinics this summer.

On the night of June 14 almost 100 East Hampton High School athletes, which is to say about half the class of 2023, were honored at a senior awards dinner in the school’s cafeteria.

This is the best time of year to observe chimney swifts locally as they burst through the skies over our villages. You’ll never see a chimney swift land, or even come close to street level. In their daily circuits, they can fly 500 miles a day in pursuit of something like 12,000 flying insects.

Given all of the supersize stripers now in Montauk, it’s still not too late to enter the popular Montauk Surf Masters Spring Shootout, which concludes on July 9. Bigger fish are clearly on the feed here.