Sports

Red-breasted mergansers rely on the open waters of our winter bays and harbors from November until April. They’ll be there if you walk anywhere along the bay side of the South Fork, between Southampton and Montauk. While they prefer salt water, they also frequent Hook Pond, Sagaponack Pond, and Georgica Pond.

While only two of the East Hampton wrestling team’s starters advancd to the county tournament at Stony Brook University, the season, during which the young and relatively inexperienced team won 11 matches vis-á-vis 11 losses, was a great one.

For Yani Cuesta, East Hampton High School’s girls winter track coach, Saturday was memorable not only because of its subzero temperatures, but also for the fact that her 4-by-400 relay team of Leslie Samuel, Melina Sarlo, Meredith Spolarich, and Ryleigh O’Donnell won that event in 4 minutes and 16.10 seconds.

Friday was the East Hampton High School boys basketball team’s Senior Night, and before it, in addition to citing his five seniors — Luke Reese, Jack Dickinson, Finn Byrnes, Nick Cordone, and Jesse Cohen — Dan White, Bonac’s coach, paid tribute to Howard Wood, Joe McKee, Chris Coleman, Don Reese, and Nick Jarboe, whom he credited with having molded the team that was that night to win the Division IV championship.

The East Hampton, Bridgehampton, and Pierson High School boys basketball teams continued on playoff paths this past week, with East Hampton defeating Hampton Bays and Sayville, Bridgehampton defeating Greenport and Smithtown Christian, and Pierson defeating Mattituck after having lost to Babylon.

“It’s been a long while since we had more than five all-leaguers,” Coach Ethan Mitchell said in looking through the records of Bonac’s wrestling program, which has been winning more than losing of late.

Dylan Cashin and Liam Fowkes, two East Hampton High School juniors who have been long-distance runners since an early age, are about to launch a youth track club here that they hope will stir up enthusiasm for the sport they love.

Kathy Masterson, who took over from the retiring Joe Vas as the East Hampton School District’s athletic director on July 1, learned last Thursday that she has been named by her 60-plus fellow A.D.s as Suffolk County’s Athletic Director of the Year.

East Hampton High School’s boys basketball team remained at the top of Division IV as of Monday given its two lopsided wins over Eastport-South Manor and Miller Place last week, and more from the week in sports.

The solitude that Kevin Shattenkirk enjoys at his house in Sag Harbor, on a three-acre parcel mostly surrounded by a nature preserve, is a far cry from his chosen occupation as a professional hockey player.

Looking for a walk and a challenge, I went to the Mulvihill Preserve in Noyac to hunt for wild chickadees. Hard? No. A unique reason to be in the woods? Yes. A winter activity for a winter bird.

Friday was Spirit Night at Pierson (Sag Harbor) High School, and, fittingly, its basketball teams performed spiritedly in defeating Greenport-Southold and Center Moriches, while the East Hampton girls routed Smithtown Christian.

“This is the highest point total and placement in a league championship in the 18 winters I’ve been coaching,” Yani Cuesta, the veteran coach of East Hampton High’s girls winter track team, said. “So many stepped up to make this happen.”

Two school relay records were set over the weekend by runners on Yani Cuesta’s East Hampton High School girls winter track team.

Sag Harbor may have a towering front line, while Bridgehampton rarely fields a player over 6 feet, but with these two teams it’s always a barnburner, and so it was Friday for three quarters.

Playing aggressively, and with everybody getting into the scoring act, the East Hampton High School boys basketball team took it to the Mount Sinai Mustangs in the early going of their clash here on Jan. 10, but ended up losing to the visitors by 5 points. Two days later, they redeemed themselves with a 60-57 win at Bayport-Blue Point.

On Saturday, teams of birders spread out across New York State to count freshwater ducks, saltwater ducks, and geese for the annual New York State Ornithological Association waterfowl count. Locally, from Shinnecock Inlet to Montauk Point, seven groups of birders faced winds and temperatures that were stubbornly in the mid-30s to peer into our ponds, bays, and coves. They located 31 species of waterfowl for a total of 10,451 birds. More than half that number, 5,303, were the familiar Canada goose.

“It was an extraordinarily competitive meet, and our athletes performed at a very high level. We’re looking strong as we head for the states and nationals,” Tom Cohill, head coach of the Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter’s youth swim team, the Hurricanes, said on returning from a large regional Winterfest meet at the University of Maryland last weekend.

The 10-and-under Peconic Wildcat ice hockey team, coached by Jason Craig, played Saturday and Sunday at the Buckskill Winter Club here and won both games, improving to 9-0 in league play. Although, “because we can’t play as many games as the teams up the Island do, we’ll need to win most of our remaining league games to make the playoffs,” Chris Minardi, the scorekeeper, said. 

Three years ago at this time, East Hampton High’s wrestling team, then coached by Jim Stewart with Ethan Mitchell as his assistant, won its first match in five years, edging West Babylon 46-41 thanks to Alex Vanegas’s win by pin at 145 pounds in the penultimate bout, marking the beginning of a resurgence in the sport’s fortunes here. 

Doug De Groot first had the idea of building a padel court accessible to the public here about eight years ago. Though it has taken a while — a puzzling permit denial prevented him from finishing one last year at the Buckskill Tennis Club, which he owns with his wife, Kathryn — he now, with Southampton Village’s blessing, has one up at the Triangle Tennis Club on Hampton Road. 

Registration opened last week for East Hampton Little League, including tee ball, baseball, and softball programs for kids as young as 5 and up to seventh grade.

A joyous, comradely feeling was evident at the East Hampton Hurricane swim team’s New Year’s Day plunge at East Hampton Village’s Main Beach and later at the annual plunge in Wainscott. Both raised money for food pantries here.

On their return this week from the holiday break, the East Hampton, Pierson, and Bridgehampton High School boys basketball teams seem to have the playoffs in their sights.

Year-round tennis in Amagansett: That’s the goal of the plan pitched by Claude Okin, who owns the Sportime facility and camp off Town Lane and Abraham’s Path, to the East Hampton Town Trustees in December.

While the handsome high-ceilinged 6,000-square-foot building behind the popular Round Swamp Farm in East Hampton could have feathered a nest egg, Shelly Snyder Schaffer, its owner, preferred instead that it become a year-round hub for young ballplayers, boys and girls looking to up their baseball, softball, or lacrosse games.

Covid continued clinging when the 2022 winter sports season began here, but soon thereafter the constraints of the past two years were shrugged off as local athletes went toe-to-toe again in scholastic competitions, rubbed elbows again in road races, and, when it came to athletic ambitions, frequently put their best feet forward.

During this Christmas/New Year’s interlude, I offer a fun challenge: Take a walk in the woods at night. Try it. You may hear a great-horned owl, who, despite the cold, is starting its courtship ritual. Its classic hooting call — offered in the cadence of “Who is awake? Me too!” — can be heard for miles, the song of the blue winter night.

The temperature is predicted to be 51 degrees here on New Year's Day, virtually balmy when compared to Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, so expect big turnouts for the New Year's Day ocean plunges at East Hampton Village's Main Beach at 1 p.m. and at the Beach Lane road end in Wainscott at 2:30.

The Peconic Wildcats’ under-10 ice hockey team, coached by Jason Craig, took the ice at Doug and Kathryn De Groot’s Buckskill Winter Club, and took it to the UpIsland Police Athletic League Silver Knights.