Sports

Pierson (Sag Harbor) High School got off to a slow start, but tied the game with under three minutes left before losing to Haldane of Putnam County 57-53 Friday night.

Hunter Eberhart, Jack Dickinson, and Will Darrell, seniors, will lead the East Hampton High School pitching staff this spring.

I’m not sure if Leonard Cohen was into birds, but if he was, he might have appreciated the mess that is the European starling.

The spring sports season may be a few weeks off, but there’s plenty of news for and about local athletes.

The final score was 58-53 in favor of Chapel Field Christian of Orange County over Bridgehampton's Killer Bees on Tuesday night in a New York State Class D semifinal boys basketball game. It reminded Ron White, the Bees' head coach, of last year's game — same opponent, same playoff round, same outcome.

Last Saturday's Katy’s Courage daylong fund-raiser included an ice show, pickup hockey games for 10-through-14-year-olds and for adults, as well as raffles, a silent auction, and a bake sale.

Saturday’s game, which the Mariners won handily, 69-52, was the third time Southampton had defeated Sag Harbor this winter, though Pierson’s coach could take heart in the fact that at times his players looked pretty smooth in breaking a vaunted run-and-jump press.

Kids here who swim, and who play hockey, soccer, baseball, and softball, have been active of late honing skills at the Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter, the Buckskill Winter Club in East Hampton, the Sportime Arena in Amagansett, and at the Hub 44 building on the way to Springs.

It looked as if the Pierson (Sag Harbor) High School Whalers were going to blow out Port Jefferson in the early going of the county Class C boys basketball championship game played at St. Joseph’s College in Patchogue on Feb. 15, but the Royals came back in the third quarter to make a game of it.

Bridgehampton, which is aiming to play in its first state Final Four tournament at Glens Falls since 2015, duked it out with the Smithtown Christian Knights on Feb. 15, nailing a 3-pointer at the buzzer to send the game to overtime.

Three fast-paced futsal (indoor soccer) finals were played before a large crowd at the Sportime Arena in Amagansett Saturday night, capping a season of play in which 28 teams vied in the open men’s league, 10 in the over-37s, and eight in the women’s group.

The Pierson (Sag Harbor) High School Whalers once again bested their neighbors, the Killer Bees of Bridgehampton, this time in the county C-D boys basketball game played at Southampton High on Tuesday. 

Though Amityville went into the county boys basketball playoff game here on Thursday at 8-6, and East Hampton was 13-2 in league play, it was immediately evident the teams were evenly matched. 

The Hamptons Collegiate Baseball League has opened up internship applications for its summer 2023 season in the areas of game-day operations, broadcasting, and data analytics.

Meredith Spolarich, a senior at Pierson High School in Sag Harbor, can do it all when it comes to sports — and when it comes to her studies as well.

East Hampton Town’s training for future lifeguards and for summertime participants in its Junior Lifeguard ocean readiness program will begin on March 5 in the pool at the Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter.

Playing seven games in three days this past week, the Peconic Hockey Association’s 10-and-under Wildcats, coached by Jason Craig, improved to 20-3-1, and thus clinched a playoff spot in the Long Island Amateur Hockey League’s 10-U Tier III division.

East Hampton High’s boys swimming team, which recently placed fourth in the league meet, placed eighth, among 24 schools, in the county meet held Saturday at Stony Brook University.

The boys basketball teams from East Hampton, Bridgehampton, and Pierson (Sag Harbor) High Schools have made the postseason, and on Thursday East Hampton, which won Division IV with a 13-2 record, will play host at 5 p.m. to the Amityville-Hampton Bays winner.

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.

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.

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.

The East Hampton High School boys swimming team placed fourth in the League II meet at Ward Melville High School last Thursday and will be well represented at the county meet on Saturday at Stony Brook University.

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.

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.

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.

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.

“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.

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.”