Sports

The water was 24 degrees at Clearwater Beach in Springs at 8 a.m. on the morning of Dec. 13, when around a dozen people gathered to jump into Gardiner’s Bay for their weekly cold-water swim. The group is called the Clearwater Coldwater Club, and it began meeting in September, after Suzanne Sandbank, who moved to Springs three years ago, got everybody together.

Plungers will be “freezin’ for a reason” at ocean beaches in East Hampton Village and Wainscott on New Year’s Day, their mad dashes into the frigid surf arguably motivated by desires for personal renewal and for their fellow citizens’ well-being, inasmuch as the proceeds from the usually very well-attended events go to food pantries in Sag Harbor and East Hampton Town.

The timeless draw of rugby, and memories of a triumphant Sprig Gardner wrestling tournament.

Ethan Mitchell, who coaches East Hampton High School’s wrestling team, sent 23 competitors to the mats in Saturday’s Frank (Sprig) Gardner tournament here. Eight of them reached the semifinal round, and four made it to the finals.

The East Hampton High School boys basketball season is to begin in earnest Friday with the Kendall Madison Tip-Off tournament here. Bridgehampton, Shelter Island, and the Ross School are the other teams contending.

The East Hampton High School boys swimming team began its season last week with losses to Half Hollow Hills-Kings Park and to Ward Melville, but notched a number of personal bests and county-qualifying times in the process.

The Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter’s children’s programs and camp will benefit from a 5K run and walk on Saturday beginning at 9 a.m. at Main Beach.

The origins of the Montauk Turkey Trot, the appeal of jujitsu, and a Bonac bowling triumph.

An all-Long Island and all-regional field hockey player when she was here, Emma McGrory continues to excel in the sport as a forward for the Stonehill College Skyhawks of Easton, Mass.

Despite a few precious bay scallops being dredged from Lake Montauk, the season has been a total bust just about everywhere on the East End since it opened in early November.

Ryan Fowkes, late of George Washington University, topped the 50 runners who did the six-mile run in 30 minutes and 38.94 seconds, while Sean Grossman of the Brooklyn Track Club smashed the three-mile course record with a 14:41.37.

From the inaugural Sea-to-Shore Crossing to the glory days of Southampton College soccer, it happened here.

A small army of 30 was working to transform the Buckskill Tennis Club into the Buckskill Winter Club last week, the plan being that a regulation-size ice rink overlying four Har-Tru courts there will be up and running on Thanksgiving Day.

There is one tradition of Thanksgiving that I miss even a decade later. My good friend Wayne Clinch of Montauk used to organize consecutive fishing charters on the Friday and Saturday after Turkey Day.

Kathy Masterson, the East Hampton School District’s athletic director, gives a rundown of the fast approaching winter sports season, which looks promising given the turnouts for the high school’s half-dozen teams.

Looking back on sports news in November of 1999: the Dock race, Southampton College soccer, and the early days of Hoops 4 Hope.

Cristian Candemir, a 2012 East Hampton High School graduate who's been angling for the unofficial title of “World’s Strongest Barista,” was back in action recently to take a shot at lifting a replica of Iceland’s 410-pound Husafell stone. It's an ancient tradition dating to the time of the Vikings.

Dave Conlon, who will take over as East Hampton High’s varsity boys basketball coach, saw D-1 collegiate and professional competition in Europe and had a stint as an assistant coach at the former University of the Sciences in Philadelphia.

For a vast majority of anglers, the fishing season has come to an end, as persistent cold winds out of the north have taken a firm hold. But the bass fishing has been great off the ocean beaches and the blackfish action has been excellent.

Our man on the court wraps up his reverie about the mother of all pickup games, and the togetherness it brought about. With a cameo by the great N.B.A. guard Steve Nash.

The Star's fishing columnist has taken his boat out of the water for the season, but on the fishing scene, the action remains solid, especially for striped bass and blackfish.

The East Hampton High School girls swimming team placed sixth among the 21 schools that vied in the county meet at Stony Brook University Sunday, bettering last year’s 10th-place finish.

The young East Hampton High School football team, the seventh seed in the county’s Division III tournament, was stampeded by the second-seeded Half Hollow Hills West Colts in a quarterfinal matchup on the Colts’ field Saturday, most of the damage in the 52-6 rout being done by a senior quartet led by the Syracuse-bound quarterback, Joseph Filardi.

A writer looks back at one of the most iconic pickup basketball games on the South Fork, a long-running Sunday morning affair that drew all sorts of players from all walks of life.

Two months after it was originally to have been played, the East End men’s 7-on-7 soccer final was finally contested at East Hampton Village’s Herrick Park on Oct. 30, with Maidstone Market, the league’s perennial power, emerging as a 2-1 winner over Tortorella Pools.

I can most certainly relate to the phrase “old habits are hard to break,” especially as it pertains to bay scallops. No matter how much I read year after year about the dire predictions for the five-month scallop season, which opened at daybreak on Monday morning in state waters, I still make plans to be on my Rock Water with six iron dredges in tow on opening day.

East Hampton High School’s football team trounced Eastport-South Manor 42-7 in its regular-season finale Saturday, and will play at second-seeded Half Hollow Hills West this coming Saturday at 1 p.m.

A good number of East Hampton High's players were in tears following Saturday's 2-1 first-round county Class AA boys soccer playoff loss to Deer Park, the 10th seed among the bracket's 11 teams. East Hampton was the seventh.

Roberto de Guardiola, 29, of Southampton, won the East Hampton Village Foundation 5K on Saturday in a time of 19 minutes and 58.13 seconds.

I was recently joined on board by Al Daniels, he of the family that has resided here on the East End for 13 generations. Daniels has known all things fishing for nearly eight decades. My wife, Terie, was also ready to catch her dinner. After a ride of more than an hour to the north side of Gull Island, the outgoing tide was still running strong when we arrived. When the blackfish homed in on our baits, they were hungry. Very hungry. The bite was on.