Sports

“We’re a year away, and all of us knew it,” said Kevin McConville, whose East Hampton High School boys tennis team finished the season at 17-2.

Sinead FitzGibbon and her husband, Dennis Loebs, put two production models of NEXT Boatworks’ 19-and-a-half-foot-long coastal rowers into Sag Harbor waters off Havens Beach on Saturday for their maiden voyage.

I decided to try a few quick drifts for striped bass in Plum Gut last week. The bass, according to reports, have been running in great quantities there.

Scarlet tanagers breed in forest interiors. Take a walk on the Sprig Tree Trail in Sag Harbor, or along the Round Pond Trail where they sing and breed. You'll also find them at the Grace Estate, Hither Woods, and Barcelona Neck. The trick is to find a large expansive stretch of woods and listen.

Serendipity may be responsible for bringing the “fastest growing sport in the world,” Padel, a racket sport that is often described as a mix between pickleball and squash, to East Hampton this summer.

The recent 15th birthday of Noah Avallone, a part-time Montauker, was made all the more memorable by the fact that he had been named to the U.S. Snowboard 2022-23 Olympic rookie halfpipe team.

For years I’ve noticed numerous symmetrical holes measuring about an inch in diameter in the sand near where I dock my boat in Sag Harbor Cove. Who created and resides in such dwellings?

Although East Hampton High School’s varsity baseball season ended last week with two playoff losses, Coach Vinny Alversa is pleased by the big step forward this spring and looks forward to the coming years.

When beaches are closed because of nesting plovers, people get pretty riled up. The birds, which are endangered in the country and New York State, may seem to be prolific here, but in fact nest on only a handful of beaches on the East End. They're also site-specific, returning year after year to breed in the same spots.

The playoff news baseball-wise was not good for East Hampton High School’s team, which lost to Mount Sinai and Miller Place last week, and thus was ousted from the county’s Class A bracket. For the Pierson (Sag Harbor) Whalers, however, the news was good.

Three East Hampton High School senior student-athletes received $1,000 scholarships and two adults were honored by the Old Montauk Athletic Club at the Clubhouse in Wainscott last Thursday.

Monday's basketball game between East Hampton High School and Patchogue-Medford — the first home contest for Bonac's unified basketball program — had all the thrill of a varsity playoff game and all the heart a community could muster, showcasing the meaningful moments that can happen when players with developmental disabilities are given the same opportunity to do what many of their non-disabled peers do.

Four singles and four doubles players on East Hampton High School’s boys tennis team, which recently finished the regular season at 15-1 in league play, achieved all-county status last weekend in the Division IV tournament at William Floyd High School.

When the Sagaponack Village Board offered an amendment to a local law on April 13 that stated that construction of new pickleball courts would be subject to various setback regulations, based on a noise-attenuation study the board had carried out, the people of the village sounded off.

Dense, foggy conditions over the weekend caused some anxiety for boaters and fishermen alike. The fishing was good in many locales, however, as the waters continue to warm up.

Catbirds are neither rare nor shy. Work in your garden and you may soon have a catbird working alongside you. They're charming, excellent company, and release a seemingly infinite number of sounds when they open their black bills.

Pierson High School's baseball team, playing before a large and appreciative hometown crowd at Sag Harbor's Mashashimuet Park Friday, swatted Bridgehampton's Killer Bees 13-2 to finish the regular season at 13-5. The Bees gave the Whalers a better go in the first two games of the series, losing by scores of 4-2 and 5-3, but finished Friday at 6-12. 

Postseason competition looms for East Hampton's girls track team, which finishes its regular season at Westhampton Beach Monday. East Hampton headed into the meet at 3-2, Westhampton at 4-1, a record that included a win over Hauppauge, which defeated East Hampton 83-66 here on Wednesday.

East Hampton High’s girls tracksters faced off against powerful East Islip last week, while the 2-10 girls lacrosse team was unable to overcome slow starts and lost to John Glenn and Port Jefferson.

Paul Dickinson, a top teaching golf professional at the Atlantic and Montauk Downs clubs here, realized a dream recently, qualifying, at the age of 45, for the P.G.A. Championship, which is to be played in Tulsa, Okla., next week.

The northeasterly blow starting Friday was unfortunate, as the action on porgies, fluke, striped bass, weakfish, and even squid was on the upswing in many locations.

Last Thursday was a very good one sportswise at East Hampton High School, a day in which Bonac’s boys tennis team and its baseball team grappled with league champions — Ward Melville in tennis’s case and Sayville in baseball’s.

The eastern towhee breeds in Montauk, and if you go to Oyster Pond this weekend you can hear them calling and singing everywhere.

For the first time in a month, since the spring season began, on April 28 the Bonac boys tennis team played a home match, on redone courts to which the final touches had been added just a day or two before.

Over the next two weeks, spring bird migration will peak. Hundreds of millions of birds will fly up the country, largely south to north, in sync with blooming trees, flowers, and insect hatches. Many are attempting to reach the green attic of North America, the boreal forest of Canada, where they will breed and raise their young before reversing course in the autumn.

A few weeks ago, Sebastian Gorgone, the gregarious and always welcoming proprietor of Mrs. Sam’s Bait and Tackle in East Hampton, explained to me that the local fishing season will get in high gear only once the daffodils begin to wilt. I had not heard of this local proverb before, and I wondered, was it true?

It wasn’t just bread baking or pet ownership that Covid refugees turned to once they had alighted here during the pandemic. Many also embraced horseback riding, observed Natalie Mattson, who owns Brennan’s Bit and Bridle in the Bridgehampton Commons.

More than 600 runners and walkers turned out at East Hampton's Main Beach Sunday for the May Day 5K, the brainchild of Dylan Cashin and Ryleigh O'Donnell, East Hampton High School sophomore long-distance runners. The event raised raised $18,000 for the Family Service League.

The East Hampton High School baseball team played two nonleaguers last week with Westhampton Beach, losing 7-0 there on April 26 and winning 10-4 here the next day.

To make your backyard bird-friendly, you'll need to think like a bird when making landscaping decisions.