Sports

It was pretty much good news all around for East Hampton High's active winter teams this past week. The swimmers, in their final home meet of the foreshortened season, defeated Lindenhurst 71-59, "exhibitioning" in the final two events so as not to run up a score; the boys track team here on Saturday defeated Rocky Point 50-45, and the girls, whose coach, Yani Cuesta, was still awaiting Rocky Point's long jump results as of Sunday, were leading 43-39.

Sag Harbor's Board of Education, faced with a student petition to overturn a recent decision by the district superintendent, Jeff Nichols, not to let Pierson High student-athletes compete this winter in "high-risk" sports, once again seconded the superintendent at a meeting Monday night.

Following the county's okay of certain "high-risk" school sports, East Hampton High's boys and girls basketball teams and Bridgehampton's boys team are set to play games, but East Hampton's wrestling team will work out only intramurally this year and will not compete with against other teams.

"Montauk's skate park could become a destination," said John Britton, the father of an 11-year-old skateboarder who is working with Councilman David Lys to advocate for a renovation and expansion. 

Following the big new this week that "high-risk" sports, namely boys and girls basketball, wrestling, and competitive cheerleading, could begin a foreshortened season on Monday, South Fork school districts grappled with whether that was in their students' best interests.

A plan is in the works to renovate and expand the Montauk skate park, designed in 1999 by the late skateboarding legend Andy Kessler. To fund the project, East Hampton Town has $50,000 in hand from one donor and is applying for a $25,000 grant from the Skatepark Project in California.

High-risk high school sports including wrestling, basketball, and competitive cheerleading can resume again in Suffolk, County Executive Steve Bellone announced Monday. The season will run from Feb. 1 through Feb. 27.

East Hampton High's winter sports seasons were still on hold as of this week, the second week in a row that the school's students were learning remotely. "It hurts — they were just getting into a routine, and then were cut off."

Depending on the weather, East Hampton's Little League organization could begin outdoor clinics for 8 through 12-year-old boys and girls at the Pantigo fields in East Hampton this weekend.

East Hampton High's bowling team was to have had a match under its belt, and the boys swimming team was to have made its debut (though with no spectators) today at the Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter, but the coronavirus pandemic put the kibosh on that.

Few small businesses in East Hampton Town have been more adversely affected by the Covid-19 pandemic than fitness centers, which were shut down from mid-March through the end of August. During that span, several closed their doors for good and more may soon follow.

The curtain that rang down with a thud on high school sports last March may soon be raised, at least insofar as the low-to-moderate-risk sports of boys and girls winter track, boys swimming, and bowling are concerned.

There will be no organized fund-raising New Year's Day plunges here this year, an unfortunate result of the coronavirus pandemic that hit our shores the better part of a year ago.

The club's platform tennis membership "has quadrupled," Scott Rubenstein, E.H.I.T.'s managing partner, said, which is to say there are about 60 now playing the outdoor winter sport there — paddle, as it is known, being one of the few sports, like golf and tennis, deemed reasonably safe to play during the coronavirus pandemic.

If all goes according to plan, four of the club's Har-Tru courts will be under an outdoor 85-by-200-foot National Hockey League-size ice rink and open for business as of Saturday, marking the beginning of the Buckskill Winter Club's 16th season.

Section XI, the governing body for public high school sports in Suffolk County, on Friday postponed “until authorization is provided” the “high-risk” sports — boys and girls basketball, wrestling, and cheerleading — from the winter schedule that is slated to begin Jan. 4.

Having tested the waters in August and September, the Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter’s closely-monitored Hurricanes are once again in the swim, according to the youth team’s head coach, Tom Cohill, who in March 2019 dubbed them “the strongest Y team in the state pound for pound.”

Golfers in the know already know the East End has several gems among its greens, but Golf magazine has made it official once again.

There's still a touch of summer in the East Hampton air, which is a fitting backdrop to the summer-style, off-season sports workouts that will resume this coming week in the East Hampton School District.

All programs are subject to health screenings and other Covid-19 precautions.

Until Friday, when news of the postponement was publicized by Section XI, school sports were to have started on Sept. 21. Each "lower-risk" team, including tennis, soccer, swimming, golf, and cross-country, was to have an abbreviated season with 10 to 12 games each instead of 16 games. Football, cheerleading, and volleyball had not yet been given the green light, and now the light is red for all sports until January.

As of Tuesday, with the daily Covid-19 infection rate on Long Island hovering around 1.5 percent, school sports are still a go starting on Sept. 21. On Wednesday, the New York State Department of Health released further guidelines governing each sport, clarifying that football, volleyball, rugby, and now cheerleading will not start until March 1, 2021.

The Y.M.C.A. of Long Island has announced that it will open the doors of the Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter on Tuesday.

Already an elite-hitting first baseman for the East Hampton High School varsity baseball team, Colin Ruddy was chosen to pitch for the Area Code national travel team earlier this summer.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has said game on for "lower-risk" school sports starting Sept. 21.

To take advantage of the extra cross-training opportunity that otherwise might not have worked with preseason scheduling, Kevin Barry entered a few athletes from his East Hampton High School boys cross-country team.

Customers at bowling alleys and gyms will soon be rolling and lifting again now that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has deemed conditions in New York safe enough that places like these can reopen.

Thanks to Covid-19, the two teams competed online, instead of at East Hampton's Herrick Park, to see who could raise more money for local nonprofit organizations.

The decade-old Wounded Warrior Project's Solider Ride, for which East Enders come together every July, will look different this summer in light of Covid-19, but the tradition itself will soldier on.

Truth Training is hosting an online kettlebell-swinging challenge to benefit Project Most starting Aug. 3.