Sports

East Hampton’s 9-10-year-old traveling all-star team rode its pitching, hitting, and heads-up baserunning to a District 36 championship, the first in a quarter-century, this week.

Amaden-Gay Insurance Company golf teams, with Reed Jones, John Wallace, Chris McDonald, Benjamin Dollinger, and Peter Cooper among its players, recently have won Chubb and AIG charity golf tournaments in East Norwich, N.Y., and Roslyn, resulting in a $1,500 donation to the Wellness Foundation and in a $14,000 donation to the East Hampton Food Pantry.

The team is to play in national championships in Wisconsin (at Whistling Straits) in August and in Newport Beach, Calif. (at the Resort at Pelican Hill), in November. 

Little League district playoffs and more coming up this week.

Asked his name after he had crossed the Firecracker 8K finish line in Southampton Sunday morning, the winner said, “Jeff Ares.”

The town’s lifeguarding guru, 82-year-old John Ryan Sr., said Monday morning at his customary Amagansett Beach Association post, that all was well with the town’s lifeguarding program, from the ground up.

After the accident in 2010 that deprived him of the use of his legs, two of his upper thoracic vertebrae having been fractured, Dennis Johnson, who loved just about all sports as a youth, said he was “a little bit depressed.”

Going into last night’s games, Hampton F.C.-Bill Miller, at 6-0-3, led the Wednesday evening 7-on-7 men’s soccer league, with 21 points, followed by Bateman Painting, the fall runner-up to Maidstone Market, at 5-0-4, with 19.

There were three Little League games here at high noon Sunday — two 11-to-12-year-old boys games at Pantigo and an 11-12 girls game at East Hampton High School.

Local Sports Notes

Bob Budd, who is to be inducted into East Hampton High School’s Hall of Fame in the fall, has been associated with Bonac’s football program for the past half-century — the last 17 years as a volunteer.

Local Sports Schedule

John Pizzo, during a recent conversation at The Star concerning his 23-0 Police Athletic League third-grade boys lacrosse team, said of his and John Tintle’s charges, “They’re a unique blend of talent and heart — it’s a wonderful team.”

Things went according to form Saturday as Edwin Kipsang Rotich, a 28-year-old Kenyan, ran away from his nearest competitor and fellow countryman, Eliud Ngetich, 23, just shy of the 2-mile mark, and cruised thereafter to win the 38th Shelter Island 10K in 29 minutes and 28.57 seconds.

     A number of strong volleyballers, including Kim Valverde, whose Hillsborough Junior College team placed seventh in the nation, Jesse Libath, Hayden Ward, the State University Athletic Conference’s player of the year in men’s basketball, and Tahlia Miller, showed up at Gurney’s Inn in Montauk last Thursday evening for an informal round of 4-on-4 games — a prelude to a six-week league to begin July 11.

Saturday, July 6

SWIMMING, ‘Swim Across America’ half-mile, mile, and three mile races in Gardiner’s Bay, benefit cancer research and Fighting Chance, Fresh Pond Road, Amagansett, 6-11 a.m.

Sunday, July 7

RUNNING, ‘Firecracker 8K,’ benefit Southampton Rotary scholarship fund, Agawam Park, Southampton, 8:30 a.m.

Monday, July 8

YOUTH LACROSSE, Zach Brenneman’s camp, opening day, East Hampton High School turf field, 9 a.m.-1 p.m., through Thursday.

Wednesday, July 10

Thursday, June 27

GOLF, U.S. Women’s Open, Sebonack Golf Club, Southampton, from 6:45 a.m.

BEACH VOLLEYBALL, opening night with informal play, Gurney’s Inn, Montauk, 6 p.m.

Friday, June 28

GOLF, U.S. Women’s Open, Sebonack Golf Club, Southampton, from 6:45 a.m.

Saturday, June 29

GOLF, U.S. Women’s Open, Sebonack Golf Club, Southampton, from 6:45 a.m.

RUNNING, Miracle Mile, Neighborhood Road, Mastic Beach, 9 a.m.

   Peter Barron, a 14-year-old eighth grader at the East Hampton Middle School, is about to launch an international sailing career, having been picked to represent the United States in the Optimist class.

June 9, 1988

    This year’s Shelter Island 10K field proved to be the deepest the race has ever attracted. Seventeen runners broke 31 minutes, a 5-minute-per-mile pace.

    . . . Notable performances by local runners included Kevin Barry’s 32:27, good for 30th place, and Cheryl Bednosky’s 39:06, like Barry’s a personal best. Bednosky was the 16th woman, despite the fact she had bronchitis. She and Barry received the “top East Ender” awards. Tim Fitzpatrick, also of Shelter Island, ran a 33:37, his best time in the distance by three minutes. He was 40th.

   The Gubbins Running Ahead stores here are high-energy places, and Gubbins’s four new salesmen fit the bill nicely.

    Running under the Gubbins Distance Project team banner, the four — Owen Dawson, an all-American 800 runner from Penn State, Ryan Hagen, a second-team all-American from Virginia Tech, Shawn Roberts, a two-time all A.C.C. runner from Georgia Tech, and Will McFall, an all-Ivy 800 runner from Cornell — are expected to pretty much dominate whatever races they may enter here this summer.

   The U.S. Women’s Open is to be played at the Sebonack Golf Club in Southampton this week, beginning today, and among those listed as players to watch in Newsday’s preview Tuesday were eight South Koreans, one of whom, the 16-year-old Lydia Ko, the U.S. Women’s Amateur champion, lives in New Zealand.

    In the past nine years, beginning with Se Ri Pak in 1998, South Korean golfers have won the U.S. Open six times. They’ve taken the last four out of five — Inbee Park in 2008, Eun-Hee Ji in ’09, So Yeon Ryu in ’11, and Na Yeon Choi, whose nickname is NYC, last year.

   Going up against the dominant defending-champion Reds in the East Hampton Town Little League’s 11-to-12-year-old “world series” presented a challenge for the very young Pirates, but Tim Garneau’s team acquitted itself well in the best-of-three final, which ended with a 4-1 Reds’ victory at the Pantigo fields Friday night.

Saturday, June 22

PICKLEBALL, introductory clinic, East Hampton Indoor/Outdoor Tennis Club, Daniel’s Hole Road, Wainscott, 8:30-10 a.m.

TENNIS, Kids Day, Hampton Racquet Club, Buckskill Road, East Hampton, 10 a.m.-1 p.m.

Wednesday, June 26

MEN’S SOCCER, Maidstone Market vs. Tortorella Pools, 6:30 p.m.; Hampton F.C.-Bill Miller vs. Bateman Painting, 7:25, and The Hideaway vs. F.C. Tuxpan, 8:20, Herrick Park, East Hampton.

Thursday, June 27

U.S. WOMEN’S OPEN, opening day, Sebonack Golf Club, Southampton.

   The future of tennis is in good hands if the attendance at the East Hampton Indoor/Outdoor Tennis Club’s “festival” for kids was any indication.

   Peter Heinz, 36, a Manhattanite who’s summering in Springs, had just biked 30 miles out to Montauk and back on Saturday when his girlfriend, Analisa Cipriano, told him that a triathlon was about to get under way at Maidstone Park. Away they went, and though Heinz arrived late, he quickly swam his way into the lead in the 300-yard swim and didn’t look back during the course of the 7-mile bike and one-and-one-half-mile run.

    The triathlete, who was eighth at Mighty Hamptons last fall, registered for the race after winning it in 40 minutes and 15.42 seconds.

   It was a celebratory week here soccer-wise, highlighted by the Under-16 Hurricanes’ Long Island Cup championship win Saturday, a first, and their 2-0 shutout of Auburndale-Bayside Sunday that crowned an undefeated Long Island Junior Soccer League Division 1 season.

    The Hurricanes, coached by Don McGovern, who helps Rich King with East Hampton High’s powerful program — the Bonackers have made it to the county finals in three of the past four years and are two-time defending county champions — thus finished the travel team spring season with a 13-0-1 record.

    Going into last night’s games at East Hampton’s Herrick Park, Hampton F.C.-Bill Miller led the Wednesday evening 7-on-7 men’s soccer league with a 5-2-0 mark, though the Hideaway, thanks to a 3-1 upset of perennial-champion Maidstone Market on June 12, was right behind, at 4-2-1.

    The Market, whose entry in an 11-on-11 league at Calverton is undefeated, was in third place, along with Tortorella Pools, each with 4-3-0 marks. Tuxpan, which played Bill Miller tough in a 1-0 loss on the 12th, was in fifth place, and Bateman Painting, a former champion, was last, at 1-5-1.

   Boston, and the fatal terror attack there in April, was very much on everyone’s minds leading up to the 34th Shelter Island Overcoming Obstacles 10K Saturday, and consequently certain precautions, such as prohibiting backpacks and providing clear plastic bags for the collection of refuse at the start and finish lines rather than metal bins, were taken, but all, the race’s director, Mary Ellen Adipietro, said, went smoothly.

Turbo Tri

    A triathlon for competitors 17 and up comprising a 300-yard Gardiner’s Bay swim, a 7-mile bike leg, and a one-and-one-half-mile run is to be held at Maidstone Park in Springs on Saturday at 6 p.m.

    The race, over the same course that younger triathletes are to traverse next month, is a fund-raiser for the growing I-Tri program, which is designed, according to I-Tri’s founder, Theresa Roden, to empower adolescent girls. “Transformation Through Triathlon” is the program’s motto.

    A 21-year-old native of New Zealand, Michael Poole, won Saturday’s 31st Montauk triathlon in 1 hour, 47 minutes, and 54 seconds, a record.

    Poole was 11th out of the water, in 21:13, though only two seconds separated him from the eventual runner-up, Tom Eickelberg, who was the first to emerge from the brisk and choppy one-mile Lake Montauk swim.

   The Yellow Slugs were anything but sluggish as they defeated the favored Oilers 6-3 in the spring adult roller hockey final at the Sportime Arena on June 4.

    And they did it despite conceding the Oilers four power plays, three of which resulted from penalties assessed the Slugs’ slick and quick forward Neil Powell.

    The game provided an interesting matchup inasmuch as Tommy Powell, Neil’s brother, was in the goal for the Oilers. Neil got the better of Tommy on two occasions in the first half, with Matt Brierley adding another for a 3-0 halftime lead.