Sports

Ryan Pilla, “the Car Doctor,” is to return to Daytona, Fla., this weekend to compete in pro touring class races there.

“The last time I was in Daytona, in 2006, I had the pole position in the enduro,” the sports car mechanic and driver said Monday. “Two of us, Patrick Dempsey, the actor, and I, shared a Ford factory Mustang. I brought it in in first place after my hour-and-a-half stint. When he finished we were in 15th. This time, I’m driving the entire three hours myself, in a Mazda I built

   James Ignatowich’s success in regional United States Tennis Association junior tournaments has provided compelling proof of the Ross School Tennis Academy’s effectiveness.

    A pleasant, quiet-spoken 11-year-old sixth grader who tops Connecticut’s 12-and-under age group, James recently made more noise by winning a 14-and-under U.S.T.A. New England sectional tourney outside Hartford, besting in straight sets two older players — the number-one and two seeds — who had beaten him before he’d matriculated at the academy in the fall.

    Following Saturday’s 24-22 loss in a friendly match with the White Plains Rugby Football Club, Rich Brierley, who coaches the Montauk R.F.C., said, looking ahead to the regional Sweet 16 tournament in Pittsburgh, that he liked Montauk’s chances.

    The Sharks, he said, are to play the Midwest champion (probably Wisconsin) in the first game, on May 12. To advance to the Final Four, which is to be contested in Glendale, Colo., over the June 2-3 weekend, Montauk will have to win both games it plays in Pittsburgh’s Cheswick suburb, home to the Pittsburgh Harlequins.

    Having returned from a singular spring training trip to Orlando, Fla., where it had won all eight of its scrimmages, the East Hampton High School softball team flirted with disaster in a crossover game here on April 18 with Eastport-South Manor, but Kathryn Hess, the senior catcher and cleanup hitter, saved the day.

    As a result of Hess’s two-out single to right field in the bottom of the seventh inning, a hit that scored Casey Waleko from second base, the Bonackers went home happy on the long end of a 4-3 score.

    The East Hampton High School boys and girls track teams lost to their Amityville peers this past week, though there were good things to say even though the margins of victory were considerable.

    “We were holding our own until the scores from the throwers and jumpers came in,” said the girls’ coach, Diane O’Donnell. “Their girl who won the shot-put just stood there and tossed it 34 feet.”

Friday, April 27

GIRLS LACROSSE, Harborfields at East Hampton, 4 p.m.

BASEBALL, Shoreham-Wading River at East Hampton, and Smithtown Christian vs. Pierson, Mashashimuet Park, Sag Harbor, 4:30 p.m.

GIRLS TRACK, Rocky Point at East Hampton, 4:30 p.m.

Saturday, April 28

RUNNING, Katy’s Courage 5K, West Water Street, Sag Harbor, 8:30 a.m.

SOFTBALL, Deer Park at East Hampton, scrimmage, 10 a.m.

RUGBY, Long Island Rugby Club vs. Montauk, Herrick Park, East Hampton, 1 p.m.

Monday, April 30

    The East Hampton Coaches Association’s coffers benefited to the tune of $10,000 from a golf outing Saturday at the South Fork Country Club in Amagansett.

    Rain had been forecast, but it was, wonderful to tell, a sunny day, and spirits were bright.

    “The last time here [two years ago], I hit a horse,” Lou Reale, East Hampton High’s softball coach, said before the golf cart brigade of foursomes set out.

    Ed Bahns, whose baseball team was 5-6 as of Tuesday morning, having dropped all three games in a series with Mount Sinai, by scores of 9-1, 11-1, and 4-1, professed some concern Friday when asked about the team’s chances of making the playoffs.

April 2, 1987

    The Bridgehampton High School boys basketball team, the League VII and Suffolk Class D champion, was treated Tuesday night by MADRE, a women’s Central American aid organization, to an evening at Madison Square Garden, where the players saw the Knicks defeat the Celtics, the defending N.B.A. champions, 128-120.

    . . . In other Killer Bee news, the team’s senior point guard, Troy Bowe, as expected, received the Suffolk Coaches Association’s player of the year award at a banquet on March 25.

   Lou Reale, who coaches East Hampton High School’s softball team, said Tuesday morning that the past week’s spring training trip to Orlando, Fla., had indeed been memorable.

Thursday, April 19

BOYS TRACK, Amityville at East Hampton, 4:30 p.m.

BASEBALL, Mount Sinai at East Hampton, 4:30 p.m.

GIRLS LACROSSE, East Hampton at Islip, 4:30 p.m.

GIRLS TRACK, East Hampton at Amityville, 4:30 p.m.

SOFTBALL, East Hampton at Kings Park, 4:30 p.m.

Friday, April 20

SOFTBALL, Elwood-John Glenn at East Hampton, 4:30 p.m.

BASEBALL, East Hampton at Mount Sinai, and Pierson at Southold, 4:30 p.m.

BOYS TENNIS, East Hampton at Eastport-South Manor, 4:30 p.m.

    The East Hampton High School baseball team swept a three-game series with Amityville last week, improving its record to 5-3 before losing 9-1 at Mount Sinai on Monday.

    As of Tuesday, the Bonackers were tied with Mount Sinai for third place in League VII, behind 9-0 Bayport-Blue Point and 6-3 Shoreham-Wading River.

   The East Hampton High School girls lacrosse team, which was in 10th place among Division II’s 21 power-rated teams as of Tuesday, lost 15-13 at Kings Park Friday after having earlier in the month defeated Bayport-Blue Point 10-9 and, in a nonleaguer, Lindenhurst 11-8.

    When Zivile Ngo first came here from Lithuania eight summers ago to work at the Golden Pear, she was, the competitive bodybuilder said during a recent conversation at The Star, a shy, skinny kid.

    No longer shy — she would not have become certified as a personal trainer by Les Mills International if she continued to be so — and no longer skinny — the fact that she’s begun competing in bodybuilding competitions’ figures category against other women with athletic physiques attests to that — the tall, blue-eyed 29-year-old has found her life’s work.

Thursday, April 12

BOYS LACROSSE, East Hampton at Bellport, 10 a.m.

BASEBALL, East Hampton at Amityville, 10 a.m.

Friday, April 13

GIRLS LACROSSE, East Hampton at Kings Park, 10:30 a.m.

Saturday, April 14

RUGBY, Montauk vs. Village Lions, Randalls Island, New York City, 1 p.m.

Monday, April 16

BOYS LACROSSE, Mattituck-Greenport-Southold at East Hampton, 4:30 p.m.

BOYS TENNIS, Islip at East Hampton, nonleague, and William Floyd at Ross, 4:30 p.m.

BASEBALL, East Hampton at Mount Sinai, 4:30 p.m.

   The Montauk Rugby Club’s warmups for next month’s national Division II East bracket Sweet 16 games in Pittsburgh began March 24 at a tournament held by the Village Lions on Randalls Island in New York City.

    The Sharks, who are the eighth seed in the East region, split on the 24th, defeating the New York Rugby Club 19-12, but losing 22-19 to White Plains, a loss that kept the side from advancing beyond pool play.

    Montauk is to meet White Plains, a solid D-I side, again in a friendly match to be played at East Hampton’s Herrick Park on April 21.

Trip of a Lifetime

    The East Hampton High School Coaches Association is to have a golf outing at the South Fork Country Club this Saturday, and at the dinner that night the winner of a “trip of a lifetime raffle,” whose tickets cost $20, will be announced.

    On the eve of a three-game series with Amityville, the East Hampton High School baseball team had played single games with all of its league opponents, winning two games and losing three.

    But for a tendency to blow leads, a tendency that Bonac’s coaches, Ed Bahns and Will Collins, hope to correct, “we could be 5-0 at this point rather than 2-3,” Collins said following the spring break’s first practice session.

March 12, 1987

    It’s Glens Falls, Ho! for the Pierson High School girls basketball team, which on Tuesday night easily defeated Alexander Hamilton of Elmsford in the state Class D Southeastern Regional championship game at Sachem High School, 81-59.

    After three minutes of to-and-fro, at which point Pierson held a slim 11-10 lead, the Whalers, using their height and well-executed fast break to advantage, left the younger and less-experienced Westchester County team farther and father in their wake.

   The East Hampton Town men’s slow-pitch league, which is down to five entries, has put out a call for a few more good teams. Whether they will materialize is questionable, but league officials are hoping, given the success each summer of the Travis Field memorial scholarship tournaments, that they may.

    “We’re down to five teams now. We had six last year,” said the league’s spokesman, Rich Schneider, who can remember the days when 14 teams played in two divisions at the Terry King ball field in Amagansett.

   On the eve of his team’s departure for 10 days of scrimmages and practice sessions at Disney World’s sports complex in Orlando, Lou Reale, who coaches East Hampton High’s softball team, said things were looking pretty good given the young team’s early season wins over Shoreham-Wading River, Rocky Point, and Miller Place, and a close loss to Sayville, the top-ranked Class A school and one of the best teams over all in the county.

   None of the teams in East Hampton won Monday. The Ross School’s boys tennis team, as its coach, Vinicius Carmo, had feared, lost 4-3 at Southampton, a team that he had said had four good players. Thus Ross dropped to 3-1 in league play. Meanwhile, East Hampton lost 6-1 at Westhampton Beach, dropping to 2-3. Southampton and Westhampton, each at 4-1, are tied for the League VII lead.

East Hampton’s baseball team lost 4-1 at Bayport-Blue Point, dropping to 1-3. Bayport-Blue Point improved to 4-0.

   East Hampton High’s track teams went up against their Miller Place peers in season-opening meets on March 27, and while it was no surprise that both the boys and girls lost, their coaches, Chris Reich and Diane O’Donnell, were encouraged nonetheless.

    “It was a good start,” O’Donnell said Monday morning. “We’ve got a lot of new people, and Shani and I don’t know what exactly they can do yet, but we had some good performances there, and the ones we expected to do well did.”

Monday, April 9

BASEBALL, Amityville at East Hampton, noon.

Tuesday, April 10

GIRLS LACROSSE, Ward Melville at East Hampton, scrimmage, 10 a.m.

BOYS LACROSSE, East Hampton at Sayville, 10:30 a.m.

SOFTBALL, Pierson-Bridgehampton at Center Moriches, 10 a.m.

BASEBALL, Pierson-Bridgehampton at Port Jefferson, noon.

Wednesday, April 11

BASEBALL, Port Jefferson vs. Pierson-Bridgehampton, Mashashimuet Park, Sag Harbor, noon.

Thursday, April 12

BASEBALL, East Hampton at Amityville, 10 a.m.

   As of earlier this week, East Hampton High’s baseball team was 1-3 in league play, having seen leads vanish in games with Mount Sinai and Shoreham-Wading River.

    “Finding a way to put teams away when we have a lead will be the focal point for us moving forward,” said Will Collins, who assists Ed Bahns in coaching the Bonackers.

    In the game with Mount Sinai, played here last Thursday, East Hampton went up 1-0 in the bottom of the first inning on a triple by Brandon Brophy and an r.b.i. grounder by the starting pitcher, Deilyn Guzman.

    Things were going swimmingly for the East Hampton High School softball team as of earlier this week.

    Thanks to early-season wins over Westhampton Beach, Shoreham-Wading River, and Rocky Point, Lou Reale’s girls were 3-0 going into Monday’s game at Sayville. Miller Place was to have played here Tuesday.

    “I’ll be happy if we can go down to Florida at 4-1,” the veteran coach said during a conversation Sunday, following a clinic he and his assistant, Erin Abran, gave for coaches, parents, and young players that morning.

   There was good news and bad for the East Hampton High School lacrosse teams last week.

    The boys, who as of earlier this week were 1-1 in division play, bounced back from a 15-8 loss here to Rocky Point by thumping Southampton 15-2 Friday, and the girls, after routing Bellport 18-5, were, in turn, polished off 15-4 by Hauppauge, dropping them to 2-1 in division play.

    The Ross School’s boys tennis team handed Westhampton Beach a 4-3 loss in the private school’s bubble Friday, thanks in the end to a clutch performance by one of Ross’s seventh graders, Jonas Linnman-Feurring, who played third singles.

    Newsday had touted the Hurricanes as the team to beat in League VII in its Sunday edition, noting that Ross had lost six players from last year’s county-finalist team.

   As Matt Maloney had predicted, the East Hampton High School girls lacrosse team was well tuned for its league opener at Center Moriches Friday.

    The Ross School’s boys tennis team, which has only one senior, Felipe Reis, its number-one, is set, nevertheless, to challenge Westhampton Beach for the league championship. Ross and Westhampton are to play their first match tomorrow.

    While the coach, Vinicius Carmo, expects the Cosmos to make the playoffs, he’s not sure how deep this year’s team, which includes two seventh graders who play singles and three freshmen, will go. Ross was the county runner-up to Half Hollow Hills East the past two years.