Sports

   It’s all coming down to this: If the East Hampton High School softball team does not make the playoffs this season — which as of this week was a possibility — it will be the first time in Lou Reale’s 20-year coaching tenure here that that will have happened.

    “We’ve got to cut down on our mistakes,” the veteran mentor said in recounting last week’s 4-1 and 4-2 losses to Islip and Rocky Point Monday morning. “In both games it was the same thing — we’d give up unearned runs, battle back, but fall a little short.”

   The big news as far as East Hampton High School sports was concerned last week lay in the fact that the boys tennis team defeated the league-champion Ross School 4-3 here on May 1.

    Ross and Westhampton Beach finished with 10-2 records, though Ross defeated the Hurricanes both times they played. It was the fourth straight year that the private school has won the league championship.

Ruggers Lose

    The Montauk Rugby Club was ousted from the Northeast Division II regional tournament Saturday as the result of a 32-20 loss to the host side, Princeton, which the next day defeated Montclair, N.J., for the championship and the right to advance in postseason play.

    “They were a better team than we were,” Rich Brierley, the Sharks’ coach, said Tuesday. “Their backs were pretty good, and though our guys know how to tackle, our lack of defensive experience showed in some instances.”

Thursday, May 9

BOYS TENNIS, East Hampton at William Floyd, scrimmage, 3:30 p.m.

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

Friday, May 10

SOFTBALL, Westhampton Beach at East Hampton, 4:30 p.m.

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

Saturday, May 11

TRACK, East Hampton boys and girls at Elwood-John Glenn invitational, 8:45 a.m.

T-BALL, first session, John M. Marshall Elementary School, 9-10:30 a.m., registration at site.

BOYS LACROSSE, East Hampton at McGann-Mercy, Riverhead, 10 a.m.

   When Diane Lamb, a master teacher from Lincoln, Neb., asked following a golf clinic she gave for a dozen South Fork physical education teachers at East Hampton High School last week which school wanted to be the first in Suffolk to avail its students of the national First Tee program, designed to teach kids golf and life lessons, John Foster’s hand shot up.

    Foster, who works with the Springs School’s athletic director, Mark McKee, and who has caddied at the Shinnecock Hills Golf Club in Southampton since he was 14, seemed the obvious choice in any event.

   Things went a bit better for East Hampton High School’s teams this past week.

    The softball team as of Monday was riding the crest of a three-game winning streak (all shutouts) during which Lou Reale’s crew outscored the opposition 38-0.

    Still, Reale was not ready to say his young team, whose record, he said, improved to 6-6 as the result of Saturday’s 9-0 win here over Harborfields, had turned the corner.

    “The defense today was ugly,” he told his players during Saturday’s postgame huddle.

   For the fourth year in a row, the Ross School has won a league boys tennis championship, though, as Richard Wingfield, Southampton’s coach, said before a match in the private school’s “bubble” Monday, referring to Ross’s Tennis Academy, whose students are prohibited from high school competition, “We’re really facing Ross’s jayvee.”

    The Cosmos, whose sole league loss as of Monday had come at the hands of William Floyd in its league opener, went into the match with the Mariners at 10-1 in league play and 10-2 over all.

   Six sixth-grade girls from the Springs School enthusiastically underwent an hourlong workout, using the TRX straps and mats at the Epic Strength and Conditioning studio adjacent to the Maidstone Market last Thursday.

    The workout, provided gratis by Epic’s four personal trainer partners, Alex Posada, Christian Pena, Jorge Alvarado, and Stephany Brito, was intended to help prepare these newest members of the ever-growing I-Tri adolescent girls empowerment program for a youth triathlon that is to be held at Maidstone Park on July 14.

Fund-Raiser

    The Greater East Hampton Education Foundation will benefit from a fund-raiser at East Hampton Point restaurant tomorrow night from 6:30 to 10:30. There will be a buffet dinner, dancing, a silent auction, and raffles. Tickets cost $35 per person.

Off-Road Half

Thursday, May 2

GIRLS LACROSSE, East Hampton at Mount Sinai, 6 p.m.

Friday, May 3

BOYS TENNIS, division tournament, first rounds, William Floyd High School, noon.

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

BASEBALL, East Hampton at Shoreham-Wading River, 4:30 p.m.

BOYS LACROSSE, East Hampton at Babylon, 7 p.m.

Saturday, May 4

BOYS TENNIS, division tournament, quarterfinal and semifinal matches, William Floyd High School, 9 a.m.

Sunday, May 5

   Mike Ritsi, who oversees the East Hampton Town Little League’s baseball and softball umpires, said Tuesday that while he has 10 or so umpires on hand at the moment, he is, nevertheless, short-handed.

    “I’ll be happy to take anyone who volunteers, though I’d prefer it not be a parent-coach,” he said during a brief conversation Tuesday.

   Ritsi has been doing some of the umpiring himself, “though not much because I’m also the high school’s jayvee baseball coach, and we’ve had three games a week lately.”

   Forty or so girls from the Montauk and Springs Schools who are training for the I-Tri triathletic and mentoring program’s Youth Triathlon at Maidstone Park in July took part in a bicycle session at the Springs School Saturday with Sharon McCobb, Annette MacNiven, and Diane O’Donnell, coaches who have extensive swimming, biking, and long-distance running experience.

    McCobb recently was named president of the Old Montauk Athletic Club, replacing John Conner. The club has been a force in advancing the cause of athletics here for a number of years now.

   The Montauk Rugby Club is entering the playoffs with barely the number it needs, having lost — until further notice — about a dozen players, some of them veterans, in recent months.

   For five hours Saturday anyone with even the slightest interest in outdoor pursuits could avail him or herself of a virtual cornucopia of experts ready and willing to share their knowledge of nature at the Sportsmen’s Expo on the Amagansett Fire Department’s grounds.

Friday, April 26

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

SOFTBALL, East Hampton at Bellport, 4:30 p.m.

BOYS TENNIS, East Hampton at Southampton, 4:30 p.m.

BASEBALL, Bayport-Blue Point at East Hampton, 4:30 p.m.

Saturday, April 27

TRACK,  East Hampton boys and girls at Westhampton Beach invitational, 9 a.m.

SOFTBALL, Harborfields at East Hampton, 11 a.m.

RUGBY,  Casino Night, benefit Montauk Rugby Club, Stephen Talkhouse, Amagansett, 7-10 p.m.

Monday, April 29

   With the exception of boys tennis, not many Ws have bloomed thus far this spring on the fields of East Hampton High School.

    In the week past, softball, which is having a down year, owing in part to a back problem that continues to nag the team’s all-state pitcher, Casey Waleko, lost three games, two of them by wide margins, and baseball, boys lacrosse, girls lacrosse, and tennis all lost contests.

   Four East Hampton High School coaches could be described as happy as of Tuesday morning, a group that included Ed Bahns, of baseball, Mike Vitulli, of boys lacrosse, Matt Maloney, of girls lacrosse, and Michelle Kennedy, of boys tennis, though the latter was as of Monday awaiting the outcome of a protest she’d filed with Section XI following Friday’s match at the Ross School.

   Saturday’s Katy’s Courage 5K road race in Sag Harbor, which inaugurated the running season here, was hugely well-attended with some estimates running as high as 1,200.

    According to Bob Beattie’s Island-Timing crew, there were 1,087 finishers, including the late Katy Stewart’s paternal grandfather, Walt, a member of the national wrestling Hall of Fame, whose handshake remains firm at 88.

Thursday, April 18

BOYS LACROSSE, Bellport at East Hampton, 3:30 p.m.

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

Friday, April 19

BOYS TENNIS, East Hampton at East Islip, nonleague, 4:15 p.m.

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

Saturday, April 20

BOYS TRACK, East Hampton at Westhampton Beach invitational, 9 a.m.

GIRLS TRACK, East Hampton at Connetquot invitational, 9 a.m.

SPORTSMEN’S EXPO, Amagansett Firehouse, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., rain or shine.

Monday, April 22

   Anchored by female chuggers, Team Hopper, Tira Na Og, and the Shamrocks finished first, second, and third among 25 spirited teams that contested a relay race at the Montauk Brewing Company on March 30.

    Caroline Cashin, one of the organizers, who is a personal trainer and a frequent winner in endurance races here, said that the response to the unadvertised event had been a bit overwhelming.

    The Concept 2 rowing, biking, and running legs began and ended with chuggers chugging a pint of the Brewing Company’s Celtic Red ale, which was said to be tasty.

    Ryan Borowsky, of Sag Harbor and the Montauk Rugby Club, was the big Slimpossible winner, or loser, of 50 pounds in a recent Sag Harbor Gym fitness contest.

    Of the 40 initial participants, 28 finished, what with weather-related accidents and the like, and their successes and awards were celebrated at La Superica restaurant in Sag Harbor last Thursday night. Trainers had a competition of their own, based on their team’s transformation, and Kevin Norman was the elated winner among them, according to Tahlia Miller, another trainer.

   In making a circuit of East Hampton High School’s fields Monday afternoon, this writer found Michelle Kennedy, the boys tennis coach, and the track coaches Shani Cuesta and Chris Reich in good moods, as was Will Collins, who assists Ed Bahns with the baseball team. But in Collins’s case, he was trying to keep hope alive, given the fact that the team remained winless as of Monday.

   Michelle Kennedy, who coaches East Hampton High School’s boys tennis team, played off a half-dozen of her charges Monday with an eye toward rearranging the lineup.

    If things worked out the way she thought they might, Collin Kavanagh and Dan Okin, who have been playing first doubles, would take over the top two singles positions, at least in some of the matches, and Reese Donaldson and Matt Silich would move up from second to first doubles.

Thursday, April 11

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

Friday, April 12

GIRLS LACROSSE, Eastport-South Manor at East Hampton, 4:30 p.m.

BOYS TENNIS, East Hampton at East Islip, nonleague, 4 p.m.

BASEBALL, East Hampton at Amityville, 4:30 p.m.

Saturday, April 13

RUNNING, Katy’s Courage 5K, West Water Street, Sag Harbor, 8:30 a.m., registration from 7:15 to 8:15.

BOYS LACROSSE, Center Moriches at East Hampton, 10 a.m.

Monday, April 15

April 7, 1988

    Shawn Turner set a new East Hampton High School high jump record of 6 feet 3 inches, and surprisingly good performances were recorded by hitherto-untried competitors in East Hampton-Pierson’s league season-opener here Tuesday with Mercy High School of Riverhead. East Hampton won the meet 106-19.

April 14, 1988

    Another honor came Kenny Wood’s way on Sunday as Newsday named him to its 10-player all-Long Island boys basketball team.

   Greg Drossel, a naturalist who last fall began giving a popular archery course at the Ross School, and who is soon to give the same course to adults as part of Ross’s continuing education program, said the other day that his love for the sport grew hand in hand with his love of the outdoors.

    “I grew up in the Stony Brook-Port Jefferson area and as a kid I roamed the woods with an uncle of mine who was five years older. After a rainstorm we’d find white quartz arrowheads from an old Native American settlement. Guess what we did with them?”

    “Shoot them?”

   One of the warmest days yet this year brought nine sailors to a seven-race regatta on Saturday afternoon at Sag Harbor’s Breakwater Yacht Club. Postponed from HarborFrost weekend in February because of the bay’s transformation to a sea of ice in a blizzard, the weather on this day was just right, according to Marty Knab of Sag Harbor, who served on the race committee.

   “One step at a time” is how Brigid Collins and Jim Stewart plan to create a bereavement center for children on the East End. They took a giant leap in that direction in October, when they secured not-for-profit status for Katy’s Courage Fund, named for their daughter, who died of hepatoblastoma, a rare form of liver cancer. The third Annual Katy’s Courage 5K race, which celebrates Katy and furthers her family’s progress toward their goal, will take place in Sag Harbor on April 13.

Thursday, April 4

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

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

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

Friday, April 5

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

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

BOYS TENNIS, Southampton at East Hampton, 4:30 p.m.

Saturday, April 6

SOFTBALL, Bayport-Blue Point at East Hampton, nonleague, 11 a.m.

Monday, April 8

SOFTBALL, East Hampton at Westhampton Beach, 4:30 p.m.

   A good big team, the Green Devils, was matched against a good small one, the Kings, in the 11-and-up roller hockey championship game at the Sportime Arena in Amagansett Sunday.

    And, in the end, though it took 44 minutes of regulation and 2:40 of overtime to do it, the Devils, thanks to Matt Kreymborg’s fourth goal of the day, prevailed 7-6.