June 3, 1993

Larry Keller, who has thrown the discus farther than any other high school athlete on Long Island this spring, will lead a contingent of East Hampton High School competitors to the county meets at Bellport High School this weekend.

Keller, a 235-pound junior, whose best throw thus far has been 158 feet, 8 inches, is the county boys meet’s first seed, though he can expect competition from Port Jefferson’s Mike Helbig, who edged Keller by one foot in the recent Division III meet held here.

Besides Keller, Mike Burns, the boys coach, will take to the county meet two pole-vaulters, Rob Balnis and Chris Minardi, a high-jumper, Rory Knight, and, if his broken hand is healed, a shot-putter, John Hayes.

Becky Cooper, a senior, who in a meet with Mercy on May 11 set school records in the discus and the shot, has been seeded fourth in the county shot-put and 11th in the discus. 

June 10, 1993

A 36-hour sleepless skein seemed not to affect the Nasty Boys Rugby Club’s 7s side much. The Nasty Boys, all of whom have played rugby since their days in Toronto’s Danforth Technical High School, romped through the Montauk Rugby Club’s 20-team tournament here Saturday.

The all-day tournament was also notable for the fact that the host side, for the first time in the tourney’s five-year history, made it into the final four. Montauk was defeated 17-4 by the Nasty Boys in a semifinal matchup.

“They didn’t ruck over the ball — they picked it up right away, and that made the difference,” Kevin Bunce, Montauk’s player-coach, said.

. . . Kelly Dolan, a second-row forward, was one of the Montauk stalwarts. He played last season with the Old Mission Beach Athletic Club of San Diego, made the all-California all-star side, and is trying out soon for the Eagles, the national team.

Paul Blodorn, a Mercy High School senior who lives in Sag Harbor, “blew everyone away,” according to his coach, Kevin Barry, in the Suffolk County 1,600-meter race at Bellport High School Saturday.

Blodorn, who recently signed a letter of intent to attend the University of Massachusetts on a partial athletic scholarship, ran a personal best 4:19:05, thus bettering by six seconds his winning Division III meet time run at East Hampton two and a half weeks ago.

June 17, 1993

Kevin Ruch, 28, of Camp Hill, Pa., on Saturday became the first person to win the Shelter Island 10-kilometer race three times. Ruch, who did not quite meet his goal of breaking 30 minutes, has, in fact, won the popular 10K three times running.

Surprise, surprise. Eben Jones won the Montauk triathlon on Saturday, for the sixth time in a row.

Jones, 32, a government bond trader from New Canaan, Conn., has yet to meet his match at Montauk, though he finds the course there, and its organizers, matchless, which is why the world’s top-ranked amateur keeps coming back. 

Jones’s time of 1 hour, 35 minutes, and 17 seconds was six minutes faster than last year, though he was the first to acknowledge that “the swim was short.”

The New Canaan speedster, a swimmer who later took up cycling and running, was out of the water at the Waterfront restaurant staging area in 11 minutes and 38 seconds, getting a bike-leg jump of several minutes over the stiff competition. Chuck Sperazza, a former Mighty Hamptons winner who regularly trains with Jones, and who is in the 35-to-39 age group, wound up as the runner-up, about two minutes off Jones’s torrid pace.

“Since I’m getting older, I figured the course had to be shorter,” said Jones, who, while he had no complaints, offered that his wife, Beth (the sixth-place woman), might have fared better had the swim been a full mile. Strong swimmers would be less tired after a long swim than their competitors, he reasoned.

June 24, 1993

Handy Hands Construction, a Springs team, won the East Hampton Town Little League Softball championship Sunday by defeating Amaden-Gay Agency 9-3 in the first game and disposing of the Town Police Benevolent Association 14-4 in the final.

It was the first year that the organization, also known as the Lassie League, held a final-four tournament, and judging from the large turnout at Amagansett’s Terry King ball field, it will be repeated hereafter. 

Pat Glennon, Handy Hands’ head coach, said that the level of play in Little League softball has risen considerably in the six years that he has been associated with the league. “It used to be throw-around. Now, there are bullets from short to first. It’s progressed so much — it’s becoming very competitive.”

“. . . I would say that 95 percent of the girls in our league stay with softball as they go through high school.”

The Young Turks of the Montauk Rugby Club, which is to say their college-age players, sailed through the Hell Gate 7s tournament on Randalls Island in New York City this past weekend at 6-0.

It was the first tournament of the season for the Sharks’ 7’s side, in whose number are Brandon Johnson, Jordan Johnson, Josh King, Jorge Calderon, Steve Early, Morgan Rojas, Steve Turza, and Nate Campbell. 

The pared-down version of 15-on-a-side rugby is, because there is virtually no time to breathe, more demanding and faster, especially if the ball gets out of the rucks quickly. Also, because a shot through a gap can quickly translate into a breakaway, tackling is critical. Brandon Johnson and Jordan Johnson, his cousin, were the wingers, but in 7s speed is uniformly important.

“We’ve got athletes all over the field,” Calderon said during a conversation at The Star Monday. “Two of the games, the semifinals with Old Maroon, an upstate team, and the finals with the Naughty Boys, a New York City team, were dogfights. I forget the scores; it was a long day. Our first game [7s games comprise 10-minute halves] was at 9 and our last one was at 3:30.” 

Other teams in the tournament were Albany, the Village Lions’ A side, and the Bull Moose, a club based in Farmingdale with which Montauk may combine for play this summer and fall, a combination that ought to resolve what has become a numbers problem here lately.

Calderon and Rojas played with a Bull Moose entry that recently won the Four Leafs 15s tournament, also on Randalls Island. And a Bull Moose player, known as Frost, played with Montauk’s side this past Saturday, as did Mike Jablonski, a former Montauk player who lives now in Mattituck. 

“We get along with them [the Bull Moose players] off the field, but not on the field,” Calderon said with a smile. 

The Section XI Warriors, a combined youth team coached by Kevin Bunce and Jablonski that has players on it from East Hampton, the North Fork, and Shoreham-Wading River, competed as well, in the elite interscholastic division, winning one and losing three, said Calderon, who was, along with his teammates, happy to have their support.

Brandon Johnson is playing rugby at Mount Saint Mary’s in Maryland, King is playing at American International, Jordan Johnson is to attend New England College in the fall, Early played the sport in college and has coached it at the college level, Rojas is playing at York College in Pennsylvania, Calderon, who is studying at Suffolk Community now, is interested in transferring to a college that offers architectural courses, and Campbell, here for the summer, is on Jamaica’s national team, Calderon said.

Montauk is to play host, Calderon said, to a 7s tournament of its own at Lions Field in Montauk on July 21. “So far, Suffolk Bull Moose and Rockaway have said they’ll come. We are talking with Brooklyn, and Steve has two teams coming from Connecticut.”

The locals are to play in a 7s tournament on the Jersey Shore the following week.

During a conversation following the 15s season last fall, Charlie Collins, a Montauk Rugby Club spokesman, acknowledged that the Sharks, which wound up at 3-5 (three of the losses owing to forfeits), had been hurting numbers-wise, though the aforementioned young blood, he said, had been most welcome and augured well for the future.

Stony Hill Stables in Amagansett, which since 2011 has provided annual scholarships to youngsters here who would not otherwise have the chance to pursue riding seriously, is to hold a fund-raiser at the stables off Town Lane on Saturday from 6 to 8 p.m.

The family event will include a dressage exhibition by the stables’ owner and United States Dressage Federation gold-medal winner, Wick Hotchkiss, a performance by the stables’ pony drill team, a jumping exhibition, and raffle prizes. 

The Stony Hill Stables Foundation, said to be “on a sound footing,” has, according to its release, “given local riders a path to their equestrian dreams — with a grassroots approach the scholarship program has opened its barn doors to local kids. Stony Hill is the only stable on the Island to offer a scholarship program like this, with five to seven scholarships awarded each year.” 

One of last year’s recipients, Olivia Walsh, an 11-year-old Montauker, said before mounting up for a training session with Marisa Bush Friday afternoon that she had been drawn to riding ever since her parents brought her to the stables for a lesson three years ago. She won her first time out, capturing, on Gator, a blue ribbon in the mini short stirrup division at a Yaphank show last fall.

A member of the pony drill team, Olivia surfs and plays softball as well, though riding, she said, is her passion. 

Her scholarship has enabled her to share in the lease of Gator, a dark bay school horse, and to participate in more clinics than she otherwise would have.

Bush said that Olivia “has taken full advantage of her scholarship — she has progressed so much since leasing Gator. It’s allowed her to fine-tune her position and to develop as a rider. Her dedication to riding and her work ethic make her a very worthy scholarship recipient.” 

Gator, Olivia said, is “gentle and a good listener.” She liked winning blue ribbons too, she added. 

Asked what it was she said in her scholarship application that won over the foundation’s board, Olivia said with a smile that she couldn’t remember. 

Maureen Bluedorn, who first suggested to Hotchkiss that Stony Hill launch such a program, said last fall that “this was the best year for candidates — we had 18 applications, the most ever. . . . These kids were screaming for it, it made it very easy for us to choose.”

“The kids were over the moon,” she continued, “and the parents were so appreciative. They’re sharing a passion; they’re developing beautiful relationships with horses, and with others. Beautiful people come out of that.”

“She’ll start working in pony camp this summer,” said Bailey Thompson, the fund-raiser’s chairwoman (and competitive dressage rider whom Hotchkiss trains). “And she’ll be grooming too . . . the whole experience. It’s not just about riding and walking away. It’s about everything involved in caring for a horse.”

Gator, she added, is “a good teacher. Part of the scholarship is that she has gotten to ride Gator twice a week on her own, so she’s been able to practice what she’s learned.”

“I’ve seen tremendous progress,” Olivia’s mother, Lauren Walsh, said. “Because of the scholarship she’s been able to spend much more time here, she has access to a horse that she can ride, and she can take him to shows. . . . She’s been able to take private lessons. . . . She got to audit an Olympic trainer’s clinic last summer. . . . None of this would have happened without the scholarship.”

And her dream? To go to a school like the Knox School that has an equestrian team, Olivia said.

“Well,” said her mother, with a broad smile, “I don’t know if that’s in the cards.”

The East Hampton Town Little League organization has fielded what its president, Steve Minskoff, has called “four very competitive teams” to play in District 36 traveling all-star tournaments.

The first to sally forth, the 11-12-year-old girls, coached by Jeff Miller, pounded Bellport 29-1 in an away game last week before losing 11-7 to North Shore here at East Hampton High’s softball field Sunday.

“It was 8-0 after the first inning, but then we came back,” said Miller, noting that “North Shore was the state runner-up last year — they’re always a powerhouse because they can draw from such a large area, including Rocky Point, Miller Place, and Shoreham-Wading River. But we showed we can play with them.”

Bellport in turn defeated Riverhead that day, setting up a return match with East Hampton Tuesday. Should East Hampton have emerged as Tuesday’s winner, it will have to beat North Shore twice — today and tomorrow — to win the district title, a tall order.

Miller’s roster comprises Gabrielle Miller, Gianna D’Agostino, Caroline DiSunno, Ryleigh O’Donnell, Lily Somers, Lyla Wilson, Lola Garneau, Alyssa Brabant, Ella Eggert, Melina Sarlo, Katie Bruno, and Mia Reinhardtsen.

Brabant was the winning pitcher in a June 19 “world series” rubber game contested by the Springs Fire Department Reds and the Ruddy & Sons Blue Jays. The Blue Jays as a result won the championship two games to one, an upset given the fact that the Reds, the pennant-winner, had sailed through the regular season at 11-1 (with three wins over the Blue Jays), while the Blue Jays had gone 7-5.

The Blue Jays won the first game of the series, on June 12, 6-2, and the Reds prevailed the next night, 8-7. 

The visiting team on June 19, the day the deciding game was played, the Blue Jays led 3-1 after the first inning, but five walks, a two-run error, and a two-run double by Mariann Brennan in the bottom of the second put the Reds up 6-3.

In the fourth it was the Blue Jays’ turn as DiSunno, the Reds’ pitcher, began to falter. By the time it was over, the Blue Jays had wrested the lead back at 9-6, the final three runs coming around on a bases-loaded double down the first-base line by Eggert that led to a throw-around.

The score remained unchanged until, in the bottom of the fifth, the Reds tied it at 9-9 thanks to a two-out rally.

An infield hit led off the Blue Jays’ sixth — the final inning — but the base runner was subsequently cut down in trying to steal second. A groundout to first followed, but then Brabant singled over third and, with Eggert up, proceeded not only to steal second and third, but home as well, as DiSunno, apparently unaware that Brabant had edged halfway down the line, was too slow to get back to the mound with the ball, which Miller, the Reds’ catcher, had thrown to her.

Brabant’s daring steal of home proved to be the game-winner. Eggert then walked, and after stealing second and third, came home as the result of an infield error with the run that clinched the 11-9 victory. 

Over the weekend, Matt Brennan, the Reds’ head coach, while tipping his hat to the Blue Jays — “they outplayed us” — said that had his team, the home team in this case, been able to claim the third-base dugout, “Alyssa probably wouldn’t have been able to steal home.”

Brennan wasn’t only upset by the fact that the Blue Jays had been able to commandeer the third-base dugout in games one and three, but also felt he’d been treated shabbily by the Little League organization when he’d asked that the world series games be played, as he said the rules stated, on successive days.

“They sent out an email saying all the games would have to be finished by the time the U.S. Open began [Thursday, June 14] and then, at the last second, I was told the third game would be delayed by a week. I complained — it’s my busy time of year — and was told, ‘You’re right, but there’s nothing we can do.’ It’s the same reply I got when I said it was the custom for the home team to have the choice of dugouts. . . . It’s advantageous to have the third-base dugout because you can see the field better and communicate better with your batters.”

“I won’t be continuing [as a coach],” he said. “You’re teaching the kids the rules, and then they see that the rules can be broken depending on who you are. That’s not what you should be teaching kids.”

His 11-year-old daughter, Mariann, who had been chosen to play on the 11-12 traveling all-star team, declined to do so in support of her father. 

Minskoff said, when questioned Monday, that “we are aware of the situation, and we’re going to deal with it after the postseason.”

Back to the postseason teams, the 9-10 boys (the defending District 36 champions) are to begin play tomorrow at Sag Harbor, at 5:45 p.m., and the 11-12 boys are to begin play Saturday here with Southampton at 10 a.m.

The 9-10 boys all-star team comprises: Andrew Brown, Livs Kuplins, Kai Alversa, Luke Rossano, VictorEddy Diaz, Harrison Jenkins, Adrien Weber, James Corwin, Trevor Meehan, Finn O’Rourke, Jackson Carney, and Bruno Sessler. 

The 11-12 traveling all-star boys are Zachary Dodge, Michael Locascio, Nico Horan-Puglia, Jack Dickinson, Tyler Hanson, Milo Tompkins, Patrick Farrell, Cassius Hokanson, Isaac Rodriguez, Justin Prince, Juan Palacios, Kieran Conlon, Carter Dickinson, and Chase Siska.

On the 10-11 girls softball traveling all-star team are Kerri O’Donnell, Sophia Rodriguez, Georgia Kenny, Harper Baris, Lila Ruddy, Dakota Quackenbush, Susie DiSunno, Sienna Salamy, Gabrielle Payne, Katie Kuneth, and Julia Kuneth.

Thursday, July 5

WOMEN’S SLOW-PITCH, games at 6:45 and 8 p.m., Terry King ball field, Abraham’s Path, Amagansett.

Friday, July 6

LITTLE LEAGUE, 9-10-year-old District 36 tournament, semifinal-round games, sites to be determined, 5:45 p.m.; 11-12 tournament, East Hampton at Eastport-South Manor, 5:45.

MEN’S SLOW-PITCH, games at 7 and 8:15 p.m., Terry King ball field, Abraham’s Path, Amagansett.

Saturday, July 7

LITTLE LEAGUE, 9-10-year-old District 36 softball tournament, East End at East Hampton, East Hampton High School, 10 a.m.; 11-12-year-old District 36 tournament, North Shore National at East Hampton, Pantigo fields, 10, and 9-10 semifinals, sites to be determined, 10.

Sunday, July 8

LITTLE LEAGUE, 11-12 District 36 tournament, East Hampton at Hampton Bays, noon. 

Monday, July 9

LITTLE LEAGUE 11-12 District 36 tournament, semifinal-round games, teams and sites yet to be determined, 5:45 p.m.

MEN’S SLOW-PITCH, games at 7 and 8:15, Terry King ball field, Abraham’s Path, Amagansett.

Tuesday, July 10

LITTLE LEAGUE, 9-10 District 36 softball tournament, East Hampton at East End (Westhampton), 5:45 p.m.

WOMEN’S SLOW-PITCH, games at 6:45 p.m. and 8, Terry King ball field, Abraham’s Path, Amagansett.

Wednesday, July 11

LITTLE LEAGUE, 11-12 District 36 tournament, championship game, teams and sites yet to be determined, 5:45 p.m.

MEN’S SOCCER, 7-on-7 league, F.C. Tuxpan vs. Hampton F.C.-Pool Shark, 7 p.m., and Maidstone Market vs. Tortorella Pools, 8, Herrick Park, East Hampton.

MEN’S SLOW-PITCH, games at 7 and 8:15, Terry King ball field, Abraham’s Path, Amagansett.

Stony Hill Scholarships

The Stony Hill Stables Foundation of Amagansett announced at its benefit Saturday that the following nine applicants had won scholarships to ride there: Mya Del Percio of Montauk, Isabel Mitchell of Sag Harbor, Abby Galarza of East Hampton, Zephyr Gregor Montanari of Sag Harbor, Jacob Eames of Amagansett, Ruby Reiter of East Hampton, Aiden Sloan of Sag Harbor, Harper Davidson of Springs, and Evelyn Royal of East Hampton.

Kranepool Memorabilia Offer

Martin Gover, who represents Ed Kranepool, the former New York Mets star, has said in an email that “Mr. Kranepool is offering a limited number of collectors the opportunity to visit him at his home on Long Island to examine and purchase unique Mets and Yankees sports memorabilia directly from his collection.”

“The items for sale are autographed vintage photos, autographed assorted team and individual baseballs, great baseball memorabilia from different teams, as well as unsigned, never been seen before personal photos from his 17-year career with the Mets.”

“. . . All home visits will be by appointment only. This memorabilia sale will help pay for some of Ed’s major medical bills from the past year. . . . If interested, please contact Martin Gover of Momentum Sports Management, Inc., at 212-918-4545.”

Jamari Gant, who played on the 2015-16 Bridgehampton High School boys basketball team memorialized in Orson and Ben Cummings’s “Killer Bees” documentary, which is to open in Los Angeles and New York City at the end of this month, was, until Friday, a computer science major at the State University at Fredonia without a computer.

The one he’d had, bought for him by his mother, Lakisha, had come to grief some months ago as he’d fallen asleep on a high-rise bed at college. When he got up the nerve to show her the shattered laptop last Christmas, she, who has been living with Jamari’s five siblings in a Wading River shelter, was at a loss.

Now, thanks to the Bridgehampton School Foundation, whose coffers have grown as more and more well-heeled Bridgehamptoners have seen the little-engine-that-could Killer Bees story they’d known little about, he has one, a state of the art, high-powered, portable Alienware computer programmed for video-gaming, a field that Gant and a college friend, Kermit Mitchell of Uniondale, are hoping to enter.

When he heard of the presentation, Gant said he’d been blown away.

“Don’t let it out of your reach,” Glenn Fuhrman of Sagaponack, the film’s executive producer, said with a smile Friday in handing it over to the appreciative recipient as Orson Cummings, Gant’s former coach Carl Johnson, Johnson’s wife, Lillian Tyree-Johnson, Kat McCleland of the foundation, and Lakisha and Latwana Gant, his aunt, looked on.

McCleland said the foundation had bought the Alienware computer thanks to recent donations. 

“A lot of people are interested in 

making contributions,” McCleland said, adding that some would be used to meet individual needs, such as underwriting college visits, as well as funding programs of benefit to the school body. 

Of his teammates, Gant, who was taken onto the Killer Bees as a first-year senior at the suggestion, Coach Johnson said, of its former star Charles Manning, probably had the diciest childhood inasmuch as his mother, a daughter of the late Henry Gant of East Hampton, was frequently forced to uproot her family because of the South Fork’s soaring rents. 

But despite his pillar-to-post childhood, the quiet-spoken recipient said, in answer to a question, that he had always been determined to go to college.

“He’s the first one in our family to graduate high school, and the first one to go to college,” his mother said proudly. 

Gant, who is 20, and his mother have not lived together for the past two years given that to do so would apparently violate the rules governing the shelter in which she and her five other children, Jaeda, 16, Jordan, 16, Jahvon, 13, Akasha, 12, and Jaylah, 4, live. He now lives in Ronkonkoma with his aunt.

The documentary, one of whose producers is Shaquille O’Neal (another is the art dealer Larry Gagosian), uses the proud Killer Bees basketball tradition (the tiny school has won nine state championships over the years) as a lens through which to view such societal issues as race, income inequality, gentrification, the criminal justice system, politics, education, and a seasonal economy, the Cummings brothers have said.

The film crew followed the team for the better part of a year. “We grew up in this world and we knew it well,” Ben Cummings has said, “and while the time frame is limited to basketball, the film covers pretty much everything that’s going on out here.”

At some “behind the hedgerow” screenings, the filmmakers were interested to learn how few part-time residents knew what the Bees had accomplished over the years — dating to 1946 actually.

“When they learn about the team, the history of the community, and all the wild social and economic diversity in Bridgehampton, they seem stunned,” Orson Cummings said during an interview prior to the premiere at the Hamptons International Film Festival last fall.

It went on to be shown at the Santa Barbara and Sarasota Film Festivals as well, where it was also well received. It has Sports Illustrated’s imprimatur too.

In addition, the film was featured by the Hollywood Reporter this week, and is eligible to be entered in the Academy Awards’ documentary category.

O’Neal says on killerbeesmovie.com: “It’s crazy. I’ve been going to the Hamptons for 20-30 years and I thought the Hamptons was all about rich people. But there’s another side of the Hamptons that you really don’t see. And this team, they’ve been winning championships for the longest time. And it’s a great story. When I saw it I called them up and said, ‘I want to be an executive producer.’ It’s a great film. Check it out.”

Linus Kiplagat, a 23-year-old Kenyan who lives in Lansing, Mich., won the 39th Shelter Island 10K Saturday in 29 minutes and 45 seconds. 

“It was a two-man race, pretty much from the beginning,” Cliff Clark, one of the scenic, nationally known road race’s founders, said afterward, “though I knew, given his 14:30 split at the 5K mark near the Gardiner’s Bay Country Club, that he wouldn’t set a record.”

“It’s a tough course,” Clark added, “and the second half, which is all uphill from the second bridge — from four and a quarter to five and three-quarter miles — is much tougher than the first.”

Kiplagat and his fellow Kenyan-born competitor and training partner, Isaac Mukundi, 30, ran together for the first two miles, in 9:05, after which Kiplagat, who has had a successful running season, began to open up a gap that he proceeded in the succeeding miles to extend and extend.

Dr. Owen Anderson of Lansing, who has written books on the science of running, oversees running camps in Michigan and Kenya, and coaches Kiplagat and Mukundi, who were making their debuts here, rode with Clark in the press truck, sharing the radio commentary.

The women’s winner was Birtukan Fente Alemu, a native of Ethiopia, in 33:40. She was 14th over all. 

The fourth-place finisher, Tadesse Yae Dabi, 29, was on his way to winning this race two years ago when he ran onto — rather than around — Fiske Field because a marshal was too slow in closing a section of snow fencing that had been opened so the press truck, transporting photographers to the finish line, could pass through. 

Mary Ellen Adipietro, the race director — a volunteer, as is everyone connected with the race, including her husband, Dr. Frank Adipietro — vowed at the time that it wouldn’t happen again, and it hasn’t.

Clark said the men’s record stood at 28:37 (set by Simon Ndirangu in 2012), and that the women’s record, which he couldn’t recall, would probably be safe for a long while.

There were some familiar faces in the top group: Nick Lemon, 25, a former Gubbins Running Ahead employee who lives in Boston now, placed 11th, in 33:17, and Kira Garry, 25, a part-time Montauker who lives in New York City, was 23rd, in 36:09, earning her a fourth-place finish among the women.

Lemon said he’d never run on Shelter Island before, “because I was always working on Saturdays.” It was, he added, his first 10K on the roads, and, he had learned, “much harder than on a track,” where his best has been a 31:22.

Garry, a Yale graduate whose parents, Bill and Louisa, traversed the course on bicycles, runs for the Central Park Track Club. It was her first time running Shelter Island too, and, yes, “it was hard . . . I went out a little too hard at the beginning.” 

Moreover, Erik Engstrom, a county cross-country champion when he was a student at East Hampton High School, placed 25th, in 37:06. His former Bonac teammate Erik Perez was 34th, in 37:57.

The male masters winner, in 31:59, and the seventh-place finisher, was Mengistu Tabor Nebsi, 40.

Clark said there were about 1,600 participants in all — 10K runners and 5K runners and walkers — their entry fees benefiting the Shelter Island Community Fund, the Timothy Hill Ranch for at-risk youth in Riverhead, and East End Hospice.

Lindsey Gallagher, Shelter Island High School’s salutatorian and a four-time county cross-country champion, ran with Joan Benoit Samuelson, the former Olympian, who, according to Clark, “loves Shelter Island, and she really loves the kids.”

“I look up to her a lot — it was fun,” Gallagher said after crossing the line in 57th place, in 41:57. Benoit Samuelson, who is 61, ran the 6.2-mile distance in 42:01. Bill Rodgers, 70, the former four-time Boston and New York City Marathon winner, who, like Benoit Samuelson, is a regular Shelter Island 10K attendee, did not run this time owing to a hamstring pull. Gallagher agreed that if she could run as fast as her running partner when she hit 60, she’d be thrilled. 

She’s going to Washington University in St. Louis in the fall, buoyed by academic and athletic scholarships.

Another stellar Shelter Island High School runner, Kal Lewis, who recently won the state’s Division II 1,600-meter championship, in 4:15 — his second statewide win, the other having come last fall in the Class D cross-country race — was reportedly on his way back from a regional race in North Carolina.

When it was noted during Monday’s conversation with Clark that it seemed extraordinary that Shelter Island kept turning out highly competitive runners even though the school didn’t have a track, he said, admittedly somewhat tongue in cheek, “Runners can run anywhere, tracks are for spectators.”

One reason Shelter Island kept turning out talented high school runners had to do, he thought, with the race itself, and with Shelter Island’s popular 5K in the fall.

“Shelter Island has become a long-distance running mecca, Shelter Island parents put the elite runners up, their kids get to meet them, and a lot grow up wanting to be like them.”

Planning for the U.S. Open played this past week at the Shinnecock Hills Golf Club in Southampton began at least two years ago in order to assure that the 30,000 fans who passed through the entrance gates each day, and those who were lucky enough to play in the field, had the best time possible.

But if it weren’t for the nearly 4,500 volunteers, many of whom came from the East End, it would have been a different story entirely.

“Our volunteers are truly the backbone of the success of the tournament,” Mike Davis, the United States Golf Association’s chief executive officer, said. “Without their commitment, this tournament just doesn’t happen.”

The U.S.G.A. said it had volunteers from 49 states and from 16 countries, adding up to more than 90,000 hours of time donated. “Their passion for the sport of golf is just amazing,” Davis added.

Even the pros who played at Shinnecock appreciated the effort the volunteers put forth. “We know how much it takes to staff a tournament, and I, myself, appreciate all that the volunteers do,” said Steve Stricker, a 12-time winner on the P.G.A. tour, during Tuesday’s practice rounds.

“I think all the guys on the tour are very appreciative of them,” said Jim Furyk, the 2003 Open winner. “Golf tournaments would never happen without volunteers. And I have to say that here at Shinnecock they’ve been great.”

“This is my third Open championship,” said Marianne Brackney of Columbia, Md., a volunteer at the corporate hospitality tents along the eighth hole fairway, where she checked for proper identification. “Before he passed away, my husband and I loved working together at various tournaments around the country. I still love doing this and have such wonderful memories.” 

Brackney was unsure if she would attend the Open next year, which is to be held at Pebble Beach in Carmel, Calif. “It’s not easy to find a hotel near the course there,” she said. “But I’m still looking into it.”

Brett Clark of Philadelphia, a three-time Open volunteer who served as a grandstand marshal on the 14th hole, avoided the cost of a pricey hotel by securing a $30-per-day campsite at the Wildwood State Park campground in Wading River, about 15 miles northwest of the course. “It’s a cheap alternative, and it worked out great for me,” he said. “The traffic was not all that bad for my shift, and Shinnecock is a beautiful course. I’m having a great time.”

“I’ve done seven consecutive Opens in a row now,” said Dave Brumby of Lake Charles, La., at the first hole’s green, where he was a marshal. Brumby rented a house with five of his golfing colleagues in Sag Harbor for the week. “We’ve already signed up to be volunteers at Pebble Beach next June. We all have such a great time doing it.”

“I’ve never been a volunteer at a golf tournament, but I’m so glad I did it,” said Tom Vallance, who came down from Toronto to work as a marshal on the practice green. “The only downside was the traffic on some days, depending on the shift I had. But it was great to be so close to the players. I’ll never forget it.”

As aforesaid, a lot of East End residents, including this writer, raised their hands when asked to man the Open’s 23 volunteer committees.

One of them, Joe Bolomey of East Hampton, said it was the fourth Open he’d worked at Shinnecock. Bolomey so loves golf that he sleeps in his truck just about every Saturday night so he can be assured of an early tee time at Montauk Downs. Thanks to Kevin Smith, Montauk’s longtime pro, Bolomey and his group of fellow golfers were assigned to be marshals at the sixth hole for the entirety of the championship.

“We have a great group of people here working together on this hole — I would never miss this in the world,” Bolomey said from the right-side fairway as Tiger Woods was readying to tee off.  Bolomey almost made the Open as a caddie for his brother, A.J., who tried five times to qualify for it. “He almost did one year — he was so close.” A.J. now works at the Trump National Golf Club in Washington, D.C., where he also serves as the president’s caddie when he plays there.

“I’m having a great time watching the pros play,” said Justin Waterman of Southampton, who was keeping a close eye on the driving range. “Actually, there are a lot of us volunteers here on the range, so there’s not exactly much to do. Which is fine with me. It gives me a chance to really focus on watching them hit.”

This writer signed up a year ago to be a volunteer on the leaderboards committee. Sadly, I was sidelined for part of the week by an unforeseen family matter out of state. 

That said, I will have another chance to be a volunteer here in 2026, and as for Pebble Beach, another iconic course, I may travel there next June to lend a hand where I can.

Thursday, June 28

LITTLE LEAGUE, District 36 tournament, Bellport-East Hampton 11-12 softball winner at North Shore, 5:45 p.m.

WOMEN’S SLOW-PITCH, Bono Plumbing vs. Groundworks, 7 p.m., and Police Benevolent Association vs. Schenck Fuels, 8:15, Terry King ball field, Abraham’s Path, Amagansett.

Friday, June 29

MONTAUK PLAYHOUSE, tour of planned aquatics and cultural arts centers, 240 Edgemere Street, 5 p.m.

LITTLE LEAGUE, District 36 tournament, East Hampton’s 9-10 baseball team at Sag Harbor, 5:45 p.m., and final game of 11-12 girls softball tourney, if necessary, East Hampton High School, 5:45 p.m.

MEN’S SLOW-PITCH, McGuire Landscaping vs. Marcello Masonry, 7 p.m., and Wainscott Landscaping vs. Corner Bar, 8:15, Terry King ball field, Abraham’s Path, Amagansett. 

Saturday, June 30

LITTLE LEAGUE, District 36 tournament, 9-10 and 11-12 baseball, Southampton at East Hampton, Pantigo fields, 10 a.m.

BENEFIT TENNIS, Ellen Hermanson Foundation fund-raiser with adult round robin, match play and activities for children, and barbecue, Hampton Racquet, Buckskill Road, East Hampton, 11 a.m.-3 p.m.

RIDING, Stony Hill Stables Foundation fund-raiser, Stony Hill Stables, Town Lane, Amagansett, 6-8 p.m.

Monday, July 2

LITTLE LEAGUE, District 36 tournament, 11-12 baseball, East Hampton at Sag Harbor, 5:45 p.m.

Tuesday, July 3

LITTLE LEAGUE, District 36 tournament, 9-10 baseball, Hampton Bays at East Hampton, and 11-12 baseball, Moriches at East Hampton, Pantigo fields, 5:45 p.m.

Wednesday, July 4

MEN’S SOCCER, 7-on-7 league, Bonac F.C. vs. F.C. Tuxpan, 6:30 p.m.; Sag Harbor United vs. Maidstone Market, 7:25, and Tortorella Pools vs. Hampton F.C.-Pool Shark, 8:20, Herrick Park, East Hampton.

MEN’S SLOW-PITCH, games at 7 and 8:15 p.m., Terry King ball field, Abraham’s Path, Amagansett.