Tim Steiskal, the winner of Saturday’s Robert J. Aaron memorial Olympic-distance triathlon in Montauk, said he began to worry when, as he was running uphill “from the bottom of a canyon” on the run, he saw the defending champion, Matthew Connelly, on his way down.

But then Connelly, whom Steiskal expected would be on his tail in short order, vanished, having made a wrong turn, it was later learned, with a little more than two miles to go in the 10K, the last of the triathlon’s three legs — the first two being a mile-long swim in Lake Montauk and a 20-mile bike out to the lighthouse and back.

It was the first win for Steiskal, 28, the Patchogue Y.M.C.A.’s membership director, who had been the runner-up the past two years. His time, 1 hour, 55 minutes, and 49 seconds, was three minutes better than his time last year, Steiskal said.

He was, he said, third out of the swim, and first in on the bike. It was the third win of the season for him — the Carl Hart Duathlon in East Islip and the North Fork triathlon being the other two.

When questioned at the finish line, Steiskal still was not absolutely sure he had won. He was waiting to see the time for Steven Galvao, a 26-year-old from Selden who, because he’d not done this race before, did not start off in the elite group, but in the third wave. Steiskal need not have worried: Galvao placed 10th, in 2:04:27.3. 

Peter Ventura, a 39-year-old triathlete from Huntington, running in memory of the late Steve Tarpinian under the Team Total Training banner, was the runner-up, in 2:00:52.0. He had never been in the top three here before, he said, “usually fourth, fifth, or sixth.” Tarpinian, he added, had introduced him to triathloning a number of years ago.

Cesar Villalba, 31, of Brooklyn, in 2:01:31.5, and Piers Constable, 47, of New York City, in 2:02:18.4, were third and fourth.

Connelly, who said his wrong turn had probably added two miles to his run, placed 13th, in 2:08:08.3. “Lesson learned,” said Connelly, who is training for the U.S. Nationals in August, and who, despite all, continues to “love this race.” 

Hallie Nicoll, 34, who coaches track at the Nightingale-Bamford School in New York City, and who also is a part-time Southampton resident, was the women’s winner, and 15th over all, in 2:08:11.9. “I was fifth or sixth out of the water, but first off the bike,” she said.

“I didn’t know about her,” said Merle McDonald-Aaron, the race director, after congratulating Nicoll.

Mike Bahel, one of the local participants — Angelika Cruz, Evan Drutman, Emily Janis, Craig Brierley, and John Broich, who did not finish, being some of the others — said he had made the elite wave swim start with just a couple of minutes to spare. “I’m a slow swimmer — I should be in the fifth wave,” said Bahel, who owns the Body Tech fitness studios here.

He placed fourth in the men’s 50-to-54-year-old division with a time of 2:19:32.8. Drutman, who crossed the finish line with his 12-year-old Labrador, Glory, and his 4-year-old daughter, Natalie, placed fifth among the 50-54s in 2:22:50.6.

When this writer said he thought he had seen Paige Duca among the 300 or so contestants, Bahel said he doubted it because “she’s going to be in the Montauk Mile tomorrow.”

Indeed that was so. Duca, an all-American distance runner at Boston College and a lifeguard here in the summer, won the Montauk Mile’s women’s race in 5:06.72, setting a course record.

Ryan Fowkes, the men’s winner, set a course record too, in 4:39.33, shaving 10 seconds from last year’s time. Fowkes placed third last year, behind Erik Engstrom and Kal Lewis of Shelter Island, a state champion in the 1,600.

Engstrom placed second in 4:45.33, Joshua Green of Shelter Island was third, in 4:49.90. Erik Perez (5:04.43) and Eamon Spencer (5:08.60) rounded out the top five.

Among those trailing Duca in the women’s mile were her 15-year-old sister, Olivia, the runner-up in 5:44.56, Ava Engstrom, third in 5:57.71, and Bella Tarbet, fourth in 5:58.35.

Sponsored by the Old Montauk Athletic Club, the men’s race drew 46 participants, the women’s, 39. 

Jennifer Fowkes described it as “a huge success. We are hoping to grow this event even bigger each year.”

John Conner, 83, after whom the Montauk Mile cup was recently named, was among the spectators.

Noah Avallone, a young snowboarder from Montauk who turned 11 on May 16, continues shredding in Shaun White’s gnarly wake, the latest feather in his cap being a runner-up finish at the United States of America Snowboard and Freeski Association’s national championships in Colorado in April. 

Going up against his 11-and-under peers, Noah competed in all five events — halfpipe, slopestyle, giant slalom, slalom, and boardercross (downhill races versus several opponents) — over the course of five days.

“They’re all Olympic events,” Mike Avallone, Noah’s father and coach, said during a recent conversation here. “There were up to 72 kids in each event from the nation’s 32 regions, and there were some international competitors too.”

Noah, whose favorites are halfpipe and boardercross, won this event among the 9-and-under menehunes last year. Each year it gets tougher. “There were nearly double the amount of kids in his division this year, and most were older,” said Mike. “Noah was the youngest kid on the podium.”

“Every Olympian has done what Noah is doing,” the elder Avallone continued, in answer to a question, “and each year it becomes more challenging.”

For his part, Noah, who was keeping his balance nearby as he moved about on an indoor practice surfboard, said, when asked, that he loved snowboarding, more so than surfing — “the origin sport,” according to his father.

“The only reason he’s not as good at surfing as he is in snowboarding is that he doesn’t apply himself as much to surfing,” his father interjected. “There’s more structure to snowboarding, it’s more competitive, there are more kids, and Noah likes the socializing.”

Still, Noah’s no slouch when it comes to surfing. He qualified last weekend for the Eastern Surfing Association championships, which are to be held in Nags Head, N.C., from Sept. 22 to 28.

He’s never competed in skateboarding — another surfing offshoot — though he’s very good at it, and undoubtedly will be even better after attending a skateboard camp in Woodward, Pa., this summer.

When it comes to competing in the three sports, “you have to pick and choose,” Mike said.

Noah’s runner-up finish at the nationals followed by about a month his appearance at the invitation-only U.S. Open Junior Jam in Vail, Colo. He was, his father, said, “the youngest kid,” one of two 10-year-olds who’d been invited to attend. 

He finished 13th among the 16 competitors in the 14-and-under division there. “There was a massive difference in age,” said Mike, “and the riders were from all over the world. Noah had nothing to lose — we were pleased that he was invited. All the Olympians were there, competing in the pro division, and he got to hang out with them. . . . They were encouraging.”

“Shaun White’s coach, J.J. Thomas, said Noah is technically perfect. Now, he just needs to get bigger, stronger, and faster so that he can increase his speed in the halfpipe and so that he has more time to do tricks. You can’t spin three times if you’re not going big enough. It [the higher amplitude] will come.”

“We’re focusing on national championships now,” Mike continued. “He was second in 2015, first in 2016, and first in 2017. In four consecutive years he’s done no worse than second — a great accomplishment.”

So, yes, the Olympics beckon. At 14, Noah will be too young for the 2022 winter games in Beijing, which means he’ll be shooting for 2026, whose site has yet to be determined.

And with that, father and son were off to do some surfing at Ditch Plain.

Doug Milano, an East Hampton Middle School math teacher who recently ran his first marathon, “dying” after having moved up to fifth place in the Newsday race by the 18-mile mark, had a much easier time of it in the Bonac on Board to Wellness 5K on May 23, crossing the Main Beach finish line ahead of 637 fellow participants, a number of them students or former students of his, in 17 minutes and 51 seconds.

“I’ll get him next year,” Omar Leon, an East Hampton High School track and cross-country competitor who was three seconds behind his former math teacher, said with a smile.

It was the second Bonac on Board win for Milano, who won this race two years ago in 17:27. His chances rise whenever the Gubbins Running Ahead store does not enter a ringer, as it often has in the past.

The area’s best milers, Kal Lewis of Shelter Island, third-ranked in the state in that distance as of a week or so ago, and Ryan Fowkes of East Hampton, were nonparticipants too, focusing, as they were, on the state qualifier meet that is to be held tomorrow and Saturday. Lewis won this race last year, in record time.

Barbara Tracey, the middle school’s nurse, who, with the now-retired Ginny Reale, began the Bonac on Board to Wellness fitness and nutrition program 14 years ago — an effort that earned the two a community service award from the Old Montauk Athletic Club, which foots the bill for the race’s timers — agreed, as hordes of young students, some of them on the run, gathered for the start at the Main Street entrance to the Reutershan parking lot, that she had a tiger by the tail.

It didn’t take long for the aforementioned 600-plus participants to cross Main Street — the only time in the year that it is closed to traffic for such a massive crossing — on their way to the beach by way of various village lanes.

Alyssa Bahel, a field hockey player and long-distance runner at Denison University in Ohio, where she is a junior, was the female winner — and eighth over all — in 19:26. The week before, she finished not far behind her father, Mike Bahel, at the Hither Hills Half-Marathon he puts on every year in Montauk.

“It’s always a battle when I go up against him,” she said. “I’m closer to beating him than I’ve ever been.” She’ll spend the summer in Denver as an environmental science intern.

Besides Milano, Leon, and Bahel, the top 10 comprised Joshua Vazquez Alvarez (third in 18:05), Amari Gordon (fourth in 18:17), Evan Masi (fifth in 18:19), Aidan Klarman (sixth in 18:28), Tyler Gulluscio (seventh in 18:44), Isaiah Robins (ninth in 19:30), and Eric Armijos Calle (19:40).

The good news, according to Leon, is that Vazquez, Gordon, and Masi are to come up to the high school’s boys cross-country team in the fall. (Presumably Luke Castillo, a talented 11-year-old who finished 13th in 19:30, won’t be far behind.)

Steve Redlus, a phys ed teacher at the middle school (and East Hampton’s former varsity football coach), said that Vazquez, an eighth grader, was “one of the most gifted athletes I’ve ever coached. He did 53 pull-ups, 60 push-ups, and ran the mile in 5:16 in our fitness test, posting the best cumulative scores ever.”

Vazquez Alvarez’s time was 47 seconds faster than last year’s.

“Definitely, we’ll have a good team, with Ryan [Fowkes], Ethan [McCormac], Matt [Maya], me, and these guys,” Leon said.

The middle school’s team won the Bonac Cup, which it always has done. 

Asked why, John King, a phys ed teacher at the Springs School, said, “They have more kids who run, though we’ll have our own track team this year and maybe our own cross-country team.”

Redlus said, with a laugh, that the answer lay in the fact that he was the middle schoolers’ phys ed teacher.

“We do daily cardiovascular conditioning in every phys ed class,” he continued. “They love to work hard, they love competing, they’re a great group, and they’re very eager to do their best.”

Besides Vazquez Alvarez, Gordon, Masi, and Armijos Calle, others on the winning East Hampton Middle School team were James Amaden V, Tenzin Tamang, Daniela Chavez, Nashaly Penafiel, Emma Hren, Brylinn Bushman, Nicolle Ortiz Perez, and Leslie Guichay.

Cara Nelson, a middle school teacher who not long ago ran seven marathons on seven continents in seven days, placed 53rd, in 22:17.

Ben Turnbull, who coaches East Hampton High School’s boys track team, said earlier this week that he expected that Ryan Fowkes, in the 800 and 1,600-meter races, Robert Weiss, in the 100 and 200, and Matt Maya, in the pentathlon, should earn berths in the state qualifier meet that is to take place at Comsewogue High School tomorrow and Saturday.

Likewise, Yani Cuesta, who coaches the girls, said she had hopes that her two freshman long-distance runners, Ava Engstrom and Bella Tarbet, and Bella Espinoza, a pole-vaulter, would qualify for the qualifier.

At the division meet this past week, Weiss was the 100-meter runner-up and was fourth in the 200; Fowkes placed third in the 1,600 and fifth in the 800; Frank Bellucci placed sixth in the steeplechase, and Eamon Spencer placed seventh in the 800.

As for the girls, Cuesta said Engstrom, competing in the freshman-sophomore meet, set a school record in finishing fourth in the 2,000-meter steeplechase in 7 minutes and 44 seconds. The record had been held by Liana Paradiso, who did a 7:47.89 last year. Engstrom also set a school record in the division meet’s 3,000, placing ninth in 11:01.82.

Engstrom was third and Tarbet was fourth in the freshman-sophomore 3,000, and Espinoza would have placed second in the pole vault, at 7 feet 6 inches, if the wind hadn’t blown her pole back onto the bar, knocking it off the standards. 

“She cleared that height by about a foot,” said Cuesta, who was to have argued her case at Tuesday’s seeding meeting.

Neal Feinberg, who’s leasing the four Har-Tru tennis courts on the Napeague stretch that Doug De Groot owns, said at 27Tennis the other day that he got into the real estate business “at the worst time in the history of humanity.” 

“All of a sudden, with the crash, there we all were, former tennis players who’d become lawyers, stockbrokers, and realtors, now back on the tennis courts teaching. The universe was smarter than we were, for tennis was what we all really loved. My father had been grooming me to be a lawyer or a comedian” — he became both — “but I thought going into tennis as a profession worked out better for me than any other plan. This is who I am.”

As for stand-up comedy, “I’ve done voices on ‘American Dad’ and for videogames such as ‘Celebrity Death Watch’ and ‘Grand Theft Auto,’ and I did a 40-character [90-minute] one-man show that Becky Mode wrote called ‘Fully Committed’ at Guild Hall five years ago. The main character is Sam, the reservationist at a high-end city restaurant. Then there are 39 other characters, with a number of them sometimes speaking at once.”

Asked how he squared lawyering, a sober profession by and large, with freewheeling comedy, he said, “I can be a comedian or a lawyer. So laugh at my jokes or I’ll sue you.”

He stopped doing stand-up two years ago, he said, to write a novel, “Service,” about a tennis pro in the Hamptons, a subject he knows well inasmuch as he’s been giving private lessons here for the past nine summers while also being the head pro at the Yorkville Tennis Club on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

He learned the game in his hometown of Scarsdale, N.Y., beginning lessons as a 3-year-old with Jerry Ayleen, an African-American pro who had competed abroad because he hadn’t been allowed into tourneys in the U.S. “This was before Arthur Ashe,” Feinberg said. “He had converted an old lipstick factory in Hastings-on-Hudson into a real club. . . . He taught me about life too. The most important thing, he said, was to have fun.”

As a teenager, Feinberg spent summers at the Welby Van Horn tennis camp in Pinehurst, N.C. Indeed, his mimicry of Van Horn attested to his talent for comedy. An internship at “Saturday Night Live” and a dual tennis and comedy career followed his graduation from Columbia University, to which he’d transferred from the University of South Florida.

As for the present, “I’ve created the cheapest and most popular adult tennis program anywhere in Manhattan, with almost 20,000 players. Tennis is stuck in a time warp the way it’s marketed. The two biggest barriers to its growth is that it’s too expensive and that there’s no one to play with. I’ve removed both those barriers. Across the U.S., yoga, spinning, boot camp . . . all those industries have outpaced the growth of tennis. They’re cheap and accessible, so I’ve made tennis the same way. Moreover, this is not a private membership club — it’s open to all, affordable and accessible to anyone on any budget.”

To further attract players, Feinberg has made arrangements with various resorts here, offering free trial classes to their guests. “Gurney’s is one of them, the Seacrest, the Hermitage . . . the Atlantic Terrace too. We’ll have a sleep-away adult camp there, our first adult tennis getaway. They’ll spend the whole day here. The Clam Bar will deliver food, so lobster rolls are waiting when you get off the court, that kind of thing. We’ve got a patio deck now where you can sit around, socialize, and watch tennis. We’ve also partnered with the Y.M.C.A., offering clinics for kids and adults at a very affordable price. I’ve wanted to start giving back from the very first moment I arrived. Come July and August we’ll have over 10 clinics a day.”

“Every day out here,” he said, “with weather like this I feel like I’ve already won. . . . I love this location, with the mist blowing in off the ocean. It’s like vaporized air-conditioning. It’s kind of a serene oasis that busy people will want to come to to get away from the crowd.”

Feinberg’s already begun holding U.S.T.A. junior tournaments at 27Tennis. One of his students, Daniel Gordon, who plays number-one at Trevor Day School  in New York City, won a boys Level 1B tourney here for 16-and-under boys last weekend.

As for interclub play, an idea he’d been toying with, “That sounded good to me until I realized I would have to provide one of the teams. In Chappaqua, where three of us tennis pros who are friends are all out here now” — himself, and Ted Diamond at Sportime in Amagansett and Rob Kresberg at Mashashimuet Park in Sag Harbor — “used to teach, we had the Northern Westchester Junior Tennis League. So interclub play is on the back burner for the moment, until I have enough players to fill a team.”

East Hampton High’s boys tennis team, which shared the league championship with Westhampton Beach, made it to the semifinals of the county team tournament this past week, defeating Sachem, the 12th seed, and Half Hollow Hills West, the fourth, before being “smoked,” in its coach Kevin McConville’s words, by top-seeded Half Hollow Hills East.

Hills East played Commack in the final, losing 4-2 to the second seed, a team that, following a 7-0 nonleague loss here earlier in the season, McConville characterized as “outstanding.”

“Commack’s coach [Jimmy Delevante] was also the best coach I came across this season,” McConville said during a conversation Sunday at the Hampton Racquet club, where he is the head pro.

Asked if the team had exceeded or had met his expectations, McConville, the first seasoned teaching professional East Hampton has ever had as a coach, said, “That’s a good question. Getting to the semis was great, I was really pleased with the progress they made . . . I would say, though, that some of them, some of the guys who have their own coaches, tuned me out for a while. They weren’t all that ready to add some variety to their games.”

His biggest accomplishment, he thought, had to do with the progress made during the course of the season by his doubles teams. “I taught them what’s called ‘the stagger system,’ which puts a premium on poaching at the net, and, at the same time, puts them in the best positions to defend against poaching. I didn’t want them always to be in a one-up, one-back alignment, with the server’s partner staring straight ahead, as was the case with just about all the schools we played.”

The stagger system, with its alternating defensive and attacking play, was the best one to use “when you don’t have great serve-and-volleyers. . . . You want to come in on the weak stuff so that your opponents have to hit up, and you want to cut off as many of the high crosscourt shots as you can — you don’t want your doubles teams to be playing singles.”

His doubles teams, he was happy to say, made the difference in the quarterfinal round 4-3 win over Hills West, a perennially strong team that had bested the Bonackers 4-3 in a nonleaguer early on. Thanks to wins at first (Jaedon Glasstein and Alex Weseley) and third (Jamie Fairchild and Hunter Medler) doubles, East Hampton, which split the four singles matches, turned the tables on the Colts in the tournament.

McConville, who was missing two starters the first time around, had expected Luke Louchheim, an eighth grader who had lost only one match during the regular season, to win as well, but he went down 7-5, 7-6 (7-3).

Sometimes with kids you never know who’s going to show up, he agreed, when told the late basketball coach, Ed Petrie, used to say that from time to time, with a smile.

In the tournament’s first round, the Bonackers easily handled Sachem 6-1, with only Weseley and Fairchild losing, in straight sets, at number-one doubles. As a consequence — the two let their opponents stay in points by playing patty-cake at the net and swatted at lobs erratically — McConville changed up the doubles lineup in the Hills West encounter, with the aforementioned good results. Glasstein and Weseley won 6-1, 6-3 and Fairchild and Medler (a pusher but a clever one) winning 7-5, 6-0 at three. Matthew McGovern and Miles Clark, freshmen who played energetically all season, lost at second doubles, 6-4, 6-2.

McConville, whose first year of coaching this was — he had come forward after Katie Helfand, the former boys and girls coach, and the mother of two young children, stepped aside — said he loved the experience. He identified the top 12 singles players initially, and had then largely concentrated his time on bettering the bottom part of the lineup, knowing that his “top three guys, and even Jaedon to a certain extent, were pretty accomplished singles players.”

Jonny De Groot, a Bridgehampton junior, whose father, Doug De Groot, owns the Buckskill Tennis Club on Buckskill Road and the 27Tennis club along the Napeague stretch here, got McConville’s nod as the team’s most valuable player. Matthew McGovern, he said, was “most improved,” and Glasstein, he added, was the coach’s award winner.

Indeed, Glasstein, he said, had been of service when McConville, who rallied in singles and in doubles with his charges throughout the spring in an effort to sharpen their games, in all likelihood tore his right A.C.L. during one of those teaching sessions. (He has undergone two A.C.L. operations on his left knee during the course of his career.) 

“I couldn’t walk for two weeks,” he said. He’s been rehabbing it with Randi Cherill, the school’s trainer, and with Keith Steckowski at Philosofit. “It’s serviceable now,” he said.

Next year’s team ought to be even better, the coach added, in answer to a question, inasmuch as “we’re only graduating one senior, Hunter, and hope to add Thomas Lawton, a Pierson junior who played as a freshman, and who almost came out this year, and Nick Collage, a Sag Harbor freshman.”

McConville, whose clientele includes Rachel Roth, “one of the best juniors in the East, whom I’ve been coaching for the past seven years,” wants to continue working, through hamptonsfit.com, with his high school-age charges this summer, as well with any others interested in pursuing professional tennis, fitness, swimming, and wellness instruction at reasonable rates.

Thursday, May 31

BASEBALL, Long Island Class Championship game, East Rockaway vs. Pierson, St. Joseph’s College, 4:30 p.m.

MEN’S SLOW-PITCH, Montauk Rugby vs. Uihlein’s, Terry King ball field, Abraham’s Path, Amagansett, 8:15 p.m.

Friday, June 1

TRACK, boys and girls state qualifier meet, Comsewogue High School, 3 p.m.

MEN’S SLOW-PITCH, East Hampton Fire Department vs. Thirsty Bubs, Terry King ball field, Abraham’s Path, Amagansett.

Saturday, June 2

BASEBALL, state tournament Class C regional game, Pierson-East Rockaway winner vs. Section I-IX winner at Pace University if Section I, 11 a.m., or at Cantine Field, Saugerties, N.Y., if Section IX, 10 a.m.

TRACK, boys and girls state qualifier meet, Comsewogue High School, 2 p.m.

Monday, June 4

MEN’S SLOW-PITCH, Harold McMahon Plumbing vs. McGuire Landscaping, 7 p.m., and Wainscott Landscaping vs. Montauk Rugby, 8:15, Terry King ball field, Abraham’s Path, Amagansett.

Tuesday, June 5

MEN’S SLOW-PITCH, Thirsty Bubs vs. Sag Harbor Fire Department, 7 p.m., and East Hampton Fire Department vs. Marcello Masonry, 8:15, Terry King ball field, Abraham’s Path, Amagansett.

Wednesday, June 6

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

MEN’S SLOW-PITCH, McGuire Landscaping vs. Wainscott Landscaping, 7 p.m., and Uihlein’s vs. Harold McMahon Plumbing, 8:15, Terry King ball field, Abraham’s Path, Amagansett.

Thursday, June 7

ATHLETIC AWARDS, senior athletic awards banquet, East Hampton High School, 7 p.m.

MEN’S SLOW-PITCH, Sag Harbor Fire Department vs. East Hampton Fire Department, 7 p.m., and Corner Bar vs. Thirsty Bubs, 8:15, Terry King ball field, Abraham’s Path, Amagansett.

The Montauk Mile

The Montauk Mile, spanning the railroad station and Lions Field along the shoulder of Flamingo Road, is to be contested Sunday morning. The women’s race is to start at 10:30, with the men’s to follow at 11. 

Last year’s men’s winner was Erik Engstrom, in 4:49.7, with Kal Lewis of Shelter Island second in 4:51. 

“This is a fun, family-friendly event,” an Old Montauk Athletic Club flier says. “We plan on having a Chinese auction, fun relays for youngsters, and pizza. . . . All registrants get a T-shirt, a light breakfast before the race, and a light lunch afterward.” 

In addition, registrants over the age of 21 will be given a free pint of Montauk Brewery beer. The winners’ names will be engraved on the Montauk Mile John F. Conner Cup.

The Tracksters Report

Robert Weiss, a senior who is going to Wagner College on Staten Island in the fall, led his fellow East Hampton High state qualifier entrants with a sixth-place finish in the 200-meter race.

Ben Turnbull, the boys coach, also reported that Ryan Fowkes in finishing 10th in the 1,600 set a school record with his time of 4 minutes and 24.19 seconds; that Matthew Maya placed 10th in the pentathlon; that Eamon Spencer was 16th in the 800, and that Weiss placed 11th in the 100. Spencer will attend the Naval Academy in the fall, the coach added.

Yani Cuesta, who coaches the girls team here, said her two ninth-grade distance runners, Ava Engstrom and Bella Tarbet, placed 15th and 21st in the unseeded section of the state qualifier’s 2,000-meter steeplechase, and that they and Lillie Minskoff (100), Mimi Fowkes (racewalk), Mikela Junemann (high jump), and Helen Barranco (discus) had been named to the all-League VI team. Engstrom and Tarbet made all-league in the 1,500-meter race.

Spring Athletic Awards

The following spring season athletes were honored by their coaches at an East Hampton High School athletic awards ceremony last week: Jonny De Groot, most valuable, Matthew McGovern, most improved, and Jaedon Glasstein, coach’s award, boys tennis; Zach Minskoff, most valuable, Austin Brown, most improved, and Elian Abreu, coach’s award, baseball.

Lucy Emptage, most valuable, and Elizabeth Bistrian and Sophia Bitis, coach’s award recipents, girls lacrosse; Maddie Schenck, most valuable, Sophia Ledda, most improved, and Ella Gurney, coach’s award, softball.

Robert Weiss, most valuable, Ryan Fowkes most improved, and Eamon Spencer, coach’s award, boys track; Lillie Minskoff, most valuable, Elizabeth Borzilleri, most improved, and Michelle Barranco-Ramirez, coach’s award, girls track.

U.S. Open Try

Turner Foster, East Hampton High’s top golfer, was one of 85 who vied for five U.S. Open spots Monday at the Canoe Brook Country Club in Summit, N.J. He finished at seven over par with rounds of 74 and 75.

Montauk Triathlon

The Robert J. Aaron memorial triathlon (1-mile swim in Lake Montauk, 20-mile bike, and 6.2-mile run) is to be held Saturday, with the swim to begin at 7:30 a.m. near the intersection of West Lake Drive and the Star Island Causeway. Merle McDonald Aaron, the race director, said earlier this week that “we’re still accepting applications.”

So far, she said, around 300 triathletes had signed up. “We had more than 500 last year, and in the past we had to close it out at around 700.”

She said she didn’t think the lower registration was owing to a falloff in the sport’s popularity. “It’s just that there are so many triathlons now.” The defending champion, Matthew Connelly of New York City, is expected to return. He won last year in 1 hour, 56 minutes, and 45 seconds.

Souvenirs at the Open

The U.S. Open’s 37,000-square-foot merchandise pavilion at the Shinnecock Hills Golf Club in Southampton will be open to the public from today through Sunday between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. More than 400,000 U.S. Open logo items will be on sale, according to a flier. Parking will be available at the Stony Brook Southampton campus nearby.

I will be wearing two hats, so to speak, at the coming U.S. Open at the Shinnecock Hills Golf Club — one as a volunteer on the leaderboards committee for three days, and the other as a credentialed reporter, a rather fun and unique combination.

When an email from the United States Golf Association’s public relations department arrived a few weeks ago, inviting me to Monday’s media preview at the club and inviting me, as well, to play the course that day, I was both flattered and anxious. Playing on such a famous stage where four Opens have been held in three centuries would indeed be a rare treat, though at the same time I wondered just how embarrassing my performance would be. Would I literally tear the course up?

While I love golf, and have played it since the age of 4, I stopped playing about a decade ago as work and family commitments became more time consuming, and switched to tennis, which is usually over in an hour rather than the four or five it takes to play a round of golf. I love tennis now, but the opportunity to play Shinnecock was just too good to pass up, my extreme anxiety notwithstanding. 

I resurrected my clubs from the basement, where they had been buried, but bad weather initially inhibited my plans last weekend to go to the range so I could remove the heavy coating of rust that had formed on my backswing. 

On Sunday, however, there was a slight break in the weather and I hightailed it to Montauk Downs to hit a few buckets, and to see just how poor my putting was.

You won’t believe this. I didn’t believe this. It was as if Jack Nicklaus had entered my body and had transformed me into Arnold Palmer: I could do no wrong. From driver to pitching wedge, I hit just about every shot perfectly. I was dumbfounded, even to the extent of regretting that I hadn’t played for so many years. I drove home aglow with confidence. I slept soundly that night.

Monday was glorious. The sun was out, it was warm. I walked with a sure step from the club’s parking lot to the media center at the left of the first hole, just beyond the famous clubhouse that Stanford White designed. Memories of watching Tiger Woods teeing off in 1995 at the first hole, in his first U.S. Open, came flooding back. His drive landed in the middle of the fairway. . . . Reliving the moment gave me goose bumps. Then I saw a small sign that said, “Kindly replace all divots.”

As we were given an overview of the tournament by senior U.S.G.A. officials during lunch, I was distracted by the growing knot in my stomach as my tee time loomed. There were television cameras and reporters from all over the world at this press conference. All sorts of languages were being spoken. Suddenly, I began to feel my arms, legs, and chest tense up. I began to sweat.

I decided, as we exited the vast media center, to join up with a few other mainstream reporters on the range to loosen up. A very bad decision, as they say. The lightning I had captured in a bottle and had clutched fervently the day and night before had escaped: Only rarely did a shot go the way I’d planned. Slices would be followed by duck-hooks, divots got deeper and more pronounced. It would take many months, I thought, before the root systems I’d scrambled would revive.

In approximately 20 minutes I had fallen apart utterly. That’s all it took. Rust? No, it was massive corrosion, acute metal fatigue. In a word, I had crumbled.

The 14th hole, where my group began, is a 525-yard par 4. That’s about how long all nine holes are at Poxabogue (where my 92-year-old mother got a hole in one the first time she ever played, in 1964, by the way). The U.S.G.A. officials had announced proudly at the press briefing earlier that that hole was playing 75 yards longer than it had in 2004, the last time the Open was held there.

Frankly, I could see no reason for the change other than to further punish a hacker like me.

Playing bad golf for 18 holes is not great fun. Needless to say, I didn’t keep score. I can’t count that high anyway. The course record still stands, suffice to say. Maybe 62 was my score on the front nine, though my pencil would have run out of lead by then.

Still, it was a privilege to play Shinnecock, a truly magnificent and historic golf course. You could feel the electricity as you walked by the numerous grandstands, pavilions, and tents — just what the players must feel in such an arena, surrounded by 40,000 spectators. It was bliss.

I doubt I will ever have another chance to play Shinnecock; the damage I inflicted was just too great. I know I’ve been banned for life. But that’s okay. At least I can say that I actually played there, and that means something to me. 

Meanwhile, tennis, anyone?

Men’s slow-pitch, in the form of a 10-team league divided into two divisions, has returned to the Terry King ball field in Amagansett following an absence of five years. 

The death notice appeared in these pages in July of 2013, though it was reported in the same story that “resurrection someday is not entirely out of the question.”

That day, thanks largely to Ray Wojtusiak and Andy Tuthill, has come. Play — one game per night to begin with — began this past week, with Marcello Masonry, the Thirsty Bubs, and Uihlein’s coming up winners.

“It’s too early to say who the favorites might be,” said Rich Schneider, the league’s spokesman, “though Marcello Masonry defeated the Sag Harbor Fire Department 24-3.” Marcello followed up on Monday with a win over the Thirsty Bubs.

While the league in Amagansett has revived — there were 14 teams in 2005, though 10 is, Schneider agreed, a healthy number — the Montauk wood bat league, in which a number of the former Amagansett players competed, has not suffered. To the contrary, that league, put together by Mike Ritsi, has seven teams in it. Play was to have begun at the Hank Zebrowski field in Montauk Tuesday evening. Ritsi said in an email that there’d been talk of having the respective champions play each other in a series at the end of the season. 

Then, too, there is the women’s league, a four-team one that is to begin play at Terry King on June 19, for a grand total of 21 slow-pitch softball teams here.

The Terry King ball field, where Little League games are also played — and where summer league baseball teams are to practice as well — has been entirely redone.

It was not always so. “Before Monday night’s clash between the league’s top two teams, defending-champion Schenck Fuels and CfAR, was spent filling in a deep hole in shallow center field so that fielders would not risk injury,” a July 12, 2012, story in these pages began. 

“That bit of deferred maintenance — it took three or four full buckets of dirt from the woods abutting the field to fill it — could serve as an apt metaphor for this season: The five-team league, which once numbered 14 in two divisions, has fallen on hard times. . . .”

“It looks nice now,” said Schneider, who describes himself these days as an umpire consultant. “The base paths can be adjusted, depending on whether it’s Little League or softball, the infield is well manicured, the fencing is new, though I’m not sure whether it’s higher or lower than it was before. . . . They’re using one kind of metal bat now, the one they use in the Travis Field tournament, and the ball is the same one they use in that tournament.”

Fans behind home plate are no longer in an entirely fenced-off area, though Schneider, who will be umping more games in Montauk than in Amagansett, where Matt Bennett will hold sway, said he thought there was no reason for alarm. 

“We’ll still get our share of verbal abuse,” Bennett said, with a smile, before Monday night’s game between Marcello Masonry and the Thirsty Bubs began. 

The teams playing in Montauk are Liars’, Shagwong, Gig Shack, the Sharks, Fort Pond Lodge, Hard Candy, and the Leftovers. In Amagansett they are Marcello Masonry, Corner Bar, Thirsty Bubs, Sag Harbor Fire Department, and East Hampton Fire Department in the Y Division, and Montauk Rugby, Uihlein’s, Harold McMahon Plumbing, McGuire Landscaping, and Wainscott Landscaping in the X Division.

“Everyone in both leagues will make the playoffs,” said Schneider.