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.

Despite the rain, about 30 long-distance runners turned out for Saturday’s Hither Hills Half-Marathon, a double-looped trail run in the environs of Ed Ecker County Park at the end of Montauk’s Navy Road.

“It wasn’t great for the spectators, but the runners didn’t mind it,” said Sharon McCobb, the president of the Old Montauk Athletic Club, the race’s beneficiary. 

Eric Perez and Erik Engstrom led the way, Engstrom, a University of Massachusetts sophomore who recently finished fifth in the Atlantic 10 Conference’s steeplechase, crossing the Rod’s Valley finish line in 1 hour, 36 minutes, and 10 seconds. They were the winning men’s relay team.

The overall winner, in 1:43.50, was Nick Wetzel, who overtook Mike Bahel — the leader at the halfway point — at the end. Bahel, whose Body Tech fitness studios put this race on, finished in 1:44.40. 

Bahel’s daughter, Alyssa, who runs at Denison, was the female winner, in 1:49.34. Lucy Kohlhoff was the runner-up, in 1:55.34. 

Holly Li and Jacqueline Gravina-Wohlleb were the women’s relay champs, “because,” according to the latter, “Beth [Feit] got lost. Otherwise, she and Caroline [Cashin] would have won.” 

McCobb said there was no need for an asterisk. “In trail runs you’re supposed to follow the arrows,” she said.

The mixed relay winners were Diane O’Donnell and Kevin Barry.

McCobb and Henrika Conner announced that morning that Isabella Swanson, an East Hampton High School senior, would receive the club’s first $1,000 scholarship in memory of the late Bill O’Donnell, the OMAC William A. O’Donnell Youth Swimming Award, at the high school’s senior athletic awards banquet on June 7.

The scholarship is to be awarded each year to a swimmer “because swimming was Billy’s passion at the end,” McCobb said.

This fall, Swanson, a five-year letter winner, captained the high school’s league-champion girls swimming team, which placed sixth among 28 entries in the county meet, “a fantastic achievement for our small school,” Conner said.

In addition, the recipient-to-be has been on the Y.M.C.A.’s youth swim team, the Hurricanes, since she was a sixth grader, has lettered in softball for five years at the high school, represented the United States in the world lifesaving championships this fall, and has been on the United States Lifesaving  Association’s high performance squad for four years. She’s also been a front-runner in I-Tri’s sprint triathlons, and last August paddled from Montauk to Block Island, a 20-mile distance, as part of a Paddlers for Humanity fund-raiser.

“Her various swim coaches” — Tom Cohill, of the Hurricanes, and Craig Brierley, of the varsity team, among them — “readily agreed that she should be this award’s first recipient,” Conner said.

May 13, 1993

Becky Cooper set two East Hampton High School records Tuesday in a girls track meet here with Mercy. Throwing into a slanting wind, the genial Bonac senior broke the discus record on her first try, unleashing a low throw of 101 feet, one-and-one-half inches that smashed Audine Franzone’s mark, set three years ago, by almost 10 feet.

In the shot, Cooper had to wait until her third try to set a record, her fifth in that event since last year. Her 36-21/4 heave bettered a mark she set earlier this season by three-quarters of an inch. The wind was at her back in this event, but East Hampton’s coach, Mark Sucsy, said, with a laugh, “There are wind-aided 100-meter dashes and 100-meter hurdles, but I don’t think there’s such a thing as a wind-aided shot-put.”

May 20, 1993

The East Hampton High School boys tennis team finished the league season undefeated last week as it rolled over Mercy and Riverhead with the loss of just two sets.

It was the first time East Hampton has had an undefeated boys tennis team since 1986. 

The East Hampton High School baseball team continued its streak last week, completing a sweep of Mercy and winning game one of its series with Mattituck. As of Tuesday, the team had won nine of its last 10 games, and seven in a row.

. . . As far as the players went, the week’s “headlines” pretty much were Ross Gload’s as the left-handed junior first baseman hit five home runs — putting him within one of tying Rich Cooney Jr.’s decade-old school record of 10 — and drove in 15. He also had two doubles.

May 27, 1993

Since Kevin Smith began managing the golf concession at Montauk Downs State Park in 1988, revenue has nearly doubled, the pro shop’s inventory has improved, and a variety of new golf programs have been introduced.

With that track record and a pledge to invest $220,000 in other improvements, Mr. Smith said he was confident his firm, Tee to Green Services, would win another five-year contract to manage the concession when the state asked for bids last fall.

Instead, Mr. Smith was stunned to learn late last year the contract for the period beginning in 1994 will be awarded to Fred Gipp, whose Aces and Birdies manages the West Sayville County Golf Course for the Suffolk Parks Department.

“They’re going to have to arrest me to get me out of this place,” said Smith, whose contract expires at the end of this year. He has appealed the state’s decision and is awaiting the results of the state comptroller’s review of the bidding procedure. — Stephen J. Kotz

Despite throwing more consistently than his Port Jefferson opponent, Mike Helbig, Larry Keller, East Hampton High’s candidate for the county championship in the discus throw, was the runner-up by a foot in that event at the first-ever Division III meet, held here Monday.

. . . Helbig’s win evened the series at 2-2 with Keller, who defeated his Port Jeff opponent in a dual meet here, and also in the recent county junior/senior meet. The two will meet again in the county meet at Bellport on June 4 and 5.

Besides Keller, Mike Burns, the team’s coach, will take to the countys his three pole-vaulters — Rob Balnis, who placed third in the division meet with a vault of 12 feet, Chris Minardi, and Ron Gatlin — and perhaps Rory Knight, a sophomore, who recently began competing in the high jump.

Gary Swanander, a 25-year-old East Hampton sports car racer, continues to lead the Sports Car Club of America’s northeast Formula Ford division, despite a second-place finish at the Bridgehampton Race Circuit Sunday to Doug Hobby, last season’s national runner-up, from Sharon, Conn.

“I’ll get him this weekend,” said Swanander, who has yet to beat the 15-year Formula Ford veteran. 

A former East Hampton High School miler, Swanander, who is a self-taught race car driver, passed Hobby three times in the 16-lap race around the 2.85-mile Bridgehampton loop. In the end, Hobby beat Swanander by a car length. The open-wheel sports cars averaged about 100 miles per hour, and reached speeds of 140 on the straight.

In a month, the sports world will be fixated on the 118th U.S. Golf Open, set to be played at the iconic Shinnecock Hills Golf Club during the week of June 11 through 17. One of the five founding member clubs of the United States Golf Association, Shinnecock Hills is playing host to its fifth U.S. Open.

As more than 9,000 hopefuls began vying this week in qualifying events for 90 berths in the Open’s 156-player field — one such was held at the Southampton Golf Club on Monday — the U.S.G.A. has also begun training the 4,500-plus volunteers who will staff the main event, including yours truly. 

Never in my wildest dreams did I ever possess the skill set to even think about entering the U.S. Open, though as a volunteer, and by walking among some of the greats of the game today, I ought to get a sense of what it might be like.

Selected to join the Leader Boards Committee a few months ago, I and about 50 others assigned to the same group underwent a training session on Saturday afternoon in what used to be Southampton College’s student union cafeteria. The campus, off Route 27, lies directly opposite the golf course. 

Leaderboard volunteers will be assigned to a specific hole, where the names of those who are playing it at the moment will be posted, along with their scores, on magnetic scoreboards staffed by two volunteers. A larger top-10 leaderboard will be manned by five people.

“Holding and setting up everything for the U.S. Open is a massive undertaking that takes several years,” said Jack Curtin, chairman of the 2018 U.S. Open championship, as he addressed our group. “We’ve had staff on the ground for more than 18 months here in Southampton preparing for the event.”

But Curtin cited the dedication and support of volunteers as the key to making such an attention-getting tournament successful. “We have nearly 5,000 volunteers from 49 states and 16 countries committed for the week, which amounts to over 90,000 volunteer hours,” he said. 

“U.S. Open volunteers are the true backbone of any successful event, and we want everyone to have fun too.”

Over the next four weeks, the U.S.G.A. will hold 22 other training sessions for the various committees involved in all stages of operations, including hospitality, hole marshals, ball position, caddy services, grandstand marshals, disability services admissions, fan services, and course evacuation, to name a few. (My wife has been assigned to the corporate hospitality tents alongside the eighth hole.) Volunteers not close enough to Shinnecock to attend training sessions will get a brief tutorial on the first day of their respective assignments at the on-site volunteer center.

The length of volunteer shifts varies by committee, but usually they’re four-hour shifts over four days. Volunteers are allowed to attend all seven days of golf for free, and are provided with Ralph Lauren golf attire, including shirts, windbreaker, hat, and water bottle at nominal fees. Four lunch vouchers are also included for each day served.

“I’ve volunteered at 10 U.S. Opens in the past,” said Fred Legodias of Centerport. “For me, it’s like a vacation, and my wife usually also volunteers, but can’t this time. One time I was on leaderboards at the Open at Winged Foot in 2006, and had to be on the stand for 14 hours as we were short on volunteers one day. But I didn’t mind, I just love doing it.” Legodias is already signed up to be a volunteer at the U.S. Open to be held at Pebble Beach in California next June.

“I love golf and I’m honored to be part of the Open,” said Joe Raynor, chairman of the Leader Boards Committee, who is a resident of North Sea. “I’m very thankful for all of those who volunteer and thus help to make the game of golf great. Shinnecock is such a special venue too, as every first-timer, I’m sure, will agree.”

Having started playing golf at the age of 4 at the Sag Harbor Golf Course, with its oiled sand greens, being part of the spectacle at Shinnecock is bound to be very special. That said, I doubt Tiger Woods will have the time to give me a quick lesson to improve my handicap.

Ryan Fowkes ran the fastest mile that’s been run here in 30 years at the St. Anthony’s invitational track meet Saturday, and on Monday the baseball team snapped what its coach, Vinny Alversa, said was a 51-game losing streak at Amityville, a school whose program has also been struggling in the past few years.

East Hampton, with Kurt Matthews having come on in relief of Jackson Baris in the first inning — Baris having sustained a foot injury while batting — defeated Amityville 6-2. The Warriors were to have played here yesterday, but Alversa said that given A.P. testing today, he was trying to switch it to an away game, with Amityville to come here for the season finale this afternoon.

Matthews gave up three hits, walked none, and struck out 12 over the course of 6 2/3 innings. One of Amityville’s runs was unearned.

Matthews was quoted in Newsday as having said, “It feels so good to get a W. It’s a weight off all of our shoulders. But to our credit, we’ve never given up and always supported one another. Our coaches have been positive and continue to pick us up.”

As a result, East Hampton improved to 1-15 on the season, and Amityville fell to 0-16. Its losing streak stood at 60 games as of Monday.

“All the teams in our league, except us and Amityville, made the playoffs,” Alversa said.

Fowkes, a junior, who said after winning the Katy’s Courage 5K in Sag Harbor recently that he’d like to lower his 4:30 mile time by about 10 seconds, shaved almost four seconds off at St. A’s, running the distance in 4:26.16. Ben Turnbull, East Hampton’s coach, wondered if it were a school record, but apparently Artie Fisher, who ran a 4:24 in 1988, still holds it.

Fowkes, moreover, P.R.’d in the 800 at the Westhampton Beach invitational two weeks ago, placing second in 1:59.89, “the fifth-fastest time in the county,” according to Turnbull. His 1,600 time ranks him 11th countywide in that event at the moment.

Turnbull added that Matthew Maya’s 61.44 in the 400-meter intermediate hurdles at Westhampton and the 17.49 he did in the 100 high hurdles at St. Anthony’s were personal bests. In addition, Eamon Spencer ran a personal-best 2:04.30 in the 800 at St. Anthony’s, and, at the same meet, said Turnbull, the 4-by-400 relay team’s 3:36.13 was “the 15th fastest time in the county.” Maya, Spencer, Fowkes, and Robert Weiss made up that team.

East Hampton’s girls team also had good news this week, stemming from last Thursday’s 79-70 loss to Shoreham Wading-River. 

Among Bonac’s winners were Ellie Borzilleri, in the 400 and long jump; Molly Mamay, in the 100 high hurdles; Ashley Peters, in the 100; Mikela Junemann, in the 400 intermediate hurdles, long jump, and, with Peters, Jen Ortiz, and Lillie Minskoff, in the 4-by-100 relay, and Helen Barranco, in the discus.

Among the runners-up were Ortiz, in the triple jump; Mimi Fowkes, in the 1,500-meter racewalk; Peters, in the 200; Mamay, in the 400 hurdles; Malena Inchauspe and Zoe Leach, in the high jump; Michelle Barranco, in the discus, and the 4-by-400 relay team of Ava Engstrom, Bella Tarbet, Lateshia Peters, and Borzilleri.

Yani Cuesta, the team’s coach, said that, moreover, the following posted season-bests: Anissa Santiago and Inchauspe, in the long jump; Leach, in the 100 hurdles; Penelope Greene, in the 1,500; Tiffany Lewis, Anna Carman, and Abigail McKenzie, in the 100 and 200; Joyce Arbia, in the 800; Katherine Pineda and Jenna Scalia, in the 200; Michelle Barranco and Elizabeth Camacho, in the shot-put, and Nicole Gutierrez, in the discus.

Cuesta added that Engstrom and Tarbet “had personal record performances in the 2,000-meter steeplechase at the St. Anthony’s invitational, Ava with a 7:57.07 and Bella with an 8:08.30.”

East Hampton is to hold its own invitational meet Saturday, beginning at 10 a.m.

Jonny De Groot, who plays number-one on East Hampton High’s boys tennis team, was to have played Center Moriches’s Mike Koscinski, the top seed, Monday afternoon, for third place in Division IV’s singles draw, while two East Hampton doubles teams, Alex Weseley and Jamie Fairchild and Matthew McGovern and Miles Clark, were to have fought it out for third place among the division’s doubles teams. The top four in each draw advance to the county individual tournament that is to begin tomorrow.

Luke Louchheim, East Hampton’s number-three, who is an eighth grader and was unseeded, pulled off an upset in the first round, defeating the fourth seed, Nate Hanley of Rocky Point, in a three-setter, and began his quarterfinal match with Westhampton Beach’s number-two, Josh Kaplan, the fifth seed, in promising fashion Saturday morning at William Floyd High School.

But, according to Kevin McConville, East Hampton’s coach, after Louchheim had sailed through the first set at 6-0, hitting well from the baseline, things tightened up in the second set as Kaplan began to play more conservatively, “returning the ball over the middle rather than going for winners and letting Luke make the errors.”

Things became even tighter, as it were, McConville said, when, midway through the second set, following an “out” call by Louchheim at the baseline, a close call, but one with which he agreed, “the kid’s father came over from where the Westhampton parents had been, about 10 yards away, and said if I didn’t correct Luke’s ‘cheating,’ he would beat me up in front of my kids. I was sitting at the time with Jamie, Matthew, and Miles. There were no parents around, just me and my kids.”

In a subsequent report to East Hampton’s athletic director, Joe Vas, McConville said the Westhampton player’s father and a friend of his then sat directly behind him, and, when he asked them to “please leave us alone and let the kids work it out,” refused.

“Meanwhile, Josh and Luke were trying to figure out the score, whether it was 30-15 or 30-30,” McConville said during a conversation concerning the incident at Hampton Racquet, where he is the head pro, Monday morning. “Josh’s father said — correctly as it turned out — that it was 30-30, but he shouldn’t have been involved at all. I told him he couldn’t do that, but he persisted. Again they threatened to beat me up.” 

“I was scared these guys were going to follow through on their threats,” McConville continued in his report to Vas, “so I asked the tournament director [Mike Huey of Mattituck] to have them removed, explaining exactly what had happened. He did nothing. . . . Josh took the lead and then won the set. That’s when they walked away.” 

Kaplan, who, McConville said, “played smart,” went on to win the third set too, with relative ease.

Vas said Monday morning that he planned to pursue McConville’s allegations.

He had seen parents who had behaved similarly ejected from gyms during high school basketball games, McConville said, adding that “it’s the right thing to do in order to remove a physical threat. I was still scared when the men walked past me when I was heading alone to the bus an hour later.”

Back to the other matches, De Groot got by his teammate, Ravi MacGurn, East Hampton’s number-two, 2-6, 7-6, 6-2 to reach the semifinals, where he lost in straight sets to the second seed, Danny Tocco, Westhampton’s top singles player. Kaplan and Tocco were to have played in Monday’s singles final.

After winning quarterfinal matches, Bonac’s doubles teams both lost in the semis. McConville said he hadn’t paid much attention initially to Weseley and Fairchild’s match “because I’d thought they’d win it, but they were tight and wound up losing.”

In Tuesday’s matches De Groot lost 6-2, 6-3 to Koscinski and Wesley and Fairchild defeated McGovern and Clark 6-2, 6-2. 

The county individual tournament’s matches are to be played at William Floyd also, tomorrow, Saturday, and Monday.

The county team tournament, whose seedings hadn’t been arrived at as of earlier this week, is to begin with matches at the higher-seeded teams Tuesday.

While its playoff chances seem to be dim — presumably because of recent losses at the hands of Class-A Islip, Southampton, and Kings Park — East Hampton High’s softball team has nevertheless been competitive this season, as it showed in Saturday’s game here with Kings Park, which prevailed 3-1.

As for the Class A playoffs, which are to begin with an outbracket game Monday, the top nine in the power-rated League VII are to go, a list that as of Monday comprised East Islip, Sayville, Mount Sinai, Miller Place, Islip, Hauppauge, Kings Park, Westhampton Beach, and Hampton Bays. East Hampton, whose record was 7-9 as of Monday, is to play East Islip, the once-defeated league leader, here today. It will wind up the regular season here with Mattituck tomorrow, during which the team’s half-dozen seniors are to be feted.

The good news for Kathy Amicucci’s charges this past week was a come-from-behind 7-6 win at McGann-Mercy in Riverhead on May 1. 

“It made me anxious, but the girls worked together, hit the ball, and played well,” Amicucci said. 

East Hampton was trailing 6-3 going into the top of the sixth inning, but a two-out rally capped by Maddie Schenck’s double to the centerfield fence tied the score at 6-6. Mercy didn’t score in its half of the inning, and, in the top of the seventh, Bella Swanson, the shortstop, hit a leadoff home run over the fence in right center, treating the Bonackers to the lead, at 7-6. Mercy made a pitching change then, avoiding any further damage.

“We got out of a tough spot in Mercy’s seventh,” said Amicucci. “They had the bases loaded with two outs, but Katrina [Osterberg, the third baseman], after fielding a grounder hit her way, stepped on third for the final out.”

A 1-0 loss at Southampton on Friday hurt. “We didn’t hit — Sam [Merritt, the pitcher] was the only one, with a double and a single.” 

“She kept mowing us down,” said Rich Swanson, when asked about Samantha Wesnofske, the Mariners’ pitcher, who wound up with 17 strikeouts. “It wasn’t just risers,” said Swanson. “It was curves, fastballs, everything.”

Southampton’s run was unearned, Amicucci added.

The game here with Kings Park was scoreless through the first three innings, but the visitors went ahead 3-0 in the top of the fourth, thanks to a double, a bunt single, and, with two outs and the count 0-2, a two-run double into the gap in right center — a pitch that Merritt undoubtedly would have liked to have had back. A subsequent throwing error by Osterberg enabled Kings Park’s third run to come home. 

Kings Park’s pitcher gave up her first hit, a single up the middle by Schenck, in the bottom half of the inning. Merritt, the next batter, hit a fly toward the right field line that looked as if it might curve out of the right fielder’s reach, but she made a nice one-handed catch, after which Ella Gurney, the first baseman, popped out to the second baseman, stranding Schenck at first.

The visitors had runners at second and third with one out in the top of the fifth, but a fly to center was caught by Rebecca Kuperschmid and Bella Swanson gathered in a pop fly hit her way to take Kings Park out of the inning.

East Hampton loaded the bases with one out in the bottom half of the fifth, but couldn’t come up with a big blow, though one run came home when Kuperschmid drew a full-count walk. That brought up Schenck, with the bases still loaded, and two outs. East Hampton’s catcher worked the count full, but popped up the next offering, a changeup, that the first baseman squeezed.

Gurney, with one out in the sixth, raised Bonac fans’ hopes when she drove a pitch deep to center field, but, with the wind blowing in slightly, the ball was caught. Sophia Ledda then popped out to second on a 3-1 pitch.

The bottom of the seventh proved to be uneventful as Osterberg, facing a 3-2 pitch, was called out on strikes, Raven Biondo struck out swinging on a 3-2 pitch, and Sophia Swanson, with the count 1-2, also fanned the breeze.

Kings Park finished with three runs on eight hits, East Hampton with one run on three hits. Kings Park’s pitcher struck out 12 and walked four. Merritt walked two and struck out one. The Bonackers committed two errors, Kings Park none.

Thursday, May 17

BOYS TENNIS, county team tournament, second round, (12) Sachem at (5) East Hampton, 4 p.m.

Friday, May 18

BOYS TENNIS, county team tournament, quarterfinal round, tentative, (5) East Hampton at (4) Half Hollow Hills West, 4 p.m.

Saturday, May 19

TRAIL RUNNING, Hither Hills Half-Marathon, Ed Ecker County Park, Navy Road, Montauk, 8 a.m.

YOUTH RUGBY, tentative, Bishop Loughlin vs. Section XI Rugby Academy, Mattituck High School, 2 p.m.

Sunday, May 20

RUNNING, Wolffer Estate Bud Break 5K, Wolffer Estate wine stand, 3312 Montauk Highway, Sagaponack, 9 a.m.

Monday, May 21

GIRLS TRACK, East Hampton at division meet, Connetquot High School, 3 p.m.

Tuesday, May 22

BOYS TRACK, East Hampton at division meet, Hampton Bays High School, 3 p.m.

Wednesday, May 23

RUNNING, Bonac on Board to Wellness 5K, Reutershan Parking Lot, East Hampton, 9 a.m.

GIRLS TRACK, East Hampton at division meet, Connetquot High School, 3 p.m.

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

Synchronized Swimming

Meg Preiss reported Monday that Greer Costello won the solo and figures events in her age group at the Region B synchronized swimming championship meet in Phoenixville, Pa., this past weekend. As a result, Greer, Preiss said, “will compete against the top 45 soloists in the country the last week in June.”

A teammate of Costello’s, Kassidy Brabant, a first-year competitor, placed sixth in solo in the intermediate division.

Men’s Slow-Pitch Returns

Men’s slow-pitch softball returned to the Terry King ball field in Amagansett Monday night following a five-year absence. According to Andy Tuthill, there are 10 teams in the revived league. Terry King has been utterly redone, and, according to Tuthill, “looks as good as it did when my dad played.” Rob Nicoletti, who is to pitch for the Corner Bar, one of three Sag Harbor entries, will arguably be the league’s senior player.