The Old Montauk Athletic Club’s Montauk Mile cup, which was introduced to that revived race from the train station to Lions Field last year, is hereafter to be known as the Montauk Mile John F. Conner Cup in honor of the 83-year-old former mile and half-mile world record-holder, who, because of a stroke, walks with difficulty now.

“We want to acknowledge him,” said Mike Bottini, whose idea it was, “because when it comes to the mile he’s the guy.”

In an interview in these pages a few years ago, Conner, who has continued to mentor and follow the progress of young runners here, said, “Glenn Cunningham, a great miler of the ’40s, once said, ‘Running is you against yourself . . . the cruelest of competitors.’ ”

“To make a runner takes five years, sometimes longer. I tell the kids who come to my workouts that I’m not out to make them faster, I’m out to make them stronger so that they can get more glucose and oxygen to their muscles. . . . You want to get into as much stress as you can handle and then equalize things so you have enough oxygen to remove the lactic acid, which is what makes you tired. If you’re in shape, you can, in the shorter distances, continue at your pace despite oxygen debt . . . you can win that struggle against yourself.”

“Before Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile in 1954, everyone was saying it never could be done, that it would take too much energy, create too much lactic acid, and that the body couldn’t do it. Bannister knew he could do three laps in three minutes and he told himself not to think about the fourth. In that fourth lap he was beyond the physical, in a different realm, a spiritual realm if you will.”

Kevin Barry, who made the presentation, as Conner sat in a high-backed wicker chair amid a number of well-wishers, including his wife, Henrika, recited some of his feats, first and foremost his 55-to-59-year-old world-record times of 2 minutes and 10.62 seconds in the 800 and 4:53.3 in the mile set in 1990, and the age-group world record in the 1,500 that he ran in Reno in 1995. At 50, he ran New York’s Fifth Avenue Mile in 4:40.1.

At the turn of the millennium, Conner’s running career was cut short when a truck struck him from behind as he was cycling in East Hampton Village.

Undaunted by a shattered hip, which was put back together with screws and flanges by one of the country’s best orthopedic surgeons, he went on to become a top age-group triathlete, and, as aforesaid, to mentor runners young and old here.

“When I was 50, I asked him if he could get me down to a sub-5,” said Bottini. “I was just coming off training for Ironman, which is a completely different thing. I didn’t get it, but it was no fault of John’s that I’d lost my fast-twitch muscles. . . . Definitely, he was a world-class runner.”

The Montauk Mile is to be contested, rain or shine, on Sunday, June 10, with the women’s race to begin at 10:30 a.m. and the men’s to follow at 11. Prospective entrants can register by emailing [email protected] entry fee is $25 for those over 21 and $15 for those under 21. Those fees will be $30 and $20 on race day. The winners’ names are to be engraved on the cup. The proceeds are to help underwrite an East Hampton High School boys and girls cross-country team trip to a competitive invitational meet next fall.

Henrika Conner and Sharon McCobb, OMAC’s president, said, moreover, that a scholarship for a senior high school swimmer is to be established by the club in the memory of the late Bill O’Donnell, who died, at the age of 65, on April 23.

“Swimming was Billy’s passion at the end,” said McCobb.

“We’re going to try to give the first one at the high school’s senior athletes banquet” on June 7, Henrika Conner said.

Monday Results

Matt Babb, who coaches the South Fork’s combined boys lacrosse team known as the Islanders, said in an email Tuesday that he hoped Monday’s 15-0 shutout of Deer Park would carry over into the team’s final three games.

Brian Damm of East Hampton scored 4 goals in Monday’s rout, Kai Parcher-Charles of the Ross School scored 3. The team’s record was 5-6 as of Tuesday. “We have a tough task ahead of us,” Babb said, “but if we get healthy and play to our capability we can pull off some upsets in the final week and a half.”

East Hampton High’s girls track team was also a winner Monday, defeating Amityville 99-46, thus improving its record to 1-2. Among the winners for East Hampton were Ellie Borzilleri, a Pierson student, in the 100 high hurdles, the 400, and the long jump. She also anchored the winning 4-by-400 relay.

Ava Engstrom and Bella Tarbet had no competition in the 1,500 and 3,000. They crossed the line together. They too were on the winning 4-by-400 relay team, with Borzilleri and Lateshia Peters. Molly Mamay won the 400 intermediate hurdles. JiJi Kramer was unopposed in the 1,500 meter racewalk.

The boys team lost here Monday to their Amityville counterparts. Robert Weiss won three of the four events he entered and was the runner-up in the 200.

Golf Outings

The Southampton Historical Museum will benefit from a golf tournament at the Sebonack Golf Club on May 22. There will be a shotgun start at 1:30 p.m. with a cocktail party and silent auction benefiting the Conscience Point Shellfish Hatchery from 6 to 7:30. Reservations can be made by calling the museum.

Guild Hall in East Hampton will benefit from a golf outing at the Maidstone Club on June 7, beginning at 11 a.m. Reservations can be made through give.guildhall.org/golf or by calling Guild Hall.

Wolffer 5K

There will be a 5-kilometer Bud Break fun run at the Wolffer Estate in Sagaponack on Sunday, May 20, at 9 a.m. “to celebrate our 30th vintage.” The run is to end at Wolffer’s wine stand on Route 27. Strollers will not be permitted because of the uneven terrain.

Thursday, May 3

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

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

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

Friday, May 4

BOYS TENNIS, division individual tournament, first and second-round matches, William Floyd High School, Mastic Beach, 10 a.m.

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

BOYS LACROSSE, Islanders at Westhampton Beach, 4 p.m.

Saturday, May 5

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

BOYS TRACK, East Hampton at St. Anthony’s invitational, Huntington, 1 p.m.

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

Sunday, May 6

MEN’S SOCCER, over-30s, Massapequa F.C. vs. Hampton United, Water Mill Community Club, 5 p.m.

Monday, May 7

BOYS TENNIS, division individual tournament, final matches, William Floyd High School, 3 p.m.

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

Tuesday, May 8

BOYS LACROSSE, Islanders at Hauppauge, 4:30 p.m.

GIRLS LACROSSE, East Hampton at Rocky Point, 6 p.m.

Wednesday, May 9

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

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

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

April 22, 1993

Suffern and East Hampton were to have played Saturday on Abner Doubleday Field in Cooperstown, N.Y., but torrential rains washed the game out. Nevertheless, the players, who had spent the night in Oneonta, visited baseball’s Hall of Fame Saturday morning before making the long trip home.

The Hall of Fame seemed a fitting place to talk about Steven Quick’s no-hitter versus Pierson on April 14. According to Jim Nicoletti, East Hampton’s coach, it was the first no-hitter thrown by a Bonac pitcher since 1969. The last one came readily to the coach’s mind because he had caught it.

“Some pro scouts had come out to see Larry Cantwell, who was a good pitcher, in the game before,” recalled Nicoletti. “As luck would have it, Larry hit four batters that day and walked eight. The next day, against the same team, with the scouts long gone, Bobby Greene pitched a no-hitter. There have been several one-hitters since I’ve been coaching [17 years], but never a no-hitter.”

Paul Wolfram of Sag Harbor won the fifth East End Bowlers Classic tournament Sunday, besting a field of 80 and taking home $750 and a handsome trophy.

“My wife gets the money, and I get the trophy,” Wolfram said after handily defeating East Hampton’s Mike Smith 229 to 166 in the final match of stepladder pairings. 

. . . A Sag Harbor plumber, the winner said he bowled “one frame at a time — I didn’t look at the score.” By the seventh frame, however, it was pretty clear that Smith, who had polished off three opponents before running into Wolfram, had run out of gas.

When congratulated by his son, Paul Wolfram Jr., a Pierson High School junior, Wolfram Sr. smiled and said, “The dad had to show the son up.” Paul Jr. spun the county’s top game, a 289, in high school competition last winter.

May 6, 1993

Boys tennis has emerged as East Hampton High’s pre-eminent spring team as it continued undefeated in League VIII play last week. Spurred on by its strong doubles pairings, East Hampton defeated Rocky Point, Mercy, and William Floyd to pace the league at 6-0.

Four league matches remained as of Tuesday. John Goodman, the Bonackers’ coach, said that night if East Hampton could defeat Southampton here yesterday, “we will have pretty much clinched it.”

. . . “We’re getting better with every match, and that’s what you want to see . . . whether you’re winning or losing,” said Goodman.

The 36-week Tuesday night businessmen’s league season came down to the final night at the East Hampton Bowl on Monday as Barns Playboys almost took the league-leader — and champion — Vinnie’s Barber Shop, to the cleaners.

The Playboys trailed by a mere six points going into Monday’s final “position round,” a ladder competition whereby the runner-up team bowls the leader, number-four bowls number-three, et cetera.

To win the championship, Vinnie’s (Rich Kealy, Lanny Ross, Anthony Zaykowski, Vincent Mazzeo, and Charles McGarty) needed to win one game, three points of the 11 up for grabs.

“It went down to the last frame of the last game — the way it should be,” said the Playboys’ Steve Graham, who the week before had spun a season-high 720 series (222-277-221). “They had three doubles in the 10th frame, and wound up beating us by about 40 or 50 pins. I think we had them worried, though.”

Graham’s teammates are Efraim Careballo, Frank and Fred Mittman, George Payne, Ray Young, and Rick Bock.

May 13, 1993

With convincing wins over Southampton and Rocky Point last week, the East Hampton High School boys tennis team, which as of yesterday remained undefeated, at 8-0, in league competition, clinched the League VIII championship.

East Hampton’s doubles teams — David Lys and Jesse Rothwell at one, Warwick Sabin and Scott Gibbons at two, and Sean Savage and Chris Bernier at three — have gone undefeated in league play this season.

The men’s rugby team here, the Montauk Sharks, may be having a numbers problem, but the youth teams aren’t, according to Kevin Bunce, who coaches a high school-age side that’s playing a 15-on-a-side season now versus metropolitan area opponents.

The team Bunce — and Mike Jablonski of Mattituck — co-coach is a combined one, with players from East Hampton, Mattituck, Shoreham-Wading River, Mount Sinai, and Patchogue. “We’ve got one or two seniors, three juniors, and the rest are sophomores and freshmen. . . . We practice Tuesdays and Thursdays at the Veterans Memorial Field in Calverton, across from the Calverton Cemetery on Route 25. It’s centrally located, everyone has to make an effort to get there, and they are.”

Officially known as the Section XI Rugby Academy, Bunce and Jablonski’s team recently mauled St. Francis Prep 59-5 in a 15s game played at Mattituck High School. Bunce, in reply to a question, said he wasn’t trying to run up a score. “These kids are good,” he said. “Their passing and ball-handling is phenomenal, they tackle perfectly, nice and low with their heads out, they’re in great shape, and they have experience playing with one another.”

The East Hamptoners on the team include Bunce’s son, Kevin Jr., a freshman at East Hampton High School, Ricky Ortiz, a junior, Sebastian Sanchez, a freshman, who wrestled in the heavyweight division for East Hampton this past winter, and Christian Johnson, a sophomore, whose older brother, Brandon, is starring in 7s and 15s at Mount St. Mary’s in Maryland. 

“We’ve also had a couple of football players come out for our practices — after 20 or 30 minutes they were gassed. We’ll see if they stick with it.”

“Last year, we had a very good 7s jayvee team, they did really well, and they’ve all brought out friends for the 15s season, which is going on now,” said Bunce. “We’ve got games every Sunday in May. We’ll be playing the Dwight School on Randalls Island this weekend. On May 12, we’re playing Lycée Français of New York City, at Mattituck, probably at 2 p.m., and on the 19th we’re playing Bishop Loughlin, out of Brooklyn, there. We’ve got a game on the 26th too. . . .”

The Rugby Academy’s players usually weigh less than their opponents, though they are, said Bunce, “tough and, as I said, they handle the ball and tackle very well. Conor Pearce of Shoreham-Wading River was a county wrestling champ, Chris Vetter, also of Shoreham, was second in the county tournament, and Jake Jablonski, Mike’s kid, took third. We’ve got a lot of wrestlers on the team.”

Moreover, “a father of one of our kids who has a younger brother is going to put together a 12-and-under team. They’ve already got 15 kids. We’ve got an under-14 team too, the South Side Hookers. So, in other words, we’ve got a self-sustaining feeder system for the men’s team. More kids are playing in college . . . it’s like an automatic fraternity.”

Speaking of college, Bunce said Brandon Johnson has played on tournament championship 7s sides in New York, Las Vegas, and Maryland — catching the eye of New Zealand scouts at the Randalls Island tourney — and that Josh King has been playing at American International University. “He’s only a freshman and he’s been nominated as his team’s most valuable defensive player, which is good. Brandon’s a sophomore. He loves it there and everyone loves him. Everybody looks out for everybody there.”

Another protégé of Bunce’s, Jordan Johnson, recently won a scholarship to play rugby at New England College in New Hampshire. “Their coach coached my nephew Michael on the U.S.A. team — that was the connection. George Calderon could have gone to New England College too, but he wants to be an architect, and they didn’t have the classes there he would need.”

Brandon Johnson, Bunce added, was “literally one step away from being on U.S.A. teams and turning pro. He played in the elite division in the Out of the World Series 7s tournament in Las Vegas, for the Starz Rugby Club, which is New Zealand-based. They’re looking for young players to develop. They saw him play in that Randalls Island tournament. I’m pretty sure he had the most tries in the Vegas tournament. He’s good in 15s, but I think 7s is his sport. He’s strong and fast and has the hands. St. Mary’s is going to play in the college rugby 7s championships in Philadelphia the first weekend in June. I’m trying to get a bus to go down.”

Sydney Salamy, an East Hampton High School junior who runs cross-country, came upon the idea not long ago, given the fact that she and her siblings, Drew, a baseball player, and Sienna, a softball player, were going through lots of sports gear, to pass this equipment on to needier kids on Long Island.

“I asked my mom [Patricia, a runner herself] about it, and she looked up an organization, Play It Forward USA, online, and so we became a branch of it,” Sydney said during a recent conversation. 

As a result, Sydney’s mother created a website through which donations of athletic equipment and money to the nonprofit can be made, and Sydney put a large red bin in the high school lobby, a bin that was soon overflowing. 

“The first one we sent [in November] to Elmont Memorial High School,” Sydney said. “Their athletic director was very grateful. He said he had been helping the kids there who needed things by paying for whatever it was they needed by himself. The next one we’re going to send to Riverhead.”

Sydney, who also works on the school’s yearbook, is a member of the Key Club, and is a member of the National Honor Society, comes by her running ability naturally. Her mother and father met at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, where she ran cross-country and track, and where he threw the javelin.

Carnegie Mellon is on the list of colleges she’s interested in, as are Cornell, Oberlin, and Emerson.

“I like technology,” she said, “especially computer animation.”

She plans, she said, to put bins in the Springs School and in the East Hampton Middle School in the near future, and possibly promote Play It Forward East Hampton’s mission at road races here this summer. The ends of seasons, she thought, would be good times to collect used equipment.

The Play It Forward East Hampton High School website says, in part, “your gently used athletic equipment and clothing donations will give an athlete in need an invaluable opportunity to participate in valuable team building associated with sports, help young adults build confidence, develop leadership skills and sportsmanship, find positive mentors in their coaches and teammates, improve academics and overall health, and build time-management skills.”

Among “the items we can accept” are balls, shoes, and clothing associated with baseball, basketball, cross-country, field hockey, ice hockey, football, golf, kickball, lacrosse, soccer, softball, swimming, tennis, track and field, volleyball, and wrestling; rackets, sticks, and clubs used in baseball, golf, field hockey, ice hockey, lacrosse, soccer, and tennis, and protective gear such as gloves, goggles, shin guards, shoulder pads, and kneepads.

A poster the Salamys designed encouraging East Hampton High School students to participate in a Play It Forward equipment drive in March asked “what if you were forced to miss out on playing a sport simply because you couldn’t afford the equipment? Play It Forward is a student-run organization that collects lightly used sports gear and donates it to students in need across Long Island. . . .”

“I think all kids deserve to have a chance to play,” Sydney was quoted as saying in a recent article in Newsday. “They shouldn’t have to worry about not being able to play a sport because they don’t have the equipment.”

In a similar vein, Tim Garneau of East Hampton’s Little League organization recently donated more than 150 excess bats to Project Beisbol, an organization working with 54-plus youth baseball and softball teams “in communities of economic need” in such Latin American countries as Colombia, Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala. Its website, projectbeisbol.org, adds that another of its aims is to promote “educational and cultural exchange between youth of the U.S.A. and Latin America.”

Garneau added that, in addition to the bats, “we also gave them four big boxes of major league baseball cards from the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s that someone had given your editor, David Rattray. They were thrilled. I’m sure we could find more things to give them, such as used catcher’s gear, that otherwise might be thrown out. . . . At any rate, we’ve opened a line of distribution.”

The East Hampton High School boys tennis team, as expected, assured itself of a share of the League VII title by virtue of a 6-1 win here Saturday over Rocky Point, thus finishing the regular season at 9-1, though — through no fault of his own — Kevin McConville, East Hampton’s first-year coach, flirted with a possible forfeit before the match began given the fact that he could not readily come up with seven cans of new tennis balls.

“The key to the high school [where the tennis balls were] didn’t work. Donny [McGovern, the parent of one of McConville’s players and East Hampton’s boys soccer coach] and I couldn’t get it to open the door, even with Joe Vas [East Hampton’s athletic director] on the phone. Doug [De Groot, the father of East Hampton’s top singles player, and the owner of the Buckskill Tennis Club] saved the day.”

The elder De Groot produced six new cans of balls from his S.U.V. Because there wasn’t a seventh, the Rocky Point coach, who was forbearing by and large, claimed a forfeit at third doubles — the sole loss for the Bonackers that afternoon.

Jonny De Groot did have some trouble at number-one, ultimately defeating the left-handed Nate Hanley 4-6, 7-5, 6-3, but otherwise there was no drama, with Ravi MacGurn, Luke Louchheim, Brad Drubych, and the doubles teams of Alex Weseley and Jamie Fairchild, and Matthew McGovern and Hunter Medler, winning in straight sets. All told, Rocky Point’s players other than Hanley managed to win seven games.

De Groot, who had also been taken to three sets last week in defeating Jacob Kahn of Southold-Greenport (a match that East Hampton won 7-0), displayed good ground strokes and, by and large, a strong serve, though hurt himself frequently in treating Hanley’s weak returns cavalierly, which often set up rather than forced his opponent.

After the two had split sets, and with all the other matches finished, it was decided nevertheless to forgo a tiebreaker and play it out given the division seeding consequences.

De Groot was the first to serve and held at 4-3 thanks to a service winner. He broke Hanley in the next game, and then held for 3-0. Hanley dug himself into an 0-3 hole in the fourth game, double-faulting twice in a row before De Groot finished the game off with a resounding putaway at the net. 

De Groot began the fifth game with a service winner on his second attempt, and followed up with another winner before falling behind 2-3 and double-faulting on the decisive point. 

Another break by De Groot put him up 5-1, but then things began to get slightly problematic again as Hanley broke the East Hamptoner — again by way of a double fault — for 5-2, and followed up with a 4-1 win in the eighth game, thanks to a nice backhand volley to the baseline and a gift in the form of a blown approach shot.

Leading 5-3, De Groot served a winner for 1-0 in what was to prove to be the decisive game, and went up 2-0 with a putaway. A nice lob by Hanley to the baseline earned him the third point, and a blown net shot by De Groot evened the score. De Groot then fell behind 2-3 as a well-stroked backhand drive aimed for the center part of the net caught the cord, but recovered with a deft forehand approach shot to arrive at match point, which he won, following a spirited exchange, with an impressive volley to the baseline that Hanley, who was rushing back for it, could not get his racket on.

McConville said he would work to sharpen De Groot’s approach shots — and to reduce the number of his double faults — though his main emphasis this season has been to improve his doubles teams’ strategies, an effort that has paid dividends. “They’re playing ten thousand times better now,” the coach, who is Hampton Racquet’s head pro, said.

The Division IV individual tournament at William Floyd High School is set to begin tomorrow, at 10 a.m., with quarterfinal and semifinal matches to be played there Saturday beginning at 9 a.m. The singles and doubles finals are to be played Monday, at 3.

As for the county team tournament that is to begin May 11, McConville said he thought Commack (which defeated East Hampton 6-1 in a nonleaguer here recently, with De Groot being the sole Bonacker to win) was “outstanding. . . . The matches we played with Hills West and Hills East were winnable. Hills East beat us 5-2, though four matches went to three sets and we were missing two starters. We were missing two starters in the Hills West match too, a match that we lost 4-3. We’re much better now.”

Thursday, May 10

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

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

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

Friday, May 11

BOYS TENNIS, county individual tournament, two rounds of singles, William Floyd High School, Mastic Beach, noon.

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

BOYS LACROSSE, Rocky Point vs. Islanders, Southampton High School, 4:30 p.m.

Saturday, May 12

BOYS TENNIS, county individual tournament, two rounds of singles and doubles, William Floyd High School, 9 a.m.

T-BALL, John M. Marshall Elementary School, East Hampton, 9-10:30 a.m.

RUNNING, Bridgehampton Half-Marathon and 5K, Beebe Windmill, Ocean Road, 9 a.m.

TRACK, boys and girls invitational meet, East Hampton High School, 10 a.m.

Monday, May 14

BOYS TENNIS, county individual tournament, singles and doubles semifinals and finals, William Floyd High School, noon.

Tuesday, May 15

BOYS TRACK, East Hampton at freshman-sophomore meet, Longwood High School, 2 p.m.

BOYS TENNIS, county team tournament, first-round matches, sites of higher seeds, 4 p.m.

Wednesday, May 16

GIRLS TRACK, East Hampton at freshman-sophomore meet, Longwood High School, 2 p.m.

BOYS TENNIS, county team tournament, second-round matches, sites of higher seeds, 4 p.m.

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

Bonac Football Update

At a meeting of parents and prospective players at East Hampton High School on May 2, the gathering was told East Hampton is to play an eight-game schedule in Conference IV this fall with the proviso that it forgo the playoffs.

As of Monday, Joe Vas, East Hampton’s athletic director, said 22 have signed up to play, though about half that number will be incoming freshmen. Joe McKee, the coach, said he’d like to have at least 25 on the varsity, “and if there’s enough to have a jayvee, I’d love that too.” McKee said he’d try to get a firmer fix on numbers next week.

Section XI’s website has East Hampton opening at Hampton Bays on Sept. 7. In the succeeding weeks, the Bonackers, who are to be combined in the sport with the Ross School, will play at Bayport-Blue Point, at home with Wyandanch, at Port Jefferson, at home with Mount Sinai, at home with Greenport-Southold-Mattituck, at Center Moriches, and at home with Southampton-Bridgehampton-Pierson, on Oct. 27. Wyandanch is to be the homecoming opponent, on Sept. 22.

Daunt Fights Again

Richie Daunt, the Montauk boxer, said Monday he is to fight next as part of the Hempstead Boxing Club’s May Mashup on May 25, and is to fight at Finest Fitness, his home gym, in Patchogue, on June 30. 

Daunt, who lost in the Road to the Garden’s quarterfinal round recently, aims to fight frequently in the coming months. For the coming fight, he plans to weigh in at 145 pounds, “the lightest I’ve been in four years, though I plan to get down to 141 for next year’s Road to the Garden.”

Though lighter, he’ll still pack a punch, he said, in reply to a question, “and being lighter on my feet I’ll be moving my head a lot more and slipping punches . . . slip and counter, catch and shoot.”

Karate Kid

Robin Trelles, 10, of East Hampton, a blue belt karate student at Epic Martial Arts in Sag Harbor, has won championships in six straight tournaments since April of last year. Undefeated in Long Island’s boys beginner level sparring/point fighting division, he’s to move up soon to intermediate-level competition.

Play It Forward

Sydney Salamy, the subject of an interview in these pages last week, is collecting gently used sports gear at the Springs School this week and next. A red bin for the purpose is at the school’s front desk.

T-Ball Begins

The East Hampton Town Kiwanis Club’s free T-ball instructional baseball program is to begin at 9 a.m. Saturday at the John M. Marshall Elementary School. For boys and girls ages 5 through 8, the hour-and-a-half-long T-ball sessions overseen by Mark McKee are to run for six weeks. Participants will receive a hat and a T-shirt. 

The weather was, at long last, spring-like when more than 600 runners set forth from Sag Harbor’s West Water Street in the eighth running of the Katy’s Courage 5K Saturday morning. It was the first road race here of the season.

Ryan Fowkes, 17, an East Hampton High School junior and the school’s best distance runner, was to win it, in 16 minutes and 48.37 seconds, unheaded throughout the pleasant 3.1-mile loop through the village.

Fowkes was third in this race last year, though under the weather, he said, finishing in 17:12.22. He would like, he added, to shave about 10 seconds from his 4:30 mile time this season.

Brian Marciniak, 31, who is better known as a basketball player, was the runner-up, in 17:35.23, with Omar Leon, a teammate of Fowkes’s, third, in 17:37.93.

The women’s winner, and 13th over all, was Tara Farrell, 39, of East Quogue, a frequent winner in South Fork road races, in 19:24.46.

The foundation named in memory of Jim and Brigid Collins Stewart’s daughter, Katy, who died of a rare form of liver cancer at the age of 12 seven years ago, underwrites scholarships at Pierson and East Hampton High Schools, as well as funds free Katy’s Kids sessions for grieving children at the Children’s Museum of the East End in Bridgehampton.

The scholarships, the Stewarts have said, go “to students who exemplify remarkable courage, kindness, and empathy, as did Katy during her all too brief but exceptional lifetime.”

A committee chooses the male and female winners at Pierson; at East Hampton, the recipients are chosen by the student council. The Pierson scholarships, said Katy’s mother, who walked that day with her 90-year-old mother, Mary Collins of Longmeadow, Mass., are $10,000 ones ($2,500 a year). As for the East Hampton scholarships, she said, “Whatever they raise we match.”

Mary Rocker of Twin Forks Accounting in East Hampton, who tallies the Katy’s Courage numbers, said Monday that while it was too soon to report the 5K’s net proceeds, “$16,020 was raised prior to the race through sponsorships.”

Jen Dagan, the race’s official timer, said there were 727 entries and 648 finishers, the eldest, at 93, being Jim Stewart’s father, Walt, a member of the Wrestling Hall of Fame.

Bill O’Donnell, who was to die unexpectedly two days later, was particularly happy to tell this writer not to forget to say that his wife, Diane, 67, and their daughter, Caitlin, 30, had each won their age groups — Caitlin O’Donnell in 22:18.14, and Diane O’Donnell in 29:25.75. An inveterate runner, swimmer, and triathlete, he had come that morning to cheer them on.

East Hampton’s boys and girls track teams had good turnouts — 15 or so in the girls’ case and 20 or so in the boys’. Coaches — Yani Cuesta, Diane O’Donnell, Mike Buquicchio, and Kevin Barry among them — ran too. 

Ava Engstrom, one of Cuesta’s top performers, topped the 14-and-under female division — a group that numbered 104 participants — in 20:35.60. Right behind her, in 20:35.68, was her teammate Isabella Tarbet, who was the 15-19 division’s female winner. They were 27th and 28th over all.

Robert Weiss, an East Hampton sprinter, was 10th, in 19:03.15. James Consiglio, a 57-year-old East Hamptoner, was 15th — and second in the 50-59 age group — in 19:25.18. Right behind him was Mike Bahel, in 19:37.39.

Bahel’s Hither Hills half-marathon, by the way, is to be contested at the Ed Ecker County Park in Montauk on May 19, at 8 a.m.

Asked how the East Hampton boys team had been doing, Buquicchio said he hoped that, like the weather, the team would warm up. He and Ben Turnbull, the head coach, who was not there that day, have been getting good performances from Fowkes, Weiss, Leon, Matt Maya, and from Ruben Santana, among others.

Cuesta’s team also has been taking its lumps lately. Last week, the girls lost 98-43 to Miller Place — a meet in which Tarbet won the 3,000, and in which she, Ellie Borzilleri, Bella Espinoza, and Engstrom won the 4-by-400 relay. Helen Barranco won the discus and the shot-put, with Michelle Barranco taking third in each of these events.

Runners-up included the 4-by-100 relay team of Ashley Peters, Jen Ortiz, Shania Gordon, and Lillie Minskoff; Peters in the pole vault, Borzilleri in the long jump, and Minskoff in the 200.

Third-place finishers were Ortiz, in the triple jump; Engstrom, in the 1,500; JiJi Kramer, in the 1,500-meter racewalk; Penelope Greene, in the 800; Peters, in the 200; Molly Mamay, in the 400 intermediate hurdles, and Zoe Leach, in the high jump.