Golden gloves are no longer the prize for winning what used to be The New York Daily News’s boxing tournament, though Richie Daunt, who won his second-round match Friday, will take whatever U.S.A. Boxing wants to give him. The organization oversees the tourney now, under the “The Road to the Garden” banner.

“Two more and I’m in the Garden,” the 27-year-old Montauker said on Monday. 

Daunt, fighting at 152 pounds in the novice division, outscored Diego Iglesias at the Electric Industry Center in Flushing Friday, finishing with a flurry of punches that impressed the judges and the commentators, who also observed that he is fighting a lot better than he has in the past.

“I used to get gassed,” said Daunt, who has been following a strict training regimen — running, swimming, and biking, as well as traveling UpIsland several times a week to spar in either Freeport or Westbury. “I’m living the life . . . no drinking, no partying. . . .” 

Watching a Pug Life Chronicles Facebook video of the fight with this writer, he agreed that the first round was close. The two brawled a bit toward the end of the second, during which the commentators, who pronounced him the aggressor, said, “Daunt’s trying to decapitate him.” And the third ended, as had the second, with fists flying. “He walked into a lot of punches,” the winner said, with a smile. “The commentators said he ate about 20.”

Daunt thinks this is his year. He owns a 5-4 overall record now. One more fight and he’ll have to move up to the open division (though not until The Road to the Garden tournament is over). 

Not having to move out of the novice division until after the tourney “is why it’s good for me, it gives me an edge,” he said.

Friday’s match was for him a particularly emotional one. His grandmother, Maria Locasio, with whom he’s lived for the past seven years, had died the day before. And the Electric Industry Center, at 15811 Jewel Avenue in Flushing, had been his late grandfather Tony Daunt’s union hall. 

“My grandparents lived in Flushing before coming out here,” he said. “We were close, we knew she was sick, but we thought she might be here for a little longer. . . . This one was for her.”

“She would always say, ‘Tell me after’ when I would say I was fighting.” His girlfriend, Camille Erb, “gets mad if I lose,” he said.

His next fight — he did not know the particulars as of Monday, though he thought it might be in the Bronx at the end of the month — will be with Patrick Gough in the quarterfinals. “I’m going to watch his fights,” Daunt said. 

A win over Gough would advance him to a possible semifinal matchup with one of his Freeport sparring partners, Zach Bloomberg — a fight that may be held at his home gym, Finest Fitness, in Patchogue, on April 7.

The finals are to be contested in Madison Square Garden on April 20.

Getting back to this being his year, “You’ve got to be 100 percent,” he said. “If you’re doubting, you’ve already lost. As they say, defeat is not declared when you fall, but when you refuse to rise again.”

Vinny Alversa, East Hampton High’s varsity baseball coach, said Monday he wished his team were heading south on Tuesday for the Tampa Bay Spring Training complex in St. Petersburg, given the uncertain weather here, but he could be thankful at the same time that the Bonackers got in a scrimmage over the weekend in Moriches — a scrimmage with Hampton Bays that went very well.

Alversa, whose team is young, was nevertheless favorably impressed by his pitchers — Kurt Matthews, a junior, and Elian Abreu, a sophomore, in particular — and by the team’s baserunning and fielding — credit in that regard, he said, should go to the junior varsity coach, Andrew Rodriguez — and with some of his hitters.

With the Hampton Bays and East Hampton fields unplayable, the scrimmage was held at the four-turf-field Moriches Sports Complex (where Alversa’s off-season teams play).

It was football weather, though the sun was out. This writer left in the middle of the fifth inning, by which time the Bonackers were cruising along at 11-0.

Matthews, an all-league player last season, started, and looked good, running through the Baymen’s lineup in one-two-three fashion over the course of  the first three innings.

Abreu, who came on in the fourth, was also impressive, striking out the first two batters to face him in the bottom of the fourth before giving up a walk and retiring the side on a flyout to Ryan Lynch in center field.

“Our goal is to throw strikes, not to walk anyone this year, so I was extremely happy with our pitching,” Alversa said during Monday’s conversation. “We only had one walk over all. It makes a big difference if you throw strikes.”

At the plate East Hampton did well too. Tucker Genovesi led off with a single in the top of the first, and after Abreu grounded into a force and advanced to second on an errant throw, Matthews doubled to the snowline at the foot of the fence in left center, scoring Abreu.

East Hampton scored five more runs in the second. Lynch, batting fifth, and Austin Brown drew back-to-back walks. Lynch stole second, then third, and came home on an overthrow before Zach Barzilay, the starting catcher, drove in Brown with a base hit for 3-0.

After Drew Salamy struck out, James Foster, last year’s starting catcher, who had shoulder surgery in November, singled. Zack Minskoff, the 10th hitter in the lineup that day, drew a walk, loading the bases. Genovesi struck out, but Abreu came through with a long three-run double to the snow. 

Matthews then hit a hot ground ball to third, but Abreu ran into the tag, a baserunning lapse that he heard about from Henry Meyer, Alversa’s assistant, before returning to his position in left field.

The Bonackers tacked on another run in their third, didn’t score in the fourth, leaving runners at second and third, but, thanks to two bases-loaded walks, a wild pitch, and a run-scoring single by Barzilay, increased their lead to 11-0 in the top of the fifth.

Foster, who said his shoulder was coming along well, will just be hitting in the coming weeks, not fielding or catching. Meanwhile, with Barzilay, Seth Kappel, and a freshman, Luke Campbell, Alversa and Meyer have three others vying to start behind the plate.

Earlier in the week, during an indoor practice session, Alversa said he was worried that because of the periodic wretched weather he wouldn’t be able to get any scrimmages in. It appeared likely, however, that the team would get a second scrimmage in with Pierson, in Sag Harbor, on Monday, and possibly a third, at Hampton Bays, on Tuesday. 

The team is to leave on April 1 for Florida, where it is to play six games in seven days.

The Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter youth swim team, the Hurricanes, placed third among 39 entries — and in runner-up positions in the separate boys and girls divisions — in the state Y meet in Buffalo this past weekend, a showing that convinced the coach, Tom Cohill, that this was the most balanced team he’s ever taken to the states.

His charges — there were 58 of them — broke eight state records (six of them in relays, three on Saturday alone) and registered numerous first-place finishes. His relay teams’ dominance underlined his claim that this year’s team has been his most balanced one, Cohill agreed. 

Just as pleasing as the results was the fact that “all of our older kids were cheering the younger ones on, which is just what you want when you have a team of younger and older kids. In the past two or three weeks of practice we’ve been asking them to look around and see what great things their teammates are doing.”

Cohill and his assistants (a group that includes Craig Brierley, Angelika Cruz, Andrey Trigubovich, Sean Crowley, Sean Knight, and Hank Oppenheimer) will take seven competitors (Maggie Purcell, Sophia Swanson, Caroline Oakland, Julia Brierley, Jane Brierley, Oona Foulser, and Ethan McCormac) to the national Y meet in Greensboro, N.C., in the first week in April.

The Flushing and Southeast (Rochester) Y teams — much larger ones than East Hampton’s — were the only ones to outdo the Hurricanes, and not by much.

Setting state records for the Hurricanes were: the girls open 200 free relay team of Purcell, Foulser, Oakland, and Swanson; the girls open 200 medley relay team of Oakland (back), Jane Brierley (breast), Sophia Swanson (fly), and Purcell (free); the girls 11-12-year-old 200 medley relay team of Cami Hatch (back), Jane Brierley (breast), Summer Jones (fly), and Margaret Breen (free).

The boys 13-14 medley relay team of Joey Badilla (back), Jack Duryea (breast), Fernando Menjura (fly), and Owen McCormac (free); the girls 15-19 200 medley relay team of Julia Brierley (back), Purcell (breast), Sophia Swanson (fly), and Oakland (free), and the girls 15-19 400 free relay team of Sophia Swanson, Oakland, Foulser, and Purcell. Purcell also set state records in two individual events, the 100 breaststroke and the 200 breaststroke.

Turning to other East Hampton Y.M.C.A. news, town junior lifeguard training sessions for 9-through-15-year-olds overseen by John Ryan Sr. and Jr. on Sundays are underway at the Y’s pool.

New trainees, whose sessions are from 2 to 2:45 p.m., are required as a prerequisite to swim 50 yards (two lengths of the pool) using the freestyle stroke, to tread water in the deep end for at least five minutes, and to swim underwater for 10 to 15 yards in the deep end.

Trainees are being evaluated as to their freestyle, sidestroke, and breaststroke abilities. “Some may need additional instruction, which is available at the Y,” the Ryans have said in a flier.

“If all aspects of a stroke have a successful rating of 2 (‘good’) or higher, we ask that the stroke be practiced for at least four laps to build up the trainee’s conditioning.”

Nine-through-12-year-olds, after having improved their strokes and conditioning, will be asked to swim four laps (100 yards) of freestyle in good form in less than 2 minutes and 15 seconds, with “no stopping or resting at the walls.” They will also be asked to swim eight laps (200 yards) using the three above-mentioned strokes. This test, the Ryans have said, “will not be timed, but good form must be maintained.”

The older trainees, whose sessions are from 2:45 to 3:30 p.m., will be asked to swim six laps (150 yards) freestyle in good form, with no stopping or resting at the walls, and 12 untimed laps (300 yards) using the freestyle, side, and breaststrokes in good form.

Participants, who are to be accompanied by a parent, can sign up at the Y’s pool any Sunday at 1:30 p.m. “Returning junior lifeguards are to be tested only in the 2:45-3:30 session.”

The training sessions began March 11 and are to continue through June 17. The summer junior lifeguard program is to begin Saturday, June 23.

The flier adds that “once a trainee has passed the swim test he or she need not come to training. Trainees will have until the end of June to qualify for the summer junior lifeguard program, which is to be run this year at East Hampton’s Main Beach, Indian Wells in Amagansett, and at Ditch Plain in Montauk.”

Friday, March 30

BOXING, Road to the Garden, 152-pound novice quarterfinals, Patrick Gough vs. Richie Daunt, International Boxing, 1630 Weirfield Street, the Bronx, 7:45 p.m. 

Monday, April 2

BOYS LACROSSE, East End junior varsity team vs. Bellport, Southampton High School, 10 a.m.

BOYS TENNIS, East Hampton at Shoreham-Wading River, 10 a.m.

Tuesday, April 3

SOFTBALL, Elwood-John Glenn at East Hampton, 11 a.m.

GIRLS LACROSSE, East Hampton at Harborfields, 11 a.m.

Wednesday, April 4

BOYS LACROSSE, Kings Park vs. East End team, Southampton High School, 10 a.m.

Thursday, April 5

BOYS LACROSSE, East End team at Bellport, 2 p.m.

February 4, 1993

Question: What do you do when your archrival beats you in the last second of a basketball game by canning an unbelievable shot with a second left on the clock?

Answer: The next time you play, you throw up an even more unbelievable shot . . . from much farther away, and you drill it with one second . . . no, make that no time left on the clock.

Pick any superlative. Superfabulistic? It was better than that. Cosmic? That’s in the right neighborhood. Nothing less can describe watching the Killer Bees and the Southampton Mariners lock horns for 32 minutes. They play the kind of basketball a fan can usually only dream about.

Anxious to avenge a heartbreaking 70-69 loss on Jan. 11 on the Southampton College floor — a loss only absorbed after the Mariners’ Eddie Jeffries popped in a twisting fadeaway from the far corner with one second left in the game — Bridgehampton, the eventual winner of Tuesday’s game by 65-62, went in front early this time.

. . . Carl Johnson, Bridgehampton’s coach, knew his team had been in a ballgame. “I was scared,” he said. “They put fear in your heart.” — Rick Murphy

February 11, 1993

East Hampton’s senior standout, Scott Smith, recorded the 1,000th point of his career to pace Bonac’s boys basketball team to a resounding 67-56 victory over Pierson on the winner’s home court Tuesday.

The loss left Pierson’s postseason playoff hopes twisting in the wind, which is to say the Whalers will probably have to defeat Bridgehampton today in Pierson’s gym to wow the Section XI seeding committee. But unless the Whalers play a lot better than they have been in recent weeks, that simply ain’t gonna happen.

. . . The latest member of Bonac’s 1,000-point club joins a number of others, the most recent being Terrell Dozier and Kenny Wood, the University of Richmond star, whom Bonac fans can see on ESPN Monday afternoon.

. . . Today will be Pierson’s last chance to impress, and you can be sure Carl Johnson and company will be looking to prove the Whalers don’t deserve a shot at the title. — Rick Murphy

There’s no question ice doesn’t come as much as it used to, the past weekend’s freeze aside. Two hockey enthusiasts hoping to change that are spearheading an effort to build an ice hockey rink in East Hampton.

Bob McCall of Amagansett and Jim LaGarenne of East Hampton have rounded up an architect, engineer, attorney, and 40 others interested in building a rink on town land behind its softball field on Abraham’s Path. 

Richie Daunt, who has won two matches thus far in the Road to the Garden tournament (what used to be known as the Golden Gloves), is to fight tomorrow night in the Bronx. Daunt’s 152-pound novice quarterfinal-round opponent will be Patrick Gough. They are to meet at International Boxing, 1630 Weirfield Street, the Bronx, as part of a fight card that is scheduled to begin at 7:45.

If he wins, Daunt may fight at his gym, Finest Fitness in Patchogue, in the semifinals on April 7. The finals are to be contested in Madison Square Garden on April 20.

Finally some teams got to play on Monday, though there were no “W’s.” Boys tennis, facing the reigning county champion, Half Hollow Hills East, lost 5-2 in a mandatory nonleaguer; softball was bageled 12-0 at Miller Place, and girls lacrosse lost 17-4 at Bellport.

Presumably, there will be growth this spring. Kevin McConville, the first-year boys tennis coach, was particularly hopeful in this regard. He’s been working inside (at East Hampton Indoor Tennis) and out trying to make his doubles teams more competitive, and the results are beginning to be seen.

All three doubles teams lost in the season-opening match here with Westhampton Beach. On Saturday it was the same at Half Hollow Hills West, though all went to third sets. East Hampton lost that match 4-3.

“There’s been a huge improvement in our doubles play,” McConville said. “I’d been concentrating on singles challenges leading into the Westhampton match, but it became immediately obvious in that match that our doubles needed work. If we’re going to lose, I want to lose the right way!”

“Actually,” he continued, “we should have won that Hills West match. First doubles [Jaedon Glasstein and James Fairchild] wound up losing 7-6 in the third. That would have been our fourth point.”

By Monday, McConville had pretty much settled on the doubles lineup he’ll use this season, with Glasstein and Alex Weseley at one, Matthew McGovern (who gets his nod as the team’s most-improved player) and Miles Clark at two, and Fairchild and Hunter Medler at three.   

Medler and Fairchild won on Monday, in a super tiebreaker over their Hills East counterparts, Tris Stremmel and Aman Malhotra. East Hampton’s other winner that day was Luke Louchheim, at third singles, in straight sets. The eighth grader from Pierson, who did not play against Westhampton because he was ill, thus remained undefeated.

In the other matches Monday, Jonny De Groot lost 6-2, 6-3 to Hills East’s number-one, Abhinav Srivastava, who was third in the county tournament last year and fifth in the state. Srivastava’s killer forehand essentially made the difference, though De Groot looked very good at times, mixing underspun shots with hard topspun ones. Hitting his second serve as hard — or harder — than his first led to a number of double faults, and he got caught frequently in rushing the net as Srivastava drove the ball to his feet.

Ravi MacGurn and his opponent, Ethan Ertel, were evenly matched at second singles, though MacGurn lost in the end in a super tiebreaker, 10-5 after having dug himself into an 8-1 hole. 

So, the Bonackers have begun at 0-3, given their 4-3, 4-3, and 5-2 losses, but they are much better than that. McConville, certainly one of the best tennis coaches East Hampton’s ever had, likes what he sees. “They’re motivated, they know what to do . . . they listen.” 

East Hampton was to have played Southold-Greenport, a league opponent, here yesterday, but McConville said following Monday’s match that rain was predicted. He added that a match that was to have been played last week at Shoreham-Wading River had been rescheduled for Monday, “the first day of spring vacation when everybody’s going to be away. We may have to go with our jayvee kids.”

As for the weeklong spring break, a boys junior varsity lacrosse game with Bellport is to be played at Southampton High School on Monday at 10 a.m.; a softball game with Elwood-John Glenn is to be played here on Tuesday at 11 a.m.; a girls lacrosse game is to be played at Harborfields Tuesday at 11 a.m.; a boys lacrosse game with Kings Park is to be played Wednesday at Southampton High School at 10 a.m., and a boys lacrosse game is to be played at Bellport High School next Thursday at 2 p.m.

Spring sprang this past week sportswise, and for the most part the teams — namely baseball, softball, boys tennis, boys and girls lacrosse, and boys and girls track — have been practicing outside, though a foot of wet snow was predicted for Tuesday.

The good news is that the turnouts for all the sports have been good — a dozen are being bused each day to Southampton for boys lacrosse, which remains combined with that school and Pierson, Bridgehampton, and Ross — and that East Hampton’s athletic director, Joe Vas, can give himself a pat on the back for assembling a stellar coaching staff.

Vinny Alversa and Henry Meyer, former teammates on the East End Tigers, a team that topped the amateur metro division not long ago, have once again been reunited, auguring well for that sport. 

Alversa is in his second year as the varsity’s head coach. It’s a young team, but a year older than last season, during which it went 0-20. Hunter Fromm, a lights-out pitcher with a minuscule earned run average, who’s now a senior, had been expected to lead the pitching staff, but he’s been done in by arm trouble that would reportedly have required Tommy John surgery, which, again reportedly, he declined to undergo. That presumably means that Curt Matthews, a junior, will lead the staff. 

A flight to Tampa, Fla., has been booked, Alversa said at Friday’s practice, on Southwest Airlines so that the team, which has been practicing in East Hampton’s gym all winter, can get in a week’s work at the Tampa Bay Spring Training Center.

Katie Helfand, who has two young children, has stepped down as the boys tennis team’s coach, and has been replaced by Kevin McConville, the Hampton Racquet Club’s head pro and the former tennis director (for four years) at the Buckskill Tennis Club nearby. 

A few years ago, McConville, who played number-one singles in his junior and senior years at Spring Hill College in Mobile, Ala. — one of whose alums is Nick Bollettieri — coached most of his present charges when they played for a strong combined junior high team whose home matches were played on Buckskill’s Har-Tru courts.

“It was a Sag Harbor-Bridgehampton team for two years, and a Sag Harbor-Bridgehampton-East Hampton team for one year,” he said at Friday’s windy practice session.

McConville, who became a teaching professional soon after graduating from college, has been overseeing eight-game, no-ad ladder matches since he began last week. When he blows the whistle, the players who are winning move up a court and those who are losing move down one. Ravi MacGurn, a junior, Jonny De Groot, a junior, and Luke Louchheim, an eighth grader, seem to be leading the way, he said, though Jaedon Glasstein and Hunter Medler are also vying for singles spots.

As for doubles, McConville assured this writer, who has been waiting for years to see teams move up and back together on the court, that he’d make sure they would stay in sync rather than become split, with one man affixed to the baseline and one statue-like at the net.

Diane O’Donnell, the veteran girls cross-country coach (and a top-flight age-group distance runner), has joined Yani Cuesta in coaching girls spring track. Ben Turnbull and Mike Buquicchio, who coached boys indoor track, are to do the same this spring.

A new staff, headed by Robyn Bramoff Mott, will oversee girls lacrosse, Jessica Stanna, last year’s varsity coach, having departed for a teaching job in Riverhead.

Mott’s assistant is Lisa Farbar, the school’s strength and conditioning coach. Jenn Reich and Katla Thorsen, a recent Stony Brook University graduate, are coaching the junior varsity.

“The turnouts in all the sports have been good,” Vas said during a conversation last week. “Girls lacrosse is a middle-to-low-ranked team in a power-rated league, and thus should be in some competitive games. I think we’ve got a stable staff now. . . . We’ve had some good players come out of the program in recent years. Maggie Pizzo’s playing at Yale, Carly Seekamp at Navy, and Jenna Budd and Amanda Seekamp at Hofstra. . . .”

Kathy Amicucci is back for her second year coaching softball, and will be helped in that regard by Kim Hren, one of the best ballplayers to come out of East Hampton. Rob Rivera is to coach the jayvee.

“It’s a nice staff,” said Vas. “All the programs are in good hands.”

Softball was to have scrimmaged Southampton at home Tuesday, though snow, as aforesaid, was forecast. 

The baseball team is to scrimmage at Westhampton Beach, and the Bayport-Blue Point softball team is to play a nonleaguer here tomorrow. Tomorrow will also feature a mandatory nonleague match here between Half Hollow Hills East, a perennial Suffolk County power, and the Bonackers, who look as if they’ll be a strong team as well this spring.

Baseball is to scrimmage at Hampton Bays on Saturday at 10 a.m., the same day the girls lacrosse team is to play a nonleaguer at Longwood. 

Baseball will scrimmage Pierson at Sag Harbor’s Mashashimuet Park Monday, the same day that Westhampton Beach, a longtime rival of East Hampton’s, is to play a league-opening tennis match here. Softball is to open its league season at Hampton Bays on Tuesday, the same day that the baseball team is to scrimmage at Hampton Bays and the South Fork boys lacrosse team is to scrimmage at Brentwood. On Wednesday, the tennis team will play at Shoreham-Wading River.

In other words, the sports calendar says spring has sprung.

Thursday, March 22

SOFTBALL, East Hampton at Port Jefferson, 4:30 p.m.

Friday, March 23

SOFTBALL, East Hampton at Miller Place, 4:30 p.m.

BOYS TENNIS, East Hampton at Half Hollow Hills West, mandatory nonleague, 4 p.m.

Saturday, March 24

BOYS LACROSSE, East End team at Sachem North, nonleague, 10 a.m.

BASEBALL, Mount Sinai at East Hampton, league opener, 11 a.m.

Sunday, March 25

MEN’S SOCCER, spring opener, Hampton United vs. SFC Newcastle, Brentwood State Park, 5 p.m.

Monday, March 26

GIRLS LACROSSE, East Hampton at Bellport, league opener, 4:30 p.m.

BOYS TENNIS, Half Hollow Hills East, at East Hampton, mandatory nonleague, 4.30 p.m.

Tuesday, March 27

BOYS LACROSSE, East End team vs. Mattituck-Greenport-Southold, Mattituck High School, 4:30 p.m.

Wednesday, March 28

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

BOYS TENNIS, Southold-Greenport at East Hampton, 4:30 p.m.

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

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

Still Dangling

Whether football will make a return here remained a question mark as of Monday. Joe Vas, East Hampton’s athletic director, said a group of possible independents will appeal today a ruling by Section XI’s athletic council upholding a 3-1 conference vote prohibiting East Hampton from playing in Conference IV — a conference with smaller-enrollment schools — in the fall. Darren Phillips, Southampton’s athletic director, is to make the case on East Hampton’s behalf.

Conference IV had voted in favor of East Hampton playing in that division, though Conferences I, II, and III did not.

Vas said recently that ultimately he would prefer that East Hampton, Southampton, Port Jefferson, Greenport, and Mercy form an independent league of their own, “but now we’ve learned that Mercy’s closing, which hurts,” he said during Monday’s conversation.

It would be “up to the communities,” he said, regarding a four-team independent league. Asked if another school might agree to replace Mercy, the A.D. said, “Maybe.”

Slow-Pitch

Mike Ritsi has asked that teams and individuals (men and women) interested in playing in a summer softball league at the Hank Zebrowski field in Montauk contact him either at Michael [email protected], or by calling 631-384-2727. He’s also seeking sponsors and umpires. The registration deadline is April 19. The season is to run from mid-May through August.