East Hampton High’s baseball players must have been happy Monday as they took the field in St. Petersburg, Fla., for a doubleheader with Frontier Central High School six inches of wet snow blanketed their diamond here.

The Bonackers are to play six games at the Spring Training Complex in St. Pete this week. Before leaving for Tampa they had managed to squeeze in a couple of scrimmages and one league game in the stormy month of March.

That league game was played at Mount Sinai. East Hampton lost it 5-0, “but that’s better than the 24-1, 32-2, and 18-something scores they beat us by last year,” Vinny Alversa, East Hampton’s coach, said during a recent practice session.

Kurt Matthews and Elian Abreu, his top two, pitched at Mount Sinai — Matthews for the first four innings and Abreu for the last two. The former, said Alversa, gave up four runs, three of them earned, three hits, three walks, and struck out five, while Abreu gave up one run, two hits, walked two, and struck out one.

“They scored two in the third, two more in the fourth, and added one in the sixth,” said the coach. “Kurt and Elian pitched well. We had two hits, one by Drew Salamy and one by Luke Campbell, both freshmen.”

“We put the ball in play,” he added, “and there were quite a few walks, but we couldn’t get the key hit.”

Asked who his other pitchers might be this season, Alversa said, with a slight smile, “Everyone.” This is the second year in which pitch counts are to be limited to no more than 105 within a five-day period.

On Tuesday, East Hampton was to have played a game with Pearl River. Yesterday, the Bonackers were to have played Maranatha Christian, a team from Minneapolis. Scarsdale is to be today’s opponent, and an intra-squad game, with umpires, is to be played tomorrow.

Mount Sinai is to play game two of the league-opening series here on Monday at 4:30 p.m. Miller Place is to play here Wednesday at 4:30.

Turning to tennis, the boys team defeated Southold-Greenport 6-1 here on March 28, the first of what will presumably be numerous wins this season. With Jonny De Groot away, Kevin McConville moved everyone up. Playing at one, Ravi MacGurn defeated Xavier Kahn 6-1, 6-2; at two, Luke Louchheim defeated Jacob Kahn 6-4, 6-1; at three, Jaedon Glasstein defeated Cole Brigham 6-1, 6-1, and at four, Brad Drubych defeated Jared Palumbo 4-6, 6-3, 10-4.

Jamie Fairchild and Alex Weseley, playing at first doubles, defeated Mario Contreras and Devin Quinones 6-3, 6-0; Matthew McGovern and Miles Clark, at two, lost 5-7, 6-3, 13-11 to Alex Kandora and Van Karsten, and, at three, Hunter Medler and John Jimenez defeated Southold-Greenport’s Parker Bukowski and Jack Koslosky 6-1, 6-0.

The Bonackers, with their three top singles players away, were to have played at Shoreham-Wading River Monday, but that day’s snowfall put it off. Should the match be played later in the week, McConville said during Saturday morning’s practice session that he would have Glasstein at one, Drubych at two, Weseley at three, Fairchild at four, and McGovern and Clark at first doubles. The other two doubles teams would include some junior varsity players, he said. 

East Hampton’s boys and girls track teams were to have had their first outings at Port Jefferson’s Steeplefest yesterday. 

The good news for Yani Cuesta and Diane O’Donnell, the girls coaches, is that there are 41 on the spring roster whereas there were only four who came out this past winter for indoor track.

The team is young, however, with only one senior, Michelle Barranco, who will put the shot and throw the discus. There are 15 sophomores, five juniors, and 20 ninth graders. Two of the latter, Ava Engstrom and Bella Tarbet, are already long-distance runners to be reckoned with.

As of last week, Cuesta was reasonably sure as to which events about half of her charges would do. The girls’ league opener will be at Westhampton Beach on Wednesday.

As for the boys, Ben Turnbull, their coach, said in a recent email, “Our goal this season is to learn. We have a very young team, though I hope to have five to six individuals make the state qualifying meet. . . . Our competition is very strong this year, what with Amityville, Westhampton, Shoreham-Wading River, Sayville, and Miller Place in our league.”

The team’s core, he said, includes Robert Weiss, a senior sprinter and middle-distance runner, Ryan Fowkes, a junior distance runner, Matthew Maya, a junior hurdler and jumper, Eamon Spencer, a senior middle-distance runner, and Ruben Santana, a senior shot-putter and discus-thrower.

The boys will be home to Westhampton Wednesday.

Asked to comment on East Hampton’s contributions to the East End boys lacrosse team, known as the Islanders, Matt Babb of Southampton, the head coach, said in an email: “We have six players from East Hampton on our varsity — Cole Shaw, a junior, who’s the team’s captain, Brian Damm, a junior who should anchor our attack, Logan Gurney, a sophomore midfielder, Aiden Cooper, a freshman defender who will rotate as our face-off guy, Jack Ulrich, a junior who can play at both attack and midfield, and Henry Johnston, a junior midfielder who gives us depth on the defensive end.”

The Islanders were to have played Kings Park at Southampton High School yesterday, and are to play at Bellport today and at Hampton Bays Monday. On Wednesday, Center Moriches is to play at Southampton, the Islanders’ home field.

While East Hampton’s softball team was bageled at Mount Sinai and at Miller Place recently, it pummeled Port Jefferson 28-0, a game in which Rebecca Kuperschmid and Bella Swanson homered. The team was to have played a home game with John Glenn Tuesday morning, but because of the previous day’s snow, it seemed unlikely. Sayville is to play here tomorrow, at 4:30 p.m., and on Tuesday Babylon is to play here, also at 4:30.

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.

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.