Despite frequent offensive hiccups, Bridgehampton’s Killer Bees ate Livingston Manor’s dreams at Suffolk Community College-Brentwood Monday night, ultimately prevailing 50-48 in a state Class D regional semifinal that seemed in the early going as if it would go the Rockland County champion’s way.

While not particularly well played, the game was gripping throughout and, insofar as Bees’ fans were concerned, transporting in the end, thanks to a steal — his fifth that night — and coast-to-coast layup by J.P. Harding with 14 seconds left to play.

Harding’s big steal and basket put Bridgehampton ahead 49-45, but there was more to come as the Wildcats’ senior guard, Allan Ward, who was to finish with a game-high 19 points, drained a 3 from the right wing, bringing the visitors to within 1 point, and rekindling their fans’ hopes, with two seconds remaining. 

Following a timeout, Harding’s inbounds pass went to Elijah White, one of the Bees’ guards (the other, Nae’ Jon Ward, had had to go to the bench with 38 seconds left), and White was immediately fouled. 

White, who shot well from the free-throw line going down the stretch, missed the first try, but made the second, for what was to prove the final margin of victory.

With 1.7 seconds left, the Wildcats’ inbounds pass went to Patrick DiBartolo at midcourt, but Harding was there to deflect the desperation heave, assuring Ron White’s young team a well-deserved celebration.

They’ll now go on to play the Martin Luther King Jr.-Newfield Central winner in a regional final at Center Moriches High School tomorrow at 7 p.m.

“We need to get into a better offensive flow,” Harding said when interviewed afterward by reporters. The Bees committed somewhat fewer turnovers than they had in their 67-41 loss to Greenport in the county C-D game about two weeks ago. Some of the irresoluteness can be attributed to nerves, and some to the fact that White could not find a team to scrimmage during the long layoff, but still, 18 (this writer’s count) is too many.

White said that, all told, he was proud of his charges, however, crediting them with the fortitude they showed in digging themselves out of that early 17-6 hole.

The roller-coaster ride, then, began with a big dip in the first period, which ended with Livingston Manor up 17-11, and proceeded to rise in the second as the Bees, thanks to baskets by Harding, Will Walker (who had come off the bench), and White, capping a fast break, wrested the lead from the Rockland team, at 18-17. 

The Wildcats fought back, though, capitalizing on Bridgehampton turnovers and bad choices, to a 26-26 stalemate at the half — a 3-pointer by Ward bringing about the tie.

The third quarter too was a standoff, with each team scoring 11 points — a steal and a layup by Harding with a half-minute to go presaging his game-winning dash.

It was 37-37 going into the fourth. Two made free throws by White put the Bees up by 2, after which Juniper Brown picked Ward’s pocket for 39-39 — the first of four times during the endgame that the score was knotted.

Jonny De Groot, the 6-foot-1-inch junior forward, whom White has been begging to shoot, did so to great effect with a minute and a half left, following misses by White and Harding — a banked-in basket that treated Bridgehampton to the lead again, at 47-45.

In crunch time, it was Livingston Manor’s turn to make turnovers, none of the three more crucial, of course, than the steal Harding made in the lane with 14 seconds left.

Asked what he had told his players in the game’s final moments, White said he’d told them that it was their game, and that rather than fretting about the outcome they should concentrate on execution. 

Do that, he told them, and the win would come, which it did.

Harding and White each scored 14 points, Ward, 9, De Groot, 6, Walker, 5, and Nate DePasquale, 2. Ward hit three 3-pointers, and Walker and White one each.

The East Hampton High School boys swimming team finished eighth among the 29 schools that vied in the county meet Saturday at Suffolk Community College-Brentwood, one spot lower than the 2014 team led by Thomas Brierley and Trevor Mott, though there were fewer schools at that meet four years ago.

Craig Brierley, East Hampton’s head coach, and his assistant, Brian Cunningham, took nine competitors with them, all underclassmen, a group that was led by Ethan McCormac, a junior, who had earlier in the season qualified for the coming state meet in the 100 and 200-yard freestyle races.

McCormac, whose brother, Owen, was sick that day and thus did not compete, anchored the fourth-place 200 freestyle relay team that comprised himself, Ryan Duryea, Aidan Forst, and Fernando Menjura. He placed seventh in the 100 butterfly (bettering his previous-best time by 3.05 seconds), seventh in the 200 free (in a state-qualifying time of 1:46.98), and ninth, along with Forst, Joey Badilla, and Menjura, in the 400 free relay.

His 54.03 in the 100 butterfly was a personal best as were his 22.39 as the 200 free relay’s anchor and the 48.55 he swam in leading off the 400 relay.

McCormac will be East Hampton’s sole competitor in the state meet, which is to be held over the March 2-3 weekend at the Nassau County Aquatics Center.

The elder Brierley said in an emailed account that a number of his charges swam personal bests at the counties, including Badilla’s 27.36 in the 50 backstroke as part of the 200 medley relay and his 57.92 in the 100 back, and Colin Harrison’s 26.01 in his leg of the 200 medley relay and his 1:01.40 in the 100 butterfly.

Ryan Duryea’s 22.86 in his leg of the 200 medley relay was a personal best, as was Menjura’s 23.61 in the 50 free, his 58.38 in the 100 fly, and his 52.36 in his leg of the 400 free relay.

Ryan Bahel’s 24.03 in the 50 free and Forst’s 52.55 in the 100 free and his 23.31 in his leg of the 200 free relay were personal bests.

Ryan Duryea, a Pierson junior, was named as East Hampton’s swimmer of the meet. “He was asked to swim the 50 free three times,” said Brierley, “all prior to his signature event, the 100 breaststroke. . . . When it came to the 100 breast he really had to push himself, and finished within .6 of his personal best — a fantastic display of mental and physical toughness. All season Ryan has been a huge asset to the team, contributing his utmost in every event. The coaches have total confidence in his ability to deliver.”

In other events, East Hampton (Badilla, Jack Duryea, Harrison, and Ryan Duryea) placed eighth in the leadoff 200-yard medley relay, good for 22 points; Menjura won 3 points by placing 14th in the 50 free; Forst won 3 points by finishing 14th in the 100 free; Badilla won 4 points by finishing 13th in the 100 back; Ryan Duryea won 6 and Jack Duryea won 5 by placing 11th and 12th in the 100 breast, and the 400 free relay team of Ethan McCormac, Forst, Badilla, and Menjura in placing ninth garnered 18 points.

The meet was won by Half Hollow Hills, with 418 points. The top 10 was rounded out by Ward Melville (326.5), Northport (198), Hauppauge (191), Connetquot-East Islip (140), Smithtown (137), Huntington-Harborfields (121), East Hampton (115), Sayville-Bayport-Blue Point (114), and Stony Brook (84). 

Hauppauge, with a 7-0 record, won League II, with East Hampton (6-1) the runner-up. Hauppauge and East Hampton were likewise the top two teams in the recent league meet. East Hampton defeated Huntington-Harborfields in a dual meet this season. “Their diving points enabled them to finish ahead of us in the county meet,” Brierley said.

The coach added that his team’s showing in the county meet “was all the more impressive given that there were so many personal best times turned in two weeks ago at the league championships. We’re thrilled with the efforts the boys have put in.”

All of his county competitors would continue with competitive swimming, the coach said in reply to a question, as members of the Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter’s youth swim team, the Hurricanes.

On her return from running seven marathons on seven continents in seven days — yes, you read it correctly — Cara Nelson’s East Hampton Middle School social studies students, who had been in touch with her throughout, expanded upon all the things she might have missed during the World Marathon Challenge tour.

Nelson and her fellow participants’ agon raised money, she said during a conversation at The Star this week, for 11 charities — the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, Stand Up to Cancer, the Challenged Athletes Foundation, and the ALS Association among them.

Though athletic — she played soccer and ran track at Smithtown High School, and club soccer and ice hockey in college — Nelson said she hadn’t run a marathon until learning, a little over a year ago, that she’d be a part of the World Marathon Challenge team.

“There were 50 of us, from all over the globe, and 49 finished.” Testimony to the group’s grit and persistence. In fact, she said, the importance of persevering in life had been a theme she’d emphasized in her social studies classes this year.

“We flew into Cape Town and then on to the Novo Research Station in Antarctica. It was summer there, with 24 hours of sunlight, and it wasn’t as cold as you’d think — 30 degrees at the start and 5, figuring in the wind chill, at the end. We did six loops around a runway, though the terrain, with the snow and ice, was much more difficult than we’d expected. I wore trail shoes — every step was exhausting. I felt at the end as if I’d hiked up a mountain rather than run a marathon.”

Back in Cape Town, nine hours after crossing the Antarctic finish line, the group was afoot again, “along the beautiful Sea Point Promenade, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean . . . waves were crashing on the boardwalk . . . people were cheering us. That was our biggest temperature swing, from 5 degrees Fahrenheit to 75, with the African sun beating down. I drank lots and lots of water, but it was . . . ‘ironic’ isn’t quite the right word . . . I felt bad in a way because there’s been a drought there and I was hydrating, hydrating.”

The footing was better in Cape Town, and “it was a flat, fast course, which was reassuring for me, because I felt that if I could do two marathons back to back I’d be able to make it through all of them.”

Asked if people back home, family members and friends and such, had thought she was crazy, Nelson, who also coaches East Hampton High’s girls varsity soccer team and the middle school’s girls lacrosse and eighth-grade girls basketball teams, laughed. “Oh yes, everybody thought I was crazy. They wanted to know if it was humanly possible, logistically possible. . . . The only time you could sleep was on a plane, and I’ve always been an anxious flier. I never have been able to sleep on planes — until now! I’m over my fear of flying. I was so exhausted that I’d go right to sleep.”

From Cape Town the group was flown to Perth, Australia — the first of three marathons run in darkness. “It was a 12-hour flight. We got off the plane, went through customs, checked into our hotel, and departed for the course. The race began at 9:30 p.m. and I finished at 2 a.m. I wore a headlamp for five hours. Part of the course was lit, though other parts weren’t, which is a little nerve-racking if you’re a woman and running alone, which I was at times. They ran it in a park in downtown Perth. Eight loops.”

“People’s bodies began breaking down at that point. Some people had blisters all over their feet, some had knee injuries which made them walk a lot more than they ordinarily would have. . . . But there was no self-doubt. We were focused, taking it one mile, one race at a time. You’d wonder in getting off the plane how you could run a marathon. But then you’d get to the starting line and your mind would take over — telling you to forget about the pain and tackle the race. That’s what got me to the finish line, even though I was hurting.”

Dubai, the next stop, was almost surreal given its blatant opulence and shrouded social mores, she said. There really hadn’t been any time to take it all in. 

“I’ll probably go back to some of these places some day,” Nelson said in answer to a question. “And spend more than eight hours and not run a marathon.”

A big blister was obscuring one of her toenails after the Dubai marathon, reducing her, she said, to tears. “Our doctor lanced it, and I put Moleskin on it, and bandaged it, and kept on running. I got lucky, I recovered quickly.”

It had rained about an hour before the marathon began in Lisbon — the group’s fifth stop — rendering the cobblestones slippery. “It was definitely one of our harder terrains . . . flat, but uneven. We ran, again it was at night, in the Park of the Nations.”

Then on to Cartagena, Colombia. “This [night] marathon was interesting, to say the least. It wasn’t mapped out well. Runners were being directed this way and that. I knew something was wrong when the guy who always finished second came up behind us and asked how come we were ahead of him. I was starting to panic. I only had 26.2 miles in me. It all worked out in the end — we were told to stop when our GPS watches said we should. We were literally dodging horses and carriages and food trucks that were being pushed. . . .”

Fourteen family members, including her husband, Chris, were waiting for her in Miami, “our final destination. . . . My dad, who got me into running when I was a kid, my husband, my brother and his wife, and uncles and cousins all had flown down for the home stretch. It was very beautiful. My dad and brother ran five miles with me, Chris did as well. It was the most he’d ever run. We all had a party afterward at our hotel.”

It was, in the end, Nelson said, “all about persevering, about overcoming obstacles. I’m not an elite athlete — I’ve never been the strongest or the fastest. This was a challenge, not a race. Yet it was something that was mentally and physically very taxing.”

Her seventh-grade students, who had run marathon relays in the middle school’s halls before she left, had followed her all the way. It had been a virtual classroom, Nelson said. She had Skyped with them a number of times, she had blogged, and posed questions. 

“I had no time to explore. But they did. They gave me presentations on these countries’ geography, cultures, and economies when I got back. I got to learn from them.” 

And, presumably, they learned something of fortitude from her.

She returned on Feb. 5, and two days later was back in school. That weekend she ran a 7-mile race in Bay Shore, at the end of which she thought, “I’ve got 19 miles to go.”

Hearts generally are wooed on Valentine’s Day, not pierced with daggers, though in the East Hampton High School boys basketball team’s case it was so on Feb. 14 at Elwood-John Glenn, its outbracket opponent in the county’s Class A tournament.

“I’ve never coached a triple-overtime game before, though I once played in one in college,” East Hampton’s second-year coach, Dan White, said in recounting the torturous endgame of the 92-89 loss later in the week. “We won it with a 70-footer. It was on ESPN’s Top 10.”

“For the first 29 minutes of regulation, I thought we played the best basketball we’ve played all season. We were unselfish, we shot the ball, we rotated well on defense. We were up 60-42 with 10 seconds left in the third. . . . Then, at the end of the fourth,  we had three not so good minutes, and it cost us.”

Long, agonizing story short, Glenn, thanks largely to the inspired play of its sophomore point guard, Josh Fenner, and owing in part to the fact that East Hampton’s defenders were in foul trouble, obliterated an 11-point East Hampton lead in the final five minutes of regulation.

It looked as if Jack Reese, East Hampton’s senior point guard, would be the hero, as, with about a minute left, he captured the rebound of his missed layup in the lane and, after pulling the ball back out, hit a 3-pointer from the top of the key to put East Hampton up 69-66.

White signaled for a timeout, “to set up our defense so they couldn’t get a 3,” but was ignored. The ball went to Kyle Szokoli on the left wing — “he must have been 10 feet away from the 3-point line, 27 feet out” — and it swished through the net, forcing overtime.

“We had two baskets and they had two baskets in the first overtime. In the second, we were down by 5 points with a minute left. Max Proctor hit a 3, then Jack got a steal with 20 seconds left. 

We called timeout, and then he made a layup with two seconds left — a tough shot from five feet that was contested. It sat on the back of the rim as we all held our breath, and then went in. That tied it at 80-all.”

“Fenner took over in the third. He had all 12 of their points. Everybody was in foul trouble by then. We were down 6 with 1:30 left. Max hit another 3. We fouled, they missed. Jeremy Vizcaino rebounded. He passed to Turner [Foster], who had a good look from 25 feet. It went around the rim twice and rolled out. And that was all she wrote.”

Fenner finished with a game-high 53 points, a school record. Reese led East Hampton with 24, Malachi Miller had 20, Proctor 14, and Foster 11. East Hampton’s big men, Chris Stoecker and Bladimir Rodriguez Garces, each had 8 and Vizcaino 4.

“I was very proud of our kids. It would have been real easy to fold, but they didn’t. . . . In the past if we’d lost a lead like that it would have been over. This time we fought back. The same thing happened to John Glenn the next night at Westhampton. They were up 33-19 at one point and ended up losing by 3. There was not a single game contested by the second through the 10th Class A seeds that was won by more than 4 points. There were six overtimes all told, ours and three others. So, that’s what I expressed to our kids: that we should be proud we were right there. It just went down to a whistle or to a ball that didn’t drop.”

Thus East Hampton finished at 10-10 over all and 8-8 in league play. Reese has been named to the all-county team, “which means he’s one of the top 10 players among 200 or 300,” and Miller was named to the all-league team.

As for Reese, White said, “I think he’ll play mid-Division II or III. He has had schools come watch him. Where he goes will depend on what he wants to study. I think he’ll play someplace. . . . He’s seen a lot in these past three years. As a sophomore he was on that team that went to the A finals, a team that was moving in the right direction. Then, last year, he gutted it out with me, even though I was doing something that was new to him schematically. Then this year he was the catalyst on a successful team that was one step away from being a legitimate playoff contender. He’s basically been on three different teams, a rare experience for a high school kid — the best, the worst, and very close. And through it all he’s been very positive and supportive of his teammates. He’s the best point guard I’ve ever had.”

As for the near future, “We’re moving in the right direction. Malachi is coming back. He had a great game at Glenn. Max Proctor, who had four 3-pointers in that game, a career high for him, will be back, a very smart player who plays in the middle of our zone. Jeremy will be one of our better guards next year. Turner Foster and Blad will be back too, and Joe [McKee] and Howard [Wood] did a great job with the jayvee. They had size and, despite injuries, placed second or third in their league with a 14-6 or 13-7 record. . . .”

“The kids are playing year round now, we had a good, solid run — we’re moving forward,” the coach said with a smile.

Sunday, March 4

SKATING, Katy’s Courage fund-raiser, puck throw, 4:45-5 p.m.; figure skating recital, 5-6; skate-a-thon, 6-7:15, and hockey game, 7:30-9, Buckskill Winter Club, Buckskill Road, East Hampton. Rain date, March 11.

Monday, March 5

SPRING SPORTS, practices begin at local schools, 3 p.m.

BOYS BASKETBALL, Class D state regional semifinal, Bridgehampton vs. Section IX winner, Suffolk Community College-Brentwood, 7 p.m.

It’s hard to win a game when you make 21 turnovers and shoot 30 percent from the floor, and so it was that Bridgehampton High School’s Killer Bees lost to Greenport in the county playoffs’ C-D game at Suffolk Community College-Selden on Feb. 20.

And yet, despite the final 67-41 result, the Bees played the heavily-favored Porters toe-to-toe throughout the first half, which ended with the shocked North Fork team hanging onto a 3-point lead.

Greenport, the undefeated League VIII champion, was obviously confident going in. The team had on average enjoyed a 38.6-point margin of victory over its opponents throughout its 18-2 campaign — one that included 81-46 and 89-48 wins over Bridgehampton. 

But when J.P. Harding rebounded and converted a missed free throw by Elijah White, who had moments before executed a give-and-go with Nate DePasquale to bring the Bees to within 1 point with four minutes and 36 seconds left to play in the second quarter — a basket greeted with shouts and applause from the Bees’ side of the gym — the Porters were awakened to the fact that they were in a game.

Wonderful to tell, the Bees, thanks to a 3-point play by White, actually took the lead a minute later, at 22-21. A nifty layup by Nae’ Jon Ward, the Bees’ point guard, that faked out Greenport’s 6-foot-3 wide-body center, Jude Swann, tied the score at 24-24 with a minute and a half left until the break. 

Greenport replied with a 3-pointer by Ahkee Anderson, Ward’s opposite number. In the minute leading up to the break, Swann put back a missed fastbreak layup, Ward went coast-to-coast, and Swann was stuffed at the other end of the court by Harding and Jonny De Groot just before the buzzer sounded.

White, who was to pin four fouls on Anderson that afternoon, squaring up to the high-scoring point guard on drives to the hoop, made two free throws in the early going of the third quarter, and that was to be it scoring-wise for the tiring Bees in that frame.

The long drought, during which Bridgehampton went 0-for-14 from the floor while the North Forkers began to burn the nets — a 20-2 run during which Anderson, Jaxan Swann, and Jordan Fonseca drained 3-pointers — emphatically put to rest the question that had until then been left hanging.

The third ended with Greenport up 49-28, on its way to the 67-41 final.

Fonseca finished with a game-high 21 points. Three of his teammates also wound up in double figures. White had 13 points and Ward 12 for Bridgehampton. DePasquale and Harding each had eight.

Ron White, the Bees’ coach — and the team’s former coach, Carl Johnson, who was one of the spectators that day — said fatigue and shaky ball handling had played a big part in the loss. That and indecisiveness, White said.

White said he had been begging some of his players, namely DePasquale and De Groot, who frequently dished off rather than shoot the other day, to step up when they had the chance. As for his son, Elijah, “He’s got the moves — he’s just got to be more decisive.” Harding, who often was double-teamed, and sometimes triple-teamed by the Porters inside, “should take jump shots rather than trying to force it inside,” he said.

De Groot, he added, had played “an amazing game defensively,” however, limiting Jude Swann to six baskets. 

The C-D game was meaningless insofar as the Bees’ statewide playoff hopes went: They are to play the Section IX winner — either Roscoe or Livingston Manor — in a regional semifinal at Suffolk Community College-Brentwood on Monday at 7 p.m. The Section IX final was to have been played Tuesday at Sullivan Community College.

The winner of Monday’s game is to play the Section I-IV winner in a regional final at Center Moriches High School on either March 9 or 11. The state’s Final Four is to be contested in Binghamton over the March 16-17 weekend.

Center Moriches, which is coached by Nick Thomas, a former Killer Bee state-championship teammate of White’s, defeated Greenport in the county’s B-C-D game. The Red Devils were to have played the Amityville Warriors for the small schools championship Monday night. 

White said Monday morning that he hoped to line up a scrimmage at Center Moriches “in the next couple of days.”

When Spencer Schneider had to abandon his Montauk-to-Block Island swim attempt last summer, about halfway there, he vowed to swim here in the winter so he could better prepare for a second attempt this summer.

He began his off-season swims on Oct. 22, and soon was joined by Jeremy Grosvenor, an inveterate waterman, and a couple of weeks later by Heather Caputo, who, like Schneider, is a member of the East Hampton Volunteer Ocean Rescue squad. 

“Everybody thinks we’re nuts,” Schneider said this week. “It’s like you’re walking down the street and see a dog holding the hand of another dog. It doesn’t compute. But we’re bright people, we’re careful.”

They are also well-conditioned athletes, and, by now well acclimated to cold water.

“It’s fun,” said Caputo, who has an Ironman triathlon and ultra distance race to her credit. “It’s addicting.”

Schneider and Grosvenor have had nothing untoward befall them as the result of these thrice-weekly swims ranging between five and nine or so minutes. Caputo initially experienced some minor numbness in her fingertips, worrisome for someone who works as a veterinary technician, but Neoprene gloves, a recommendation of Grosvenor’s, prevented any recurrence. They all wear gloves now.

“I was arguing for no gloves,” said Schneider, “but then I realized you can be a purist or healthy. It was a no-brainer.” 

Last Thursday, as this writer remained ashore, the trio swam for about nine minutes — the longest thus far — in 44-degree water at East Hampton’s Main Beach. Schneider knew it was 44 degrees — “rather warm for this time of year” — because he’d thrown in a thermometer attached to a bobbin.

The coldest water he and Caputo have swum in, Schneider said, “was 30, about a week after the New Year’s plunge. There was ice and slush at the edge.” 

“Like a Slurpee,” said Grosvenor, who was in Texas at the time.

“How was it?” said Schneider, repeating this writer’s question. “It was great!”

Asked if they got a swimmer’s high, Caputo said, “It’s not so much a high, but you feel . . . really, really good.”

“It’s an otherworldly experience,” said Grosvenor. “It’s not a Red Bull thing. It’s just the three of us, who look out for one another.” Dennis Fabiszak, an ultra-marathoner, provides support from shore. “We ask each other when we’re in the water how we feel all the time.”

“Sometimes our voices get slurred,” said Schneider. “You’d be speaking gibberish if you were in for a long time, a sign of hypothermia. But we’re acclimated — we’re not coming close.”

Speaking of hypothermia, Caputo said she’d experienced it in an ocean lifeguard test she took a while ago, in 58-degree water interestingly enough. She passed the test a week later.

“As I said, it’s otherworldly,” Grosvenor said. “It’s a foreign feeling, like going into space in some ways and realizing you can survive. Then there’s the visual quality, seeing the horizon and the sky. . . . The beauty of nature is amplified. It’s a poetic experience for a very short duration of time. There’s the sky, the camaraderie. . . . It’s very rare, so euphoric. You come out smiling.”

“The environment is totally different in the winter,” said Caputo. “And swimming through the winter you don’t realize it’s winter. It doesn’t feel like it’s winter because you’re swimming. And if you’ve had a bad day and don’t feel particularly motivated, it gets rid of all of those feelings.”

“I’ll be sad to see the winter go — February’s almost over,” said Grosvenor. “In March the daffodils will come.”

“I have to really concentrate when I’m going in,” said Schneider. “I don’t want to look like I’m the one who’s the wimp. I’m hoping they’ll say this isn’t a good idea, but they never say that. They keep going and before I know it I’ve dived in. It’s a real shock, I lose my breath, but it’s never quite as bad as I think it will be. It’s really cool doing it as a group. I could beat them in a pool, but not in the ocean. Their form is flawless.”

“It is uncomfortable in the beginning,” said Caputo, “but once you overcome your initial hesitance you feel amazing, there’s a sense of overall well-being.”

“It’s not like we’re the only ones,” said Schneider. “They do this all around the world, in Scandinavia, in Latvia . . . the Russians cut out the ice. . . . Heather placed second recently at the winter swimming national championships in Coney Island, a 200-meter race. The water was 36 degrees, the air temperature was in the 40s. She was swimming against people who’d been doing this for years, including Jamie Monahan, one of the best in the world. She’s swum a mile in 32-degree water, she’s swum on all seven continents. . . .”

“I never thought I could do it,” said Caputo. “It was unbelievable.”

Schneider said he will do a warm-up swim from Town Line Road in Wainscott to Montauk Point, some 21 miles, in July to prepare for his next Montauk-to-Block Island attempt. “It will be 10 hours, a long day, and I tend to get cranky,” he said, “but Jeremy’s going to go along in a canoe, and Heather will jump in at points.”

While apparently not much research has been done on the effects of winter swimming, the three said their own experience and that of other aficionados led them to be sanguine. 

“There’s been some research that it improves arthritic conditions,” said Caputo. 

“It helps your circulation, your metabolism is increased. . . ,” said Schneider. “I’ve never heard of any adverse effects.”

“Knowing that you’re going to be cold, but that you can overcome it, appeals to me,” said Caputo. “I love that mental aspect.”

“I love having them do this with me,” said Schneider. “I don’t know if I’d do this alone, but they shame me into it, they encourage me. Heather will say, ‘We’ll stay in for a minute.’ After a minute, I look around and they’re having a great time, and I hear Jeremy saying, ‘Let’s go farther.’ The nine minutes we stayed in the other day is the longest we’ve been in so far.”

“We’ve been to just about every beach,” he continued. “To Town Line, Main, Indian Wells, Ditch, Barcelona Neck. . . . The bay too: Albert’s, Barnes Landing, Maidstone, Napeague Harbor. I love them all.”

“We’re proving that you can swim here the year round,” said Caputo.

Whereupon, they departed and went to swim at Main Beach.

Andreas Koutsogiannis, a senior who wrestles at 195 pounds for East Hampton High School, finished the season with a 26-10 record at the Division 1 county championships this past weekend, narrowly missing the match for fifth and sixth place.

Koutsogiannis qualified for the county meet by winning the League VI title at his weight, thus becoming the first Bonac league champion since Jarrel Walker, a Bridgehamptoner, who did so at 285 pounds in 2003.

Koutsogiannis’s nemesis in the county tourney proved to be the same one he’d defeated for the league title, Comsewogue’s Angel Vargas. 

The two met in the wrestlebacks after Koutsogiannis had easily defeated Ward Melville’s Max Haegele 8-3 in the second round, following a first-round bye, and had suffered a 7-4 loss to Northport’s Peter Magliocco.

Vargas, whom the Bonacker had defeated 6-4 in overtime in the league final, avenged himself in the wrestlebacks, edging Koutsogiannis 2-1. 

“He was right there,” East Hampton’s second-year coach, Anthony Piscitello, said. “He was one match away from being all-county.”

As for the league meet, Piscitello said Koutsogiannis swept through the division, using an ankle pick as a prelude to a pin in the 14th second of his first-round match, after which, thanks to three single-leg takedowns, he avenged himself 6-4 upon a Hauppauge foe who had pinned him here in a dual meet earlier this season before besting Vargas 6-4 in overtime, taking him down as the wrestlers were on their feet.

Albert Darchiev, a senior Russian heavyweight from the Ross School, also did well at the leagues, placing third at 285. Piscitello said he used a headlock to win by pin in his first match.

That set up a showdown with West Babylon’s Richard Aviles, to whom he’d lost 8-5 in a recent dual meet — a meet that East Hampton won, the team’s sole league win. Darchiev had used a hip throw to go up 5-0 in the early going of that match, “but this time the kid knew what to expect,” said Piscitello. “Albert was pinned in the second period.”

Aviles went on to become Division 1’s 285-pound champion.

Having finished third, Darchiev qualified to wrestle in the county tournament, but forwent the tourney apparently in favor of academic work, Piscitello said.

Back to Koutsogiannis, Piscitello said, “He finished the season at 26-10, a big improvement over last year when he went 6-10.”

Asked to account for that improvement, the coach said, “He practiced all summer with me, three days a week — he and Santi Maya and Caleb Peralta, two eighth graders.”

Maya, at 99 pounds, lost 10-8 in the league meet’s quarterfinal round. “He gave it everything he had — he used up all his injury time . . . at one point he was bleeding from both nostrils, but I wasn’t worried. He’s competitive.”

Peralta, who was in the 120-pound division, “had a tough day. He started off with the second seed and was very close to taking him to his back when the kid adjusted and did the same thing to him.”

Both of his eighth graders had improved greatly this season, said Piscitello, who is pleased to think he’s got four more years with them.

He added that he’s quite willing to pull talented eighth graders up to the varsity. The middle school season is to begin soon, and Piscitello will keep an eye on its team, as well as on young wrestlers in the KID program.

The East Hampton High School boys basketball team had to win Monday’s game at Kings Park to make the playoffs, and it did, 57-44. 

“It was our best game of the season,” said East Hampton’s second-year coach, Dan White. “I don’t think we ever trailed.”

Joe McKee, the junior varsity coach, told White that the game reminded him of the riveting battles that former Bonac and Kings Park teams had had in the Kingsmen’s gym.

As a result, East Hampton finished the league season at 8-8, and was to have played a Class A outbracket game at the eighth seed yesterday. That game, White said during a conversation Tuesday morning, “will probably be at John Glenn.” He added that he thought Glenn (League VI’s third-place team, at 10-6) was beatable. 

The winner of yesterday’s game is to play at the top seed, presumably Amityville, which finished as the undefeated League VI champion, tomorrow.

As it had to do, following a loss at Sayville on Feb. 1, East Hampton won two of its final three, beginning with a 60-57 loss here to Westhampton Beach, which wound up as League V’s champion, at 14-2. 

“That was a good game,” White said. “We were up by 7 points at the half, and were up by 4, 5, or 6 at times in the first half of the fourth, but then our role players became tentative. It seemed as if they were afraid to fail. So, rather than take a shot when they had the opportunity, they would wait for Jack [Reese, East Hampton’s senior point guard]. That led to a dry spell, which hurt. We gave up too many points to them in the second half.” 

In contrast, he said, “our role players stepped it up at Kings Park.” In one spurt he recalled, “Max Proctor made a layup, Malachi [Miller] and Turner [Foster] assisted Chris [Stoecker] and Blad [Rodriguez Garces] on fast breaks, and Jack knocked down a pull-up jumper.”

Speaking of Rodriguez Garces, who had missed some games in the season’s second half because of academic ineligibility, “his first game back was the Westhampton game, but he didn’t start. He had his legs under him by the time we played at Kings Park. He finished with 14 points and 10 rebounds. He’s tough inside, a difference-maker.”

East Hampton’s other big man, Stoecker, who is 6-7, limited Kings Park’s big man, Andrew Bianco, to 8 points. He’s been averaging 21 per game, White said. 

Reese, who picked up two fouls in the game’s first four minutes, sat for most of the first half, at the end of which East Hampton, nevertheless, led 29-19. Reese was to finish with 13 points in the 24 minutes he played, and with 7 assists. Foster, his fellow guard, had 16 points.

“We were up by 13 with about five “We were up by 13 with about five minutes to go, and Jack kicked it up to 16 with a pull-up 3,” White said. “That was more or less it.”

Winter Track

The county’s boys winter track meet was also held Monday. 

Ben Turnbull, East Hampton’s coach, reported Tuesday morning that neither of his charges, Robert Weiss, the senior sprinter, who had the week before won a league title in the 55-meter dash, nor Ryan Fowkes, a junior who is East Hampton’s top distance runner, had qualified for the state meet that night.

Fowkes, he said, had finished fifth in the 1,000, one spot shy of making Suffolk’s distance medley relay team, outleaned at the finish by Shelter Island’s Joshua Green. Nevertheless, Fowkes’s time of 2 minutes and 38.03 seconds, a personal best for him, was a school record, Turnbull said, bettering T.J. Paradiso’s 2:38.74 set in 2016.

Weiss, who had run a 6.67 in the 55 at the league meet, despite having been ill recently, ran 6.74, good for ninth place among 18 competitors, on Monday. 

The MileSplit website lists Weiss’s 6.67 as a school record.

Craig Brierley, East Hampton High’s boys swimming coach, will take a dozen of his competitors to the county swim meet at Suffolk Community College-Brentwood Saturday morning, the core of the squad that finished second to top-seeded Hauppauge in the league meet there last Thursday.

“Hauppauge came out on top [in the league meet] by a score of 282-250,” Brierley reported, “but because our boys gave everything they had — they posted 31 lifetime bests — they were able to hold their heads high, knowing they had left nothing in the water.”

“After the diving event [the fifth among 12], we led Hauppauge 110-99, which encouraged our swimmers, though they knew they had a lot of work ahead of them. . . . They showed mental and physical strength in their attempt to come out on top, as did Hauppauge.”

All three relay teams turned in personal bests, Brierley continued. The 200 and 400 freestyle relay teams were runners-up to Hauppauge, and the 200 medley relay team placed third, behind Hauppauge and Sayville-Bayport-Blue Point.

Ethan McCormac, who has qualified to swim in the 100 and 200 freestyle races at the state meet, placed second to Hauppauge’s Trenton Burr in the 200 individual medley, second to Burr in the 500 freestyle, anchored the 400 free relay, and swam the third leg in the 200 medley relay.

Other place-winners for East Hampton were Aidan Forst, who was fourth in the 200 free, Colin Harrison, who was second in the 50 free, Owen McCormac, who was fourth in the 100 free, Joey Badilla, who was second in the 100 backstroke, and Ryan Duryea, who was fourth in the 100 breaststroke.

The 400 free relay team comprised Fernando Menjura, Forst, Badilla, and, as aforesaid, Ethan McCormac. 

Harrison, Ryan Duryea, Owen McCormac, and Menjura made up the 200 free relay team, and the 200 medley relay numbered Badilla, Jack Duryea, Ethan McCormac, and Owen McCormac.

Badilla was named swimmer of the meet by the captains. The Pierson freshman turned in lifetime bests in all four of his events, as a member of the 200 medley and 400 freestyle relay teams, and in the 200 individual medley and 100 backstroke. “He has played a big part in the success of the team this year,” Brierley said.

Hauppauge, as aforesaid, won the meet with 282 points, followed by East Hampton (250), Huntington-Harborfields (231), Sayville-Bayport-Blue Point (215), Stony Brook (119), West Islip (112), North Babylon (62), and Deer Park (61).

East Hampton finished the league season with a 6-1 record, bettered only by Hauppauge, which went 7-0.