The Sportime Arena in Amagansett was a hive of activity Saturday morning as about a dozen pickleballers were playing that bang-bang game at the rear of the building, behind a scrim, while more than 30 girls were taking part in lacrosse clinics put on by Elizabeth and Lina Bistrian, cousins who have been East Hampton High School field hockey and lacrosse teammates these past four years.

Pickleball — Sportime has two courts, open for play to the public on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday mornings — is a pared-down paddle cousin to tennis, though one needn’t be a tennis player, or old, to enjoy it. It is said to be popular with all ages. 

Points are generally decided in battles at the net (though one is forbidden when volleying to step within a seven-foot no-volley zone, commonly known as “the kitchen”). The scoring is a bit puzzling at first, though there are a number of experienced players at Sportime ready and willing to serve as guides to the perplexed.

A pickleball membership through mid-June costs $125. The drop-in fee is $15.

Back to girls lacrosse, the Bistrians in a letter not long ago to “fellow community members” said they’d been inspired to put on field hockey and lacrosse clinics “because we’ve seen that the number of students participating in these sports at the high school level has declined dramatically. . . . Our aim is to see that every girl in our community is given the opportunity to play, compete, and enjoy field hockey and lacrosse through equal access to all the necessary equipment and instruction.”

The Bonac seniors were especially interested in spreading the word in the Latino community here, and thus asked Claudia Quintana, a teacher and member of the Amagansett School Board, if she would translate their letter into Spanish, which she did. Jennifer Fowkes of the Bonac Booster Club, who has been collecting earmarked donations, had also been very helpful, Lina said, as, of course, Sportime had been too.

Sue De Lara and Tyler Jarvis saw to it that Sportime donated its space, Robyn Bramoff Mott, a field hockey and lacrosse (and girls basketball) coach at East Hampton High School, has volunteered her time, and equipment swaps and donations of equipment have enabled everyone to be outfitted.

The low-cost lacrosse clinics (the drop-in fee is $10), which the Bistrians, with some of their teammates, oversee, have attracted girls spanning kindergarten through the eighth grade.

“There was our group who always played, but we were seeing the numbers of younger players coming up dwindle,” Lina said in answer to a question. “In field hockey and lacrosse. That’s why we did this. Long Island is known for lacrosse, but not so many know about it on the East End.”

Moreover, she said, travel time to practice and play with travel teams up the Island — the Bistrians have played lacrosse for Team Elevate, based in Syosset — could be daunting, which is why she and Elizabeth would be happy, she said, if their clinics were to lead to the formation of a Police Athletic League girls lacrosse team here in the near future.

Their hope too is that community spirit here can continue to be nurtured generationally. “We watched our cousins play and cheered them on as we were growing up, and then it came to be our turn. We’d like to continue that — it’s the kind of thing that keeps a community together.”

“I’m letting the girls do it,” Coach Mott, whose 4-year-old daughter, Teagan, was one of the clinic-takers, said. “It was the same with the [Nov. 11 to Dec. 16] field hockey clinics. It’s exciting.”

As the East Hampton High School varsity boys swimming team continues to sail along, so, too, does its de facto feeder program, the Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter Hurricanes, which, at the midway point of the season, can boast of four national meet qualifiers thus far — Maggie Purcell, Ethan McCormac, Julia Brierley, and Sophia Swanson.

(Purcell, a Southamptoner, a four-time county champion, competed in an International Life Saving Federation tournament in New Zealand recently, along with Amanda Calabrese, a Stanford University student who lives in East Hampton, Isabella Swanson, a fellow East Hamptoner, and Chasen Dubs, a former East Hamptoner who lives now in Sarasota, Fla.) 

“We’re hoping to qualify male and female relay teams too,” said Tom Cohill, the Hurricanes’ head coach, at the Y the other day. “We’ve never had a male relay team go.”

Again, Cohill, whose Hurricane assistants include Craig Brierley, the boys and girls varsity coach, Angelika Cruz, Andrey Trigobovich, Sean Knight, Hank Oppenheimer, and Sean Crowley, has around 100 on the Hurricanes’ roster, ranging in age from 6 years old to 18.

“They are all great coaches,” he said of his assistants. The three seniors are Purcell, Caroline Oakland, and Isabella Swanson. “There are also some junior boys who are looking good,” he said. “Ethan, Ryan Bahel, Ryan Duryea, and Aidan Forst. And there are some really good freshmen.”

In a recent Holiday Invitational meet at the Flushing Y, Brierley, Ryan Duryea, Ethan McCormac, Purcell, Oakland, Sophia Swanson, Daisy Pitches, and Forst were among those doing particularly well. Purcell won the 200 breaststroke and placed second in the 200 individual medley, third in the 100 breaststroke, sixth in the 100 freestyle, and seventh in the 200 freestyle.

Pitches placed second in the 9-10 girls 100 backstroke, fifth in that division’s 50 backstroke, and seventh in the 50 breaststroke and 100 breaststroke.

McCormac placed seventh in the 50 freestyle and 10th in the 200 free, Brierley placed eighth in the 100 breaststroke, Oakland placed 10th in the 200 backstroke, and Swanson placed 13th in the 200 freestyle.

The Y nationals, in Greensboro, N.C., will be contested in the first week of April, and the Y state meet will be at the University of Buffalo over the March 16-18 weekend. Next for the Hurricanes will be a large regional meet at the University of Maryland this weekend. 

“We’ve had seven meets already, and have 10 left,” said Cohill, “at Eisenhower Park, in Flushing, in Westchester. . . . We’ve got 34 kids entered in 152 events at the University of Maryland meet. We’re hoping to have 50 to 60 going to Buffalo.”

The boys varsity and the younger Hurricane swimmers share the Y’s six lanes on weekday afternoons. The older Hurricanes begin swimming at 5.

In other swimming news, the East Hampton boys lost 91-83 at Hauppauge, the defending League II champion, a few days before Christmas. 

“Hauppauge lived up to its reputation, putting its best lineup against us,” Craig Brierley said in a report. “Our boys raced really well and, as usual, gave it their all. We were down by only 2 points going into the diving event [East Hampton has no divers], after which we trailed by 8. We were unable to catch them in the end.”

Fernando Menjura won the 200 freestyle, and the 200 freestyle relay team of Ryan Duryea, Thor Botero, Colin Harrison, and Menjura won as well.

East Hampton placed second (Joey Badilla, Ryan Duryea, Harrison, and Owen McCormac) and third (Luke Tyrell, Jack Duryea, Kevin Pineda, and Botero) in the 200 medley, relay; second (Badilla) and third (Ryan Duryea) in the 200 individual medley, and second (Owen McCormac) and third (Harrison) in the 50 free. 

Second (Menjura) and third (Badilla) in the 100 butterfly; second (Owen McCormac) and fourth (Botero) in the 100 free; third (Pineda) and fourth (Ryan Bahel) in the 500; third (Pineda) and fourth (Aidan Forst) in the 100 backstroke, and second (Jack Duryea) and fourth (Harrison) in the 100 breaststroke.

Hauppauge forwent 8 points in the final event, the 400 freestyle relay.

“The team’s record now stands at 3-2 over all, and 2-1 in League II,” Coach Brierley said. He added that Menjura, a freshman from Pierson High School in Sag Harbor, had been named swimmer of the meet. His 200 freestyle time of 1 minute and 57.84 seconds qualified him for the county meet. He, Forst, Ethan McCormac, Ryan Duryea, Badilla, Owen McCormac, Harrison, and Jack Duryea make up East Hampton’s county individual qualifiers thus far.

Cory Lillie, when asked Saturday how his high school-age ice hockey team was doing at the Buckskill Winter Club, said, “We need a goalie.”

“Put up a poster in the post office,” said Lillie’s co-coach Tim Luzadre. “Wanted: A Goalie.”

Last year’s goaltender, Ben Waife, a Shelter Islander, had decided instead to go out for basketball, Lillie said. And while there’d been some volunteers — and a promising 10-year-old roller hockey prospect who is too young to be considered — the steep cost of goalie equipment was also a sticking point.

The club, Lillie said further, didn’t have any goalie pads or goalie masks — goalies were expected to provide their own, “though the pads alone cost around $1,000 and the helmets do too.”

There were, he continued, more than 20 on the Buckskill team’s roster, though, until the goalie situation is solved, he’s hesitant to schedule games with teams up the Island, even though some coaches, who have two goalies, have said they’d loan Buckskill one of theirs in games.

The high school team practices Sundays at 6:15 p.m., and on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 5:45.

Interestingly, there were few skaters as of noon on Saturday. “It’s either too hot or too cold,” Lillie said, with a smile. “Maybe they’re sledding. . . .”

One person who didn’t mind the cold was Krista Bussi, the club’s new figure skating instructor, a native of Buffalo, who had driven down to the East End the previous night. 

The 29-year-old former Disney on Ice performer agreed that on that day in Buffalo, on a rink “very much like this in the downtown area,” you would see scores of skaters, even though it was 1 or 2 degrees outside as opposed to the 11 degrees it was here. 

Bussi, who skated competitively throughout high school and college (the University of Delaware) before signing on with Disney on Ice for five years, plans to add new figure skating classes to Buckskill’s offerings, most notably a class for children from 18 months to 3 years old, and one for adults.

She had started at the age of 3, she said in answer to a question. As for adults, she said, “Maybe they’ve been thinking about giving it a try, but just haven’t found the class that was just for them.”

Figure skaters, she said in reply to another question, generally peaked between the ages of 16 and 21, citing Bradie Tennell, the 19-year-old U.S. figure skating champion, as one of those who had “peaked at the right time.”

With Disney on Ice she’d seen much of the world, including North and South America, Europe, and Scandinavia, though by no means all. Africa, Australia, and New Zealand were among the other places she’d like to go, Bussi said. Meanwhile, she’s here for the next couple of months, hoping to strengthen in that period Buckskill’s figure skating program, after which, she said, she’ll return to Buffalo, where she also coaches. 

“It does get warmer there, you know,” she said with a smile, before heading out for her first skate-around on Buckskill’s rink.

A flier lists Adult Learn to Skate, Theatre on Ice, Baby Blades, Adaptive Skating, Skate Fit (“off-ice conditioning, jumping, and stretch class for skaters — a great complement for those wanting to advance their skills on the ice”), and Adult Fitness Bootcamp as its new classes this month.

The Winter Club, whose website is buckskillwinterclub.com, is open seven days a week, from 7 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.

Friday, January 19

BOYS BASKETBALL, Bridgehampton at Shelter Island, 5:45 p.m., and Smithtown Christian at Pierson, Sag Harbor, 6:15.

GIRLS BASKETBALL, Pierson at Stony Brook, 7 p.m.

Saturday, January 20

BOYS BASKETBALL, East Hampton at East Islip, noon.

Sunday, January 21

ICE HOCKEY, tentative, Southampton vs. Buckskill Sharks, Buckskill Winter Club, East Hampton, 6:15 p.m.

Monday, January 22

BOYS SWIMMING, North Babylon vs. East Hampton, Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter, 5 p.m.

Tuesday, January 23

BOYS BASKETBALL, Islip at East Hampton, 6:45 p.m.

GIRLS BASKETBALL, East Hampton at Islip, 6:45 p.m.

Wednesday, January 24

FOOTBALL, meeting with prospective players, East Hampton High School cafeteria, 2:35 p.m. 

GIRLS BASKETBALL, Pierson at Port Jefferson, 4:30 p.m.

BOYS BASKETBALL, Shelter Island at Ross School, East Hampton, 5:45 p.m., and Greenport at Bridgehampton, 6.

Thursday, January 4

BOYS BASKETBALL, East Hampton at Westhampton Beach, 

4:30 p.m.

GIRLS BASKETBALL, East Hampton at Westhampton Beach, 

5:45 p.m.

Friday, January 5

WRESTLING, East Hampton at West Babylon, 5 p.m.

Monday, January 8

BOYS SWIMMING, East Hampton at Sayville/Bayport, 

Sayville Middle School, 5 p.m.

GIRLS BASKETBALL, Pierson-Bridgehampton at Mattituck, 

5:45 p.m.

Tuesday, January 9

GIRLS BASKETBALL, East Hampton at Rocky Point, 5 p.m.

BOYS BASKETBALL, Rocky Point at East Hampton, 6:15 p.m.

Wednesday, January 10

BOYS SWIMMING, Huntington vs. East Hampton, Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter, 5 p.m.

GIRLS BASKETBALL, Pierson-Bridgehampton at McGann-Mercy, 

6 p.m.

BOYS BASKETBALL, Smithtown Christian at Bridgehampton, 

6 p.m.; Pierson at Greenport, 6:15, and Ross School at Southold, 6:30.

WRESTLING, Harborfields at East Hampton, 6:15 p.m.

In boys basketball games in the latter part of December, East Hampton High’s team was fun to watch in two of them, though not so much fun to watch in the third, played here Friday with East Islip, the League V leader at the moment at 5-0. 

Not so much fun to watch in the second half, rather. The Bonackers were fun to watch in the first, during which they played the Redmen pretty much toe-to-toe.

East Hampton trailed by only 4 points with about five minutes gone in the third, but the visitors closed it out on an 11-0 run to enter the fourth up 53-38. The visitors went on to win 75-52.

Christian Harty, one of the Redmen’s guards, got the end-of-the-third-quarter run going as he outmuscled Turner Foster for a rebound and put the ball back, after which, on two successive drives down the court, following East Hampton misses, he tacked on a 3 and a 2. 

At that point, with the Redmen leading 49-38, East Hampton turned the ball over, resulting in another East Islip basket, and, in the final seconds, an alert rebound by Harty of a teammate’s miss resulted in yet another East Islip basket, by their chief threat, Jordan Mosley, who was to finish with a game-high 30 points.

“I thought we did well in the first half,” Dan White, East Hampton’s second-year coach, said afterward. “It’s our defense that we’ve got to improve. We knew 12 [Mosley] was their best player. It’s basic things — closing out, boxing out, keeping guys in front of you . . . we’re letting it get too stretched out. . . . I’ve got to do a better job.”

Jack Reese, East Hampton’s hard-playing senior point guard, was particularly effective in the first quarter, with 9 points, four assists, and one steal — his last basket a buzzer-beating 3 from the left corner that treated the Bonackers to a 19-18 lead. But, in the end, he couldn’t do it all. After scoring 19 points through the first three quarters, Reese went 0-for-4 with one assist in the fourth before White, with almost two minutes left, and with the game long out of reach, took him out.

The period referred to above began with a 70-68 overtime loss here on Dec. 19 to Harborfields, a loss more or less foreordained with the foul-outs of East Hampton’s two big men, Chris Stoecker and Bladimir Rodriguez Garces, though Noah Lappin, who came off the bench, played tough in their absence, scoring the basket that sent the game into O.T., at 64-64, and giving (assisted again by Malachi Miller) East Hampton a 67-66 lead midway through the four-minute overtime before taking a charge at the other end of the court.

A free throw by Reese made it 68-66, Harborfields tied it on its third try moments later, and, with 41 seconds left a Harborfields player, with Bonac fans raising the roof, missed twice from the foul line. 

The visitors hung in there, however. A reverse layup eluded the outstretched arms of defenders and went through the nets with 18.8 seconds left. East Hampton inbounded the ball, which went from Miller to Reese and back to Reese, whose attempt to tie the score with one second left went awry. In going for the rebound, Max Proctor was fouled, sending him to the line with another chance to tie it up.

His first shot went off the rim, as did his second, and that was it.

Reese finished with 24 points. He was to score 20, and Rodriguez Garces 26, at Hauppauge on Dec. 21. East Hampton won that game 69-63, without Stoecker or Foster.

As of earlier this week, East Islip, as aforesaid, led League V at 5-0, followed by Westhampton Beach, at 4-0, Kings Park, at 4-1, Harborfields, at 3-2, East Hampton, at 1-3, Rocky Point, at 1-3, Sayville, at 1-3, Islip, at 1-3, and Hauppauge, at 0-5.

Dennis Fabiszak, the executive director of the East Hampton Library, who is also an ultra runner, recently repeated as the winner of a 100-mile race near Cape Canaveral. 

But that wasn’t all that was newsworthy: The winner, who after last year’s victory hired an upstate coach, Elizabeth Azze of Mountain Peak Fitness, bettered last year’s time by almost three hours — 19:49 vis-a-vis 22:46.

“She gave me much harder workouts than the ones I’d been doing on my own,” he said during a conversation this past week. “Specific mobility exercises, core workouts . . . I’d been doing very little of that . . . long track workouts. It really paid off. My goal had been to break 20 hours.”

The race, he said, was in Titusville, Fla., in the Enchanted Forest Sanctuary. “They only allow 60 in the race — they don’t want 500 people running around the 3.4-mile loop. You do 29 of them.”

“It’s like being on a hamster wheel,” he said with a smile. But the park was beautiful, he said, mostly thick forest and lots of wildlife. “Armadillos were running around and there were reports of wild boar, though they didn’t come onto the trail. It was pretty flat. About a mile of the loop was sand. . . .”

Fabiszak said the race began at 7 a.m. and that he finished a little before 3 a.m. “I went back to the hotel and slept for four hours, then went to Denny’s for breakfast, and went back to cheer on the others who were still racing. . . . You’re running against the clock really; you want to see what you’re capable of. People who do this kind of thing support one another.”

There was a cutoff at 32 hours. “Twenty-two of the 60 entrants finished, including people who’d won it multiple times. Little problems can become big in ultras.”

Asked if there’d been any mishaps, he said, “A person was taken away in an ambulance; that’s the first time that’s ever happened in this race. . . . I don’t know what happened.”

As for food and drink, Fabiszak said, “You have to drink — I drank a sports mix that has calories in it, and you eat a lot.” Breakfast bars, Pringles, and pickles in his case. His crew person, and brother, Marc Drautz, “ran 30 miles with me all told, generally at night, on and off.”

Fabiszak is 47 and, because he’d changed his training and his diet, is in “the best shape of my life. It also helps to have all these athletes out here to be friends with and to run with. East Hampton is an encouraging environment.”

He does 60 miles a week, what a marathoner would do, though the workouts, as aforesaid, are much more specific than they used to be. 

Asked if good marathoners were good ultra runners, he said, “Not necessarily. The reason I got into ultra running, about 10 years ago, was that I realized how much more complex it was to finish an ultra than a marathon. Nutrition is a lot more important, hydration too, and your mental state is really key. You have to enjoy it in some way.”

He, himself, never played music as he ran. “A lot of [ultra] races don’t allow it. I wish they didn’t allow it in this race. We were on a very narrow trail and you don’t want to go off into la-la land. I’d have to stop and tap people listening to music on the shoulder. . . .”

Did he go into a Zen state? “I listened to the sounds of nature, I thought about how I felt . . . it takes mental discipline to allow yourself to continue doing something for 19 hours.”

Yes, he said in reply to a question, he did sense that he was moving at a faster rate than he had ever done before, “even though there was a lot of sand and mud on the trail. My 50-mile split was 8:12, so I had great confidence that the training had really worked. But I wasn’t really sure until the last 20 miles. I didn’t think the second person would catch up at that point. I realized then that I had a chance to break 20.”

His per-mile race worked out to 11:50, he said, in answer to a question. He could run fast too. “During training my mile time got better — I did the Montauk Mile in 5:42 this fall. At the end of one of my 15-mile track workouts I ran a 5:34. What’s amazing is at both ends of the spectrum I got better. It’s definitely helped to have a coach. I met her at the Breakneck Point marathon upstate in the spring. She was one of the organizers. She’s so knowledgeable. I keep in touch with her regularly.”

Later that day, he said, he would go to the Y to swim.

“I’m trying to learn . . . I’m doing it on my own. I know I can run. I’m trying to get to be okay at swimming.”

Thursday, January 11

BOYS BASKETBALL, Kings Park at East Hampton, 6:45 p.m.

GIRLS BASKETBALL, East Hampton at Kings Park, 6:45 p.m.

Friday, January 12

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

BOYS BASKETBALL, Bridgehampton at Ross School, East Hampton, 4:30 p.m., and Southold at Pierson, Sag Harbor, 6:15.

Tuesday, January 16

BOYS SWIMMING, West Islip vs. East Hampton, Y.M.C.A. East   Hampton RECenter, 5 p.m.

GIRLS BASKETBALL, East Islip at East Hampton, 6:30 p.m.

Wednesday, January 17

BOYS BASKETBALL, Pierson at Bridgehampton, 6 p.m., and Ross at Smithtown Christian, 5:15.

GIRLS BASKETBALL, Center Moriches at Pierson, Sag Har bor, 6:15 p.m.

December 24, 1992

In typical Killer Bees fashion, the Bridgehampton High School basketball team, facing a tough opponent from a considerably larger school, rose to the occasion before finally succumbing to Amityville 58-48 last Thursday. 

The Warriors scored only two buckets in the entire second quarter, Bridgehampton having stepped up its defensive play, suddenly making it difficult for Amityville to operate. By halftime the Bees were within 5. The tone of the game had been set — the remainder would be played by both teams in an in-your-face-I-can-do-that-too style. And so it was.

With time winding down in the third stanza, Carl Johnson, the Bees’ coach, inserted one of his four ninth-grade baby boomers, Marcus Johnson, into the fray. It proved to be the right move.

It is frightening to imagine how good Bridgehampton is going to be in two or three years. Javon Harding, one of the boomers, already starts. Nick Thomas, another, and Terrell Hopson, a third, already play regularly. So too will Marcus Johnson from now on.

 Carl Johnson barely can contain himself when discussing the future of this team: “I would say we have the potential to be one of the greatest teams in the history of East End basketball in two or three years,” he said. And he wasn’t exaggerating, folks, although his team is 1-1 in the here and now. — Rick Murphy

December 31, 1992

High school basketball fans who attended the Westhampton-East Hampton affair at Bonac’s gym on Dec. 23 received an early Christmas present, a rousing cliffhanger that wasn’t decided until the very last moment of the game.

The Hurricanes came out on top 68-66, but the locals looked ready for the coming League Seven season in defeat.

With time running out, Ross Gload got the ball and launched a 3-pointer that would have tied the score, but Pete Donahue, Westhampton’s 6-foot-5-inch senior point guard, was there to snuff it. Gload got the ball back, went up again from 22 feet, and Donahue sent it back again. This time, the whistle sounded. Foul on Number 44. Three charity shots for Gload . . . one second left on the ticker . . . the home team down by three. . . . 

The first attempt went in and out. Ed Petrie called timeout. The second attempt went cleanly through. Petrie called timeout again, and sent Peter Maxey into the game.

Bonac fans knew what was coming — the intentional miss, the last-second attempt at a tie off a rebound putback. As so often seems to happen with Petrie-coached teams, the play fell into place perfectly. Gload sent up a liner that bounced off to the left. Maxey, perfectly placed, grabbed the ball in midair and sent it back to the hoop. It rattled around and fell off as the buzzer sounded. — Rick Murphy

The food pantries in East Hampton, Wainscott, Springs, and Amagansett are to split the more than $10,000 in proceeds from the New Year’s Day Polar Bear Plunge at East Hampton’s Main Beach, Vicki Littman, who chairs the East Hampton Food Pantry, said earlier this week.

The Springs Food Pantry, however, like the ones in Wainscott and Montauk, is — contrary to the impression left by last week’s article on the Plunge — independent, and “has been operating that way without interruption for 25 years,” its coordinator, Pamela Bicket, said after last week’s story appeared.

“This year, as in past years, the Plunge registration team consisted entirely of volunteers from the Springs Food Pantry,” she added. “We work very, very hard on a shoestring budget to provide nutritious food to our recipients [all of them Springs School District residents], and, in fact, we were recognized in 2017 as an ‘outstanding cooperative’ by the Cornell Cooperative Extension for our focus on nutritional, culturally responsive menus, and for our emphasis on nutrition education.”

Bicket said that in the past year the food pantry in Springs had served on average “1,000 people a month, a third of them children.”

As is the case with the East Hampton Food Pantry, the Springs Food Pantry would be happy to receive donations — either through its springsfoodpantry.com website or by mail addressed to the Springs Food Pantry, 5 Old Stone Highway, East Hampton 11937.