The Dock Race, revived these past few years by George Watson’s son, Chris, a fitting warm-up for the Thanksgiving Day Turkey Trot, drew a large multigenerational crowd of runners, cyclists, skateboarders, baby strollers, walkers, and dogs to the starting line at the Montauk Post Office Sunday morning.

The course, a roller-coaster one that is said to be 3.3 miles, was “definitely longer than a 5K,” said Sharon McCobb, the president of the Old Montauk Athletic Club, which is soon to honor George Watson with its community service award. 

And on that pleasant, almost balmy fall day, a red-bearded native of Iceland, Armann Gretarsson, won it, in 20 minutes and 9 seconds, followed a few seconds later by Omar Leon, an East Hampton High School cross-country runner who had the day before been East Hampton High’s second runner to be scored in the state meet near Rochester.

Leon, who after being cut from soccer bolstered Kevin Barry’s cross-country team, which, partly because of his grit, went on to win a county championship for the second time in three years, led Sunday’s field for the first two and a half miles. 

“He overtook me then — I was out of it,” Leon said. “I stayed with him as well as I could . . . I thought I might close the gap when we got to the docks, but my legs were heavy. I just didn’t have it.”

“I caught him on the hills — he’s a good competitor,” said the 33-year-old Gretarsson, who spends half the year in Montauk working as a lifeguard at Hither Hills State Park and at the Harvest and ENE restaurants. The other half, he said, while sipping some of the free beer that the Watsons provided the of-age contestants, he spends “elsewhere.”

Asked where “elsewhere” would be this year, Gretarsson, who biked across Europe recently, said, “I’ve bought a one-way ticket to California. I’ll spend a couple of nights in Yosemite, and New Year’s in San Francisco . . . after that I’ll either go up to Vancouver or south to Mexico.”

This writer proposed that he go to Mexico, bypassing, if he could, Tijuana and Sinaloa on the way to San Pancho, Sayulita, Zihuatanejo, and (having bypassed Acapulco) Puerto Escondido. 

Bella Tarbet, one of two talented ninth graders who strengthened East Hampton’s girls cross-country team — the other being Ava Engstrom — was the first female finisher, despite some cramping, in 23:15, just a few seconds ahead of McCobb.

Engstrom, who had finished 87th out of about 187 runners in the state meet — “just what we’d hoped she’d do,” according to her coach, Diane O’Donnell — was not there Sunday. 

Asked if it was cold in Rochester, O’Donnell smiled. “Was it cold? It was 23 degrees, with snow on the ground. There was no snow on the course, but the course was icy and muddy, which made it treacherous. It was like an icy ‘tough mudder.’ The day before, it was 19 degrees with the wind chill figured in.”

East Hampton’s boys team, O’Donnell said, “placed ninth, which is what they were seeded.”

Leon, who, as aforesaid, was East Hampton’s second runner, behind Ryan Fowkes but ahead of Geo Espinosa, Bonac’s usual number-two, said that while no one slipped, “Frank [Bellucci, one of his teammates] got a bloody nose.”

“It was a good experience,” Leon added. “There were some really fast people up there.”

One of them was Shelter Island’s Kal Lewis, who won the 5K Class D race in 16:44.6. For a time this fall, Lewis, according to Newsday, had the fastest 5K cross-country time of any of New York State’s runners with the 15:27.24 he ran at the Brown University invitational.

McCobb said that others to be honored at OMAC’s annual holiday dinner at the South Fork Country Club in Amagansett on Dec. 4 will be John Broich, as the club’s male athlete of the year, Mary Scheerer and Shari Hymes, as its female athletes of the year, and Espinoza and Lucy Emptage as its high school athletes of the year. 

Emptage was to have signed a letter of intent to attend La Salle University in Philadelphia on a lacrosse scholarship Tuesday at the high school. 

Asked what he had learned from his race that day, Leon said, “Not to run in this race the day after a state meet.”

“What I learned,” said Gretarsson, “was not to mix gin, wine, and beer the night before . . . or maybe it was the right thing to do. . . .”

The Montauk rugby team continued to prove it can win at home (though rarely away) by defeating Rockaway, a team that had bested the Sharks earlier in the season, by a score of 25-15 here at Herrick Park on Saturday.

Meanwhile, at about the same time, there was a very well-attended Brew- athlon, a rowing-biking-running-rowing relay race underway at the Montauk Brewery that attracted 33 four-person teams and reaped $8,536 for the event’s beneficiary, the Old Montauk Athletic Club, which largely supports young East Hampton athletes.

Chugging used to be a pivotal “leg,” though it’s since been jettisoned because of insurance concerns. “Now,” said David Powers, a former OMAC athlete of the year, “the rowers are really the key.”

“The ringer [James Dietz, a former Olympic trials third-place finisher] Sinead brought down last year wasn’t able to make it this time,” said Caroline Cashin, the race director, who assigned her run leg on Irish Clams at Work to Ava Engstrom, who the day before had qualified for the state cross-country meet, because the big turnout required Cashin’s full attention.

The Bad News Beers (Neil Falkenhan, Mike Bahel, Drew Falkenhan, and Sara Colletti) won it, in 1 hour, 2 minutes, and 32 seconds. 

The “legs” comprised a 5,000-meter ergometer machine row, a 15K bike, a 5K run, and a 2,500-meter row.

Bill Costello, Barley Dunne, Eng- strom, and Fiachra Hallissey were, under the Irish Clams at Work banner, the runners-up, in 1:05:48.

“Ava was eighth out on the run, but the second one back,” Cashin said, adding that she ran the 3.1-mile distance in “about 19 minutes,” having been told by Kevin Barry, one of her coaches, not to go all out. Ava’s prize, a growler of beer, went to her father, Gerard.

Team Low Estrogen, Jill Hathaway (another ringer from Maine, who did both rows), Sinead FitzGibbon (bike), and Dennis Loebs (run), was third, in 1:06:10.

Beth Feit’s Blood, Sweat, and Beers (Tara Powers, John Broich, Feit, and Jay Short) missed medaling by one minute. Jon Jamet had the best bike split of the day, Cashin said.

Other competitive teams included Railway Fitness (Paul Cleary, Chris Carney, Lisa Carney, and Garth Wakeford), Team Truth (Ed Cashin, Kyle Cashin, Dylan Cashin, who, at 11, was the day’s youngest competitor, and Vern Falkenhan), and Team Green School (Bryan von Hagn, David Powers, Casey Powers, and Brian DeSesa). The Brewery (two teams), the East Hampton Village Ocean Rescue Squad, Lululemon, Sportime, Jayasports, and Core Dynamics sponsored entries as well.

As for the rugby team, which has not traveled well this fall, a fact that has largely accounted for its losses, it seemed on Saturday to be as strong as it was when it defeated the Empire Geographical Union’s South division runner-up, Brooklyn, 24-17 in Montauk on Sept. 23.

With four or five players missing, Rich Brierley, the side’s coach, was hoping he’d be able to field a complement, and indeed he did, thanks to the return to action of a professed retiree, John Glennon, and to a few last-minute arrivals.

Of Glennon, Brierley — who, at 58, had played 50 minutes of the Brooklyn game, but watched from the sidelines this time — said, “You don’t really retire from rugby, you just gradually fade away.”

Rockaway had defeated Montauk 17-10 earlier in the season, but not this time. Shane O’Keefe broke the ice with a penalty kick, worth three points, in the early going, and a few minutes later fed Sebastian Antonio, a Westhamptoner on the right wing, for a five-point try, capping a series of phases that had begun at midfield. O’Keefe’s point-after kick, taken from an angle, went wide of the uprights.

Rockaway made it 8-5 not long after, an alert back having intercepted a lateral of Glennon’s in Montauk territory and having run the remaining 20 yards with the ball, pretty much untouched, into Montauk’s try zone.

The visitors almost scored again, following a lineout play at midfield, but Jordan Johnson, one of the Sharks’ avid young players, drove him out of bounds with an eye-catching diving tackle near the 22-meter line, a play that prevented what likely would have been a score.

Brandon Johnson, Jordan’s cousin, a rugby all-American when he was at Mount St. Mary’s in Maryland last year, made it 13-5 in the final 10 minutes of the half, to which O’Keefe, whose kick was good, added two more points. Scott Abran, who usually is a forward, but who was playing with the backs that afternoon, made it 20-5 a few minutes before the break, the ball having come out to him from a scrum about 15 yards out.

The Sharks almost scored a fourth try just before the half as Charlie Collins alertly gathered in an intended lineout kick that had fallen short, on the right sideline, about 20 yards from Rockaway’s try zone. He was brought to the ground, however, before he could punch it in.

For the second time in the past three years East Hampton High’s boys cross-country team won a county championship at Sunken Meadow State Park, besting Class B’s field of eight teams on Friday.

“There was some confusion at the finish line as the runners, some of them in waves, came across — 20 seconds separated 10th from 25th,” Kevin Barry, East Hampton’s coach, said during a conversation before the team practiced Monday. 

At one point, as the coaches were tallying their scores, Barry was told that Southampton had won, “by two,” at another, that East Hampton had won, “by two,” and at still another, that Miller Place had won. 

When the dust had settled some 20 minutes later, East Hampton topped the leaderboard, with 82 points, trailed by Southampton (96), Miller Place (96), Mount Sinai, Westhampton Beach, Bayport-Blue Point, Shoreham-Wading River, and Sayville. 

Ryan Fowkes, as he has all season, led the way for the Bonackers, finishing fourth, behind Miller Place’s Tom Cirrito, Southampton’s Gustavo Morastitla, and Shoreham’s Joseph Krause, in 17 minutes and 55.94 seconds. East Hampton’s other scorers were Geo Espinoza (13th in 18:39.21), Omar Leon (15th in 18:49.63), Ethan McCormac (18th in 18:52.67), and Robert Weiss (32nd in 19:15.84). Nicolas Villante was 33rd, in 19:19.69, and Frank Bellucci was 36th, in 19:43.85.

East Hampton’s girls team did not qualify for the county/state qualifier meet, though three of its runners — Ava Engstrom, a ninth grader, Isabella Tarbet, a ninth grader, and Liana Paradiso, a senior — did. 

Engstrom, who finished ninth, in 21:11.82, qualified for the state meet. “Her brother [Erik, a former county champion who now is the top runner at the University of Massachusetts] didn’t qualify for the states until his junior year,” Ava’s father, Gerard, said at Saturday’s Brewathlon in Montauk.

“I know Ava’s going to run a good race, but I told her to go up there [to Wayne Central High School outside Rochester] and have fun,” Diane O’Donnell, East Hampton’s coach, said. 

Barry, who said he first had an inkling his team might go all way after an invitational trip to Lakeland, Fla., at the beginning of the season, said he would like his boys to do “at least as well as the 2015 team,” which is to say place as high as fifth. Barry also coached state-meet teams in 2001 and ’02.

Shelter Island’s boys and girls teams won the Class D races, with their best runners, Kal Lewis, in 17:05.79, and Lindsey Gallagher, in 20:56.70, topping their fields.

Katherine Lee of Shoreham-Wading River, the Class B winner, had the day’s best time for the girls, at 18:42.20. Lewis had the 10th-best time among the boys. Tarbet came close to qualifying for the state meet as she finished about eight seconds behind Engstrom. Paradiso was 16th, in 22:17.30.

In other postseason action, East Hampton’s girls swimming team, coached by Craig Brierley and his eldest son, Thomas, placed sixth among the 28 teams entered in the county meet at Suffolk Community College-Brentwood Saturday.

The 200 freestyle relay team of Catalina Badilla, Madison Jones, Sophia Swanson, and Julia Brierley led the way with a second-place finish, East Hampton’s best of the day, earning them an all-county designation.

“The majority of the girls swam season bests or lifetime bests, which is very impressive considering they had posted season or lifetime bests in the league meet the week before,” the elder Brierley said afterward in an email.

Badilla was named by East Hampton’s captains as the swimmer of the meet given the fact that she swam lifetime bests in the above-mentioned relay as well as in the 200 freestyle and 100 butterfly.

“Julia Brierley and Sophia Swanson were the team’s top point-getters, with 23 and 22 points respectively,” the coach said. “Julia was eighth in the 50 free and seventh in the 100 breaststroke, and Sophia was sixth in the 100 free and ninth in the 200 free.”

Other point-getters for East Hampton were its 200 medley relay team of Darcy McFarland, Brierley, Swanson, and Madison Jones; Oona Foulser in the 50 free; Jones in the 100 free; Vanessa Betancur in the 100 breaststroke, and the 400 freestyle relay team of Kiara Bailey-Williams, Emma Wiltshire, Foulser, and Olivia Brabant.

East Hampton High School’s girls volleyball team, which proved compelling this season what with the strong all-around play of Mikela Junemann (especially at the net), the setting of Elle Johnson, and the grit of its defenders, Molly Mamay and — until she got hurt — Zoe Leach chief among them, lost a quarterfinal county playoff match in five here on Halloween after dropping the first two sets.

The opponent, East Islip, the county A bracket’s fifth seed (East Hampton was seeded fourth), won in the end, 25-21, 25-22, 15-25, 26-28, 25-21.

“I can only attribute [the loss] to good serving by E.I. and to our sophomore and junior-laden team’s inexperience,” Kathy McGeehan, East Hampton’s veteran coach, said afterward. “I’m still baffled as to why we couldn’t sideout with our first rotation in the fifth set. . . . I hope playing in a hard-fought playoff match before an electric crowd will inspire our returning players to go beyond the quarterfinals next year.”

A half-dozen service errors helped do the Bonackers in in the first set. Still, it was close going down the stretch. A service error by Mary Macdonald, who had come off the bench, treated the visitors to a 22-19 lead, but a kill by Erin Decker got the ball back into East Hampton’s hands. The Bonackers, however, could win only one of the four succeeding points — on a crosscourt kill by Madyson Neff that made it 21-24. Her subsequent serve sailed long, and that was it.

The Bonackers were up 21-15 in the second set, but couldn’t hold on. East Islip tied it at 21-21 on a hitting error by Decker, after which the visitors reeled off the remaining four points.

East Hampton won the third, trailing only once on its way to a 25-15 final. 

A kill by Junemann treated McGeehan’s crew to an 18-12 lead in the fourth, and East Hampton held on — though barely. There were five ties in crunch time, during which East Islip came up empty on four set points before East Hampton, which tied it at 26-26 on a double block by Ella Gurney and Olivia Brauer, came through with kills by Neff, to the endline, and by Gurney, after she’d been set at the middle of the net by Johnson.

You would have thought that spirited 28-26 win would have carried over into the early moments of the pivotal fifth, but it didn’t. East Islip’s setter reeled off nine service points before the Bonackers, thanks to a kill by Junemann, sided out. It was all uphill after that. 

East Hampton was still down by nine, at 12-21, Junemann having just hit the antenna at the left side of the net, as the endgame neared.

A long kill attempt put the ball in Decker’s hands. A kill by Neff, an East Islip error, and a dink by Neff brought East Hampton to 16-21. A dink by East Islip made it 16-22, but then Neff hit the line for 17-22. 

With Maddie Smullen serving, a returnable ball was allowed to hit the floor as players exchanged Alphonse and Gaston looks. That miscue put East Islip within two points of the match. 

A subsequent error by Gurney made it 17-24. East Hampton fought back to 21-24 thanks to a netted serve and double hit by East Islip, a service ace by Brauer, and a two-handed lob to the endline by Neff, before the visitors put the match away as one of their hitters ripped a kill through a double block.

Afterward, McGeehan said she would nominate Johnson as a member of the all-county tournament team for her 43 assists and 18 digs. Mamay, she said, had 46 digs, a personal best.

“We will miss our two seniors, Olivia Brauer and Maddie Smullen,” she said, “but with 10 returning players we hope they will be more prepared and more confident when the playoffs arrive next year.”

“I was so proud of their effort and resilience the other day, to come back the way they did after losing the first two sets — also by the way they came back in the fifth,” McGeehan continued. “I thought it was a beautiful battle between two evenly matched teams.”

East Hampton’s boys volleyball team also made the playoffs, those contested by the county’s smaller schools. The fourth seed in Division II, Josh Brussell’s team lost at first-seeded Hauppauge Saturday. Hauppauge and Sayville were to play for the Division II title at Suffolk Community College-Brentwood yesterday.

The girls finished with a 10-4 record in League VI, behind Sayville and Westhampton Beach, each at 13-1. They were 11-4 over all. The boys, who prevailed 3-2 over Shoreham-Wading River in the last game of the regular season, were 6-12 over all.

Dock Race

The revived Dock Race, from the post office in downtown Montauk to George and Chris Watson’s Dock bar and restaurant on Lake Montauk, will be held Sunday at 11:30 a.m. “Everyone will get a T-shirt and free beer afterward,” said George Watson, adding that the entry fee would be $20.

Last year’s race attracted 188 entrants and was won by Ryan Fowkes, East Hampton High’s top cross-country runner, in 20 minutes and 4 seconds. The distance is 3.3 miles give or take.

Denison Wins

Alyssa Bahel, who plays left wing on Denison University’s field hockey team, celebrated with her teammates Denison’s 2-1 win over Wittenberg in the North Coast Athletic Conference championship game Saturday. The team was to have played a first-round N.C.A.A. Division III game at Washington and Lee in Lexington, Va., yesterday. The winner will play at Messiah College, in Mechanicsburg, Pa., this Saturday.

Denison, in Glanville, Ohio, brought a 15-game winning streak into yesterday’s matchup with Washington and Lee, a team that it had defeated in the regular season.

Going Upstate

Pierson (Sag Harbor) High School’s teams have been prominent in the playoffs, especially boys soccer, which this week — for the first time — advanced to the state’s Final Four as the result of defeating S.S. Seward 3-1 in a regional final.

Sam Warne scored two of the Whalers’ goals, the second, which clinched it, a header that converted a chipped pass from Luis Padilla with about six minutes to go. Jorge Alvarado tacked on the third goal in the final two minutes. Grady Burton got the assist.

Pierson had won the county Class C title by defeating Southold 1-0 on a goal by Alvarado in the first half.

The Whalers’ field hockey team, also a county champion, by a score of 4-0 over Babylon, lost 2-0 to Carle Place in the Long Island Class C championship game. It was the second year in a row that the Frogs had eaten the Whalers’ dreams of going upstate.

Pierson’s girls volleyball team was to have played Stony Brook in the county Class C championship match Tuesday. Stony Brook defeated the Whalers twice, by 3-0 scores, during the regular season.

Ultimate Champ

Sas Peters of Amagansett last weekend played on the Minneapolis-based team that won the world great grandmasters (over-50) Ultimate disc championship in Sarasota, Fla.

Peters, who is 61, has been in demand lately, having been invited not only to play with the Surly Boys — the team that just won the great grandmasters title — but also with an all-star team, Currier Island, that competed in the world beach Ultimate great grandmasters championships in Meco, Portugal, last June, and with a team that competed in the North American grandmasters (over-40) mixed division in Montreal in September.

Asked how he trained to keep up with the fast-paced sport, Peters said he pedals a stationary bike, lifts weights, and does plyometrics exercises originally designed for East German sprinters.

Saturday, November 11

CROSS-COUNTRY, East Hampton at state meet, Wayne Central High School, Ontario Center, N.Y.

RUGBY, Montauk Rugby Club vs. Suffolk Bull Moose R.C., Farmingville, 1 p.m.

BOYS SOCCER, Class C state semifinal, Pierson vs. Lansing, Middletown High School, 4 p.m.

MEN’S SOCCER, indoor finals, Sportime Arena, Abraham’s Path, Amagansett, 8-11:30 p.m.

Sunday, November 12

BOYS SOCCER, Class C state final, Middletown High School, 10:30 a.m.

RUNNING, 3.3-mile Dock race, from Montauk Post Office to Dock bar and restaurant, 11:30 a.m.

MEN’S SOCCER, Hampton United at Massapequa, 6 p.m.

Monday, November 13

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

Wednesday, November 15

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

Saturday, July 6

SWIMMING, ‘Swim Across America’ half-mile, mile, and three mile races in Gardiner’s Bay, benefit cancer research and Fighting Chance, Fresh Pond Road, Amagansett, 6-11 a.m.

Sunday, July 7

RUNNING, ‘Firecracker 8K,’ benefit Southampton Rotary scholarship fund, Agawam Park, Southampton, 8:30 a.m.

Monday, July 8

YOUTH LACROSSE, Zach Brenneman’s camp, opening day, East Hampton High School turf field, 9 a.m.-1 p.m., through Thursday.

Wednesday, July 10

 MEN’S SOCCER, 7-on-7 playoff semifinals, fourth seed vs. first seed, 6:30 p.m., and third seed vs. second seed, 7:40, Herrick Park, East Hampton.

     A number of strong volleyballers, including Kim Valverde, whose Hillsborough Junior College team placed seventh in the nation, Jesse Libath, Hayden Ward, the State University Athletic Conference’s player of the year in men’s basketball, and Tahlia Miller, showed up at Gurney’s Inn in Montauk last Thursday evening for an informal round of 4-on-4 games — a prelude to a six-week league to begin July 11.

    Valverde, an honorable mention all-American libero when she was at East Hampton High, is playing on Air & Speed, last year’s runner-up to the Beach Diplomats, along with Josh Brussell, Bonac’s boys volleyball coach, and his assistant, Jon Jamet.

    Libath, who played for the champion Beach Diplomats last season, ought to provide considerable firepower for Bonac Yard Sale. Tahlia Miller and her brother, Connor, better known perhaps for his play on the rugby pitch, James Keogh, and Rachael and Sarah Faraone should make the Burritos very competitive.

    Another strong player who was not there that night undoubtedly will be Raya O’Neal, who, said Kathy McGeehan, the league’s organizer, was at U.S.A. Volleyball’s junior championships in Texas. O’Neal, who set a career assist record on McGeehan’s team last fall, with 1,616, will be a senior at East Hampton High School this fall.

    League play, as aforesaid, is to begin next Thursday. “We’ll go for six weeks,” said McGeehan, “and end it on Aug. 15. We’re ending earlier this year than last because so many have to leave for college.”

    McGeehan added that it was nice to see among the players some children — namely Lydia and Jenna Budd and Katie Brierley — of people she’d played beach volleyball with at Indian Wells Beach in Amagansett 25 years ago, the last time there was organized beach volleyball here.

    Besides the above-named, other entries in the Gurney’s Inn league are Hamptons Free Ride, Sea Capture, Sloppy Tuna A and B, Gurney’s, Naturally Good/On Point, the Montauk Beach House, Lydi, and Shelter Island Volleyball.   

   Going up against the dominant defending-champion Reds in the East Hampton Town Little League’s 11-to-12-year-old “world series” presented a challenge for the very young Pirates, but Tim Garneau’s team acquitted itself well in the best-of-three final, which ended with a 4-1 Reds’ victory at the Pantigo fields Friday night.

    Steve Minskoff’s Reds finished the regular season with an 11-1 mark, the Pirates, who were the National Division’s runner-up, finished at 7-5. Nevertheless, it was not a David and Goliath affair, the Reds’ coach, Steve Minskoff said. “I only had one returnee this year, Christian Johnson, and only one 12-year-old.”

    The Pirates scuttled the Reds 6-4 in game one, “behind the masterful pitching of Elian Abreu,” Garneau said.

    The Buccaneers extended an early 1-0 lead with three runs in the fourth inning. John Walters, the center fielder, led it off with a triple, after which Skylar Minardi drove him in with a single. Then Burton Garneau (one of two 9-year-olds on the team, the other being Matthew McGovern) doubled in Minardi for 3-0. The Pirates’ fourth run scored on a fielder’s choice.

    The Reds came back, however, scoring once in the bottom of the fifth and plating three more in the sixth (a two-run double by James Foster being the big blow) before Burton Garneau closed them out, on two strikeouts and a popup that he gathered in for the game-ending out.

    The Reds reasserted themselves in game two, “mercying” the Pirates 13-3 after four innings. “Ryan Brewer pitched a masterpiece,” said Garneau, “giving up just three hits and striking out seven.”

    Patrick DeSanti, Brewer, Christian Johnson, and Hayden Soloviev were among the Reds’ heavy hitters. Soloviev lashed a bases-clearing triple in the top of the fourth that extended the margin to 10-3, after which the Reds tacked on three more runs to close out the game.

    Game three, said Garneau, “was a pitchers’ duel — Christian Johnson and Elian matched each other strikeout for strikeout.”

    Abreu had to reach back, however, when he confronted bases-loaded, two-out situations in the first and third innings, getting out of the jam each time. The Pirates led 1-0 [the result of a sac fly by J.B. Stewart] going into the bottom of the fifth, at which point the elder Garneau told his charges, “Six more outs and we’re done.”

    But it wasn’t to be. Soloviev began the Reds’ comeback by reaching first base safely on an infield error. DeSanti then forced him at second, but Brewer’s single up the middle put runners at the corners for Johnson, who, after taking three balls, was intentionally walked. With the bases loaded and one out, Abreu struck out Max Bahi on three pitches. That brought up James Foster.

    Abreu had by that time maxed out his pitch count at 85, and had to give way to Burton Garneau. When play resumed, Foster lofted a two-out bases-loaded blooper just over the second baseman Quentin Bazar’s reach that enabled two runs to come in.

    With runners at the corners, a wild pitch enabled Johnson to score the Reds’ third run. An inning-ending strikeout followed, but not before a passed ball led to another run for the Reds, who, by that point led 4-1.

    Johnson struck out the Pirates’ J.B. Stewart to lead off the top of the sixth, after which Henry Garneau drew a walk. A wild pitch with John Walters at bat enabled Garneau to go to second, but Johnson came back to strike out Walters for the second out. That pitch proved to be his 85th, which prompted Minskoff to replace Johnson, who went to short, with Nate Wright.

    “Guys, we’re a two-out ballclub, let’s do it right here,” the elder Garneau said.

    But Wright, after getting two quick strikes on Abreu, clinched the championship — the Reds’ second in a row — as Abreu grounded out to Johnson, who, after the final out was made, rolled delightedly over and over in the dust of the mound as his teammates rushed in to celebrate.

    “Christian is unbelievable,” Minskoff said of the winning pitcher, who is 11 years old. “He has another gear like no other kid in our league. You see a kid like him only once in a very long while.”

    Minskoff (whose assistant coach is Rudy DeSanti) and Garneau were to have coached East Hampton’s all-star travel teams — Minskoff the 11-12s and Garneau the 9-10s — in District 36 tournaments whose opening-round games were to have been played Monday.

    The 9-10s roster comprises Jackson Baris, Tucker Coleman, Logan Gurney, Burton Garneau, Tucker Genovese, Liam Leach, Matthew McGovern, Callum Menelaws, Colin Ruddy, Owen Ruddy, and Hayden Soloviev.

    The 11-12 traveling all-stars are Auggie Gladstone, Patrick DeSanti, Max Bahi, Chasen Dubs, Ethan Pratt, James Foster, Seth Martin, Christian Johnson, Kurt Matthews, Anthony Genovese, Lou Britton, Elian Abreu, and Ryan Brewer.

   The Gubbins Running Ahead stores here are high-energy places, and Gubbins’s four new salesmen fit the bill nicely.

    Running under the Gubbins Distance Project team banner, the four — Owen Dawson, an all-American 800 runner from Penn State, Ryan Hagen, a second-team all-American from Virginia Tech, Shawn Roberts, a two-time all A.C.C. runner from Georgia Tech, and Will McFall, an all-Ivy 800 runner from Cornell — are expected to pretty much dominate whatever races they may enter here this summer.

    Roberts made his debut by easily winning the Bonac on Board to Wellness 5K recently, and Dawson has won both 5Ks he’s entered — at Southampton and, last week, at Sayville.

    Asked why she hadn’t taken Dawson to Shelter Island, his employer, Barbara Gubbins said, “He doesn’t run 10Ks.”

    “For years,” she said when asked how she and her husband, Justin, had come to put the team together, “it’s been really hard for us to get runners to work for us — there’s such a small pool out here. Other stores have pipelines into the colleges. Bryn Mawr Running, for instance, gets all its workers from Villanova.”

    “So, this past winter, I contacted coaches in the Ivies, and the A.C.C., and at the N.C.A.A. nationals. They’re all middle-distance runners. They’ll be training together and working for us for a year, after which they can decide what they want to do, whether they want to stay or go on and do something else. . . . Their times are great. Owen ran a 3:59 in the Penn Relays, Ryan has run a 4:02, Shawn’s done a 4:03, I think, and Will a 4:08. I’m taking them all to a road mile in Mastic Beach on June 29. In the fall, they’ll run at Van Cortlandt . . . we’re going to enter them in the 4-by-1,500 in next year’s Penn Relays. . . .”

    During a brief conversation at the Gubbins New Balance store last Thursday with Dawson, Hagen, and McFall — Roberts hadn’t come in yet — when asked what exactly he liked about running, Dawson, who majored in kinesiology, said, matter-of-factly, “Winning.”

    Hagen, who recently graduated from Virginia Tech with a degree in health, nutrition, foods, and exercise, said, “From a noncompetitive standpoint, it doesn’t take much to run, just some sneakers and shorts . . . you’re in nature and you’re moving, which is what we’re supposed to do.”

    McFall, an applied economics major who has played basketball, said, “In basketball you need a team, but in running you can get out on your own and also be a member of a team.”

    The four, who are living in Sag Harbor, and who pair up in shifts at Gubbins, run the trails there either before or after work.

    “We’re averaging about 40 miles per week now — we’re in our buildup phase,” Dawson said. “By mid-July we’ll be up to 70.”

    Gubbins said the four are now participating in the weekly distance runs that set off from the New Balance store in the Reutershan Parking Lot at 8 Sunday mornings. A lot of the some 35 to 50 attendees were training for the Hamptons Marathon in the fall, she said, “though everyone is welcome. This past Sunday we did a 7-miler, to Indian Wells Beach and back, and a 9-miler, out Bluff Road and up Hand’s Lane.”

    Asked if her new employees took it slow, Gubbins laughed. “Their pace for the 9-miler was 6:08! Diane [Weinberger, one of the marathon’s directors] wanted to take a picture of them, but they went out so fast she couldn’t. Now you see them, now you don’t!”