Four East Hampton High School coaches could be described as happy as of Tuesday morning, a group that included Ed Bahns, of baseball, Mike Vitulli, of boys lacrosse, Matt Maloney, of girls lacrosse, and Michelle Kennedy, of boys tennis, though the latter was as of Monday awaiting the outcome of a protest she’d filed with Section XI following Friday’s match at the Ross School.

    Joe Vas, East Hampton’s athletic director, who filed a complaint on Ken­nedy’s behalf with Section XI, said Tuesday that the 4-3 result in Ross’s favor would stand, although he said he agreed that Kennedy’s allegation of unsportsmanlike conduct made after a Ross player had shouted “Hammer time!” before putting away an overhead that decided the closely contested third doubles match, had been correct.

    Though presumably not happy with the dismissal of her protest, Kennedy was happy to report that her team defeated Shoreham-Wading River 5-2 here Monday afternoon, the only losses coming at first and second doubles. She recently moved her former top doubles pair, Dan Okin and Collin Kavanaugh, up to first and third singles, and dropped Nicki Neubert and Brady Yusko, who’d been at third and fourth singles, to third doubles — moves that seem to have strengthened the lineup.

    The baseball team finally got some Ws last week, taking two of three from Amityville. Will Collins, Bahns’s assistant, said, “We were relieved and happy that the kids got their first win on Wednesday [April 10]. For most of them, it was their first varsity win ever. After losing six straight to start the season, they must have wondered if a win would ever come!”

    “The star of that 4-0 shutout was Maykell Guzman, who went the whole way, striking out 13. He gave up four hits and walked three. . . . Brendan Hughes, Bryan Gamble, and Kyle McKee each had two hits.”

    The teams went at it again last Thursday with East Hampton, behind Peter Shilowich’s three-hit pitching, prevailing 6-2. McKee, who’s a freshman, drove in three of the runs, including two with a key base hit in the sixth inning. Hughes, the junior shortstop, went 3-for-4 on the day with two runs scored, and Max Lerner, a sophomore, went 2-for-2 with two runs scored, as well.

    Turning to boys lacrosse, Mike Vitulli, asked following Saturday’s 10-6 win here over Center Moriches if it were “a great day for Bonac,” replied, with a smile, “Well, it was a good day. . . . We got pretty much everyone in and played well in all three phases — defense, offense, and in transition. On offense we spun the ball and attacked their weak side. We shot pretty well — much better today than we have in recent games.”

    “You know, we’ve got a young team — three or four freshmen and four or five sophomores — but they’re improving in every game, understanding more and more what you need to do to win.”

    Drew Harvey, a Pierson student, had 3 goals and 2 assists; John Pizzo had 3 and 1; Cort Heneveld had 2 and 2, and Jamie Wolf and Jack Schleicher, another player from Pierson, each had 1 goal and 1 assist. Regis O’Neil also had an assist. Mikey Jara, the goalie, had 6 saves; his backup, Sean Toole, who was smothered by defenders after having run with the ball to midfield in the waning seconds of the game, stopped two shots.

    The win improved East Hampton to 2-4 in league play and to 2-6 over all. Center Moriches dropped to 2-4.

    The Bonackers were to have played Deer Park here Tuesday, and are to play at Bellport today. “Deer Park is a lot like we are,” Vitulli said. “There’s not a lot of difference between the 10th and 22nd-ranked teams in our division.”

    Vitulli has been alternating three of his charges — Kelly Kalbacher, Wolf, and Jack Lesser — on the face-offs. “Each brings a little something different.”

    “Yes, it would be nice to still have Ryan Shaw, who won 80 percent of his face-offs,” Vitulli said in reply to a question. “We’re around 50 percent now, which is an improvement over the past couple of years.”

    In answer to another question, the coach said, “I like the way we’ve been growing. With all the freshmen and sophomores it was a little slow at first, but the seniors and juniors have stepped up and helped us become productive.”

    Matt Maloney, the girls lacrosse coach, also had something to cheer about earlier this week given his team’s 14-13 win at Miller Place on Monday. It was the first win of the season for his team, which has been a bit unlucky thus far.

    “We lost a heartbreaker to Huntington last week,” Maloney said at the start of an e-mail report. “We led 9-6 at the half, but couldn’t hold on, and eventually lost 15-14, failing to make good on two opportunities in the final minute.”

    On Monday, however, things went East Hampton’s way as the Bonackers prevailed 14-13 at Miller Place. Carley Seekamp, Maggie Pizzo, a junior midfielder who’s already been tapped by Yale, Jenna Budd, and Cassidy Walsh all had hat tricks.

    Maloney’s charges were to have played at Shoreham-Wading River yesterday, and are to play “a big game at home with Harborfields” tomorrow.

Friday, April 26

GIRLS LACROSSE, Hampton Bays at East Hampton, 4:30 p.m.

SOFTBALL, East Hampton at Bellport, 4:30 p.m.

BOYS TENNIS, East Hampton at Southampton, 4:30 p.m.

BASEBALL, Bayport-Blue Point at East Hampton, 4:30 p.m.

Saturday, April 27

TRACK,  East Hampton boys and girls at Westhampton Beach invitational, 9 a.m.

SOFTBALL, Harborfields at East Hampton, 11 a.m.

RUGBY,  Casino Night, benefit Montauk Rugby Club, Stephen Talkhouse, Amagansett, 7-10 p.m.

Monday, April 29

BOYS LACROSSE, East Hampton at Islip, 6:30 p.m.

Tuesday, April 30

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

BOYS TENNIS,  East Hampton at Shoreham-Wading River, 4:30 p.m.

BASEBALL, East Hampton at Shoreham-Wading River, 4:30 p.m.

Wednesday, May 1

BASEBALL, Shoreham-Wading River at East Hampton, 4:30 p.m.

BOYS TENNIS, Ross at East Hampton, 4:30 p.m.

   Mike Ritsi, who oversees the East Hampton Town Little League’s baseball and softball umpires, said Tuesday that while he has 10 or so umpires on hand at the moment, he is, nevertheless, short-handed.

    “I’ll be happy to take anyone who volunteers, though I’d prefer it not be a parent-coach,” he said during a brief conversation Tuesday.

   Ritsi has been doing some of the umpiring himself, “though not much because I’m also the high school’s jayvee baseball coach, and we’ve had three games a week lately.”

    There are, he said, “as many as six Little League games per day,” on fields in Montauk, Springs, and East Hampton.

   Those interested in umpiring have been asked to call Ritsi at 384-2727.

   Forty or so girls from the Montauk and Springs Schools who are training for the I-Tri triathletic and mentoring program’s Youth Triathlon at Maidstone Park in July took part in a bicycle session at the Springs School Saturday with Sharon McCobb, Annette MacNiven, and Diane O’Donnell, coaches who have extensive swimming, biking, and long-distance running experience.

    McCobb recently was named president of the Old Montauk Athletic Club, replacing John Conner. The club has been a force in advancing the cause of athletics here for a number of years now.

    I-Tri has likewise been very successful in carrying out its mission, which has been to transform middle school girls who otherwise would be “couch potatoes” into confident student-triathletes. I-Tri’s founder, Theresa Roden, said Tuesday that there are 50 members at the Montauk and Springs Schools at present, and that there are plans to bring I-Tri to East Hampton High School next year.

    “Adolescent girls go through a tough time when they are unsure of who they are, of how they fit in,” Roden once said in describing the program. “I-Tri gives them a common ground, something they can be a part of that is bigger than themselves. It’s about empowerment.”

    This afternoon, she said, I-Tri’s seventh and eighth grade “alums” are to take part in a Retreat-run seminar on domestic violence at the Springs Presbyterian Church while I-Tri’s new sixth-grade members from Springs are to take part in a free conditioning and nutrition session at the Epic Strength and Conditioning Studio next to the Maidstone Market.

    The June 15 Turbo Tri (300-yard swim, 7-mile bike, and 1.5-mile run) for competitors ages 17 and up is the program’s chief fund-raiser, Roden said, “though we’re always looking for sponsors.” It is estimated that the program’s costs average about $2,000 annually per participant. The Youth Triathlon, whose course is the same as the Turbo Tri, is held in July.

    “After the Turbo Tri,” Roden said, “we’re going to have a dinner honoring the Town Police Department’s DARE officer, Kim Notel.”

   Greg Drossel, a naturalist who last fall began giving a popular archery course at the Ross School, and who is soon to give the same course to adults as part of Ross’s continuing education program, said the other day that his love for the sport grew hand in hand with his love of the outdoors.

    “I grew up in the Stony Brook-Port Jefferson area and as a kid I roamed the woods with an uncle of mine who was five years older. After a rainstorm we’d find white quartz arrowheads from an old Native American settlement. Guess what we did with them?”

    “Shoot them?”

    “Exactly!” said the enthusiastic educator (he’s Ross’s assistant dean of students, recently returned from having taken 20 students to the Galapagos Islands). “I don’t have a one left, they’re all in the woods by my grandmother’s house. . . . I found a couple of fishing arrowheads too. I tried them out on some carp at Stony Brook’s Mill Pond, without success.”

    One gathers from talking with this lifelong archer — and Holtsville Hal’s handler — that the sport could well serve as a metaphor for a successful life, assuming one’s preparation, focus, and aim were true.

    On that very subject, Jodie Foster said in her Class Day speech at Yale University in 1993: “I put all my stuff — my history, my experiences, my passions and taboos and personal weaknesses and unconscious agendas and eccentricities — delicately and precisely on the tip of a proverbial arrow. I take careful aim, keep the target in my sight and try to communicate all that is me in a straight line towards an audience.”

    “The Hunger Games,” the post-apocalyptic novel and film in which a 16-year-old, Katniss Everdeen, is the heroine, has also served to stir up interest, ventured Carey London, the school’s communications coordinator, who had stopped by during the interview. “It’s empowering!” she said by way of explanation.

    Drossel began teaching archery as a wellness elective in Ross’s gymnasium in September.

    “I tried to do it three years ago, but it never got off the ground. It did this time because the mother of a student who had been told by a camp counselor that her daughter had the makings of an Olympic archer made a generous gift so we could offer a National Archery in the Schools Program here.”

    Her gift had provided the seed money, and soon the needed $5,000 for the requisite equipment was raised to teach Ross’s high school students. A promised New York Department of Environmental Conservation donation and further sponsorships may enable Drossel to extend the course to the lower school next year.

    The high school students took to the discipline quickly. “The kids don’t even see any equipment for the first two days because I’m going over with them the 11 steps of safe shooting,” Drossel said. “This program has been in schools all over the country for the past 10 years, and there’s never been an accident in all that time. I can’t tell you how safe this sport is.  And anybody can excel in it — you don’t have to be the biggest or the toughest kid. Each kid can grow at his own pace. . . . Our best archer could be a fourth grader.”

    “We use a compound bow with cams and pulleys that enable you to adjust the tension, the draw weight,” he continued. “This one I’ve got here,” he said, holding one of the smallish bows up, “is maxed out at 20 to 25 pounds, so it’s easy to pull and hold.”

    “Developing the proper form is more important than hitting the bull’s-eye,” he continued. “There are so many variables — you want to establish consistency. So, after two days of simulating with knotted nonstretchable strings that span the distance between the students’ extended bow hands and the anchor points — where the index fingers of their draw hands are at the corners of their mouths — they get to shoot at targets [10 to 15 meters away].”

    Once the anchor point was reached and aim taken, “all your energy,” he said, “is then transferred to the arrow and its release. . . . The big thing is to be relaxed and poised, and to follow through, at which point you can reflect on your shot.”

    He controls the action with a whistle he wears around his neck, the number of blasts keyed to specific commands. A certified N.A.S.P. instructor himself, he has seen to it that eight other Ross faculty members have become certified too.

    Archery, he said, was “a very relaxing, a very reflective activity.” And while there were competitions at the high school level — not to mention the Olympics — “you don’t need to be competitive to enjoy it.”

    He hopes, though, that Ross can play host to the state high school archery tournament next year.

    Back to Holtsville Hal, Drossel said, “Punxsutawney Phil was wrong and Holtsville Hal,” with whom he can be seen posing in a photo on his office wall, “was right! We’ve had six more weeks of winter.” Drossel has in years past lectured widely on nature, whose intricacies interest him far more than the kill that may or may not attend a deer hunt.

    “It’s an old German tradition — Candlemas. On Feb. 2, the groundhog or woodchuck comes out of his hole, to seek a mate really. If he sees his shadow, it’s supposed to mean six more weeks of winter. Holtsville Hal saw his, but Phil, who drew a crowd of 40,000, didn’t.”

   One of the warmest days yet this year brought nine sailors to a seven-race regatta on Saturday afternoon at Sag Harbor’s Breakwater Yacht Club. Postponed from HarborFrost weekend in February because of the bay’s transformation to a sea of ice in a blizzard, the weather on this day was just right, according to Marty Knab of Sag Harbor, who served on the race committee.

    The winds were 10 knots out of the west and pretty constant, he said afterward in the airy and sun-filled waterfront clubhouse, as beer and pizza arrived for the awards celebration. There was very little oscillation, he said. Each of the races lasted 10 to 15 minutes, windward and leeward and back to the midway, with the lowest score from each sailor dropped.

    Conditions were perfect for Derrick Galen of Sag Harbor, who took first place with 10 points. “It was good for me downwind because I am light,” he said, after receiving a windbreaker, a restaurant gift certificate, and the news that his name would be on a plaque upon a clubhouse wall.

    Second place went to Brett Morgan of North Haven. He had 15 points, and probably jet lag, after his morning arrival from Denver on a red-eye.

    Bud Rogers took third with 17 points. “This was excellent,” said the sailor, who also hails from North Haven. The others who finished were John Niewenhous, Sara Nightingale, Minna Scholl, Caitlin Cummings, Eric Butte, and Joan Butler.

    “This time of year, sailors have the whole harbor to ourselves,” Knab said happily. Once the village’s moorings go in, he said, they move farther down, by Havens Beach.

    “Anyone, member or not, experienced sailor or not, can show up on the dock and get on a boat,” Butte said, adding that he did just that one Wednesday night about a year and a half ago without knowing anyone. He said he “ended up on the race committee boat that first night, and while waiting for the boats to get back to the finish line . . . ate shrimp and nachos, brought by Alec Baldwin, who helps on race committee from time to time.”

    This past winter Butte began to sail on JY15s, two-person sailboats, before moving onto Lasers, the single-person boats sailed in Saturday’s race. “I didn’t come in last,” he said, although he and at least one other sailor did go for “multiple swims” in the sub-40-degree waters.

    Sailors ranged from artists to pilots at the community club, which boasts low membership fees and runs sailing schools for children and adults in addition to its popular Wednesday night races for large sailboats.

    It’s a year-round weekend sport for many, Knab said. “As long as three boats are willing, I go out . . . if it’s ice-free and not blowing too hard.”

    Mary Ann Eddy, the regatta’s chairwoman, said sailing the JY15s on Sundays is the most fun she has ever had. She said she was grateful for prize donations from sponsors including Gill North America and three Sag Harbor establishments: Page at 63 Main, Muse in the Harbor, and Espresso.

    The stakes will be a bit higher in August when a regatta’s grand prize will be a journey to Antigua and Barbuda for Antigua Sailing Week, with flights, accommodations, entry fees, and a yacht included for the winning skipper and six crew members.

    Information about the club and its programs can be found at breakwateryc.org.

Thursday, April 11

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

Friday, April 12

GIRLS LACROSSE, Eastport-South Manor at East Hampton, 4:30 p.m.

BOYS TENNIS, East Hampton at East Islip, nonleague, 4 p.m.

BASEBALL, East Hampton at Amityville, 4:30 p.m.

Saturday, April 13

RUNNING, Katy’s Courage 5K, West Water Street, Sag Harbor, 8:30 a.m., registration from 7:15 to 8:15.

BOYS LACROSSE, Center Moriches at East Hampton, 10 a.m.

Monday, April 15

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

BOYS TENNIS, Shoreham-Wading River at East Hampton, 4:30 p.m.

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

Tuesday, April 16

BOYS LACROSSE, Deer Park at East Hampton, 4:30 p.m.

BOYS TENNIS, Eastport-South Manor at East Hampton, 4:30 p.m.

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

Wednesday, April 17

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

GIRLS LACROSSE, East Hampton at Shoreham-Wading River, 4:30 p.m.

SOFTBALL, East Hampton at Eastport-South Manor, 4:30 p.m.

    The Sportsmen’s Expo that is coming to the Amagansett Firehouse on April 20 will pretty much cover the waterfront when it comes to outdoor pursuits.

    Terry O’Riordan, one of the organizers, said during a conversation this week that “we’ve got 30 to 40 exhibitors, about 10 more than we had at our first expo last year.”

    Among them are a “larger than life” turkey-caller, Dale Whitley; “a famous licensed fly fishing instructor and fly-tier,” Glen Mikkelson; a muzzle-loading gun expert, Mitchell Yates; antique-decoy carvers Bob Greene and David Bennett, and waterfowl retriever demonstrators Tim Payne and Paul Anderson.

    Uihlein’s Marina is expected to have some boats on hand, and, as of earlier this week, O’Riordan was looking for a kayak exhibitor as well.

    “Last year, the most popular exhibits as far as the kids went were those put on by the town’s shellfish hatchery,” said O’Riordan, who added that admission will be free. “We hope to make some money from our raffle, whose top prize will be a lifetime New York State Department of Environmental Conservation hunting and fishing license, which is worth from $700 to $800. The Amagansett hardware store has donated two shotguns. It’s been very satisfying to have their support. We’re trying to keep this as local as humanly possible.”

    Most of the East Hampton Sportsmen’s Alliance’s members, he said, in reply to a question, were also members of the Maidstone Gun Club and of the Amagansett Fire Department.

    The expo will begin at 10 a.m. and will end at 3 — rain or shine.   

    Ryan Borowsky, of Sag Harbor and the Montauk Rugby Club, was the big Slimpossible winner, or loser, of 50 pounds in a recent Sag Harbor Gym fitness contest.

    Of the 40 initial participants, 28 finished, what with weather-related accidents and the like, and their successes and awards were celebrated at La Superica restaurant in Sag Harbor last Thursday night. Trainers had a competition of their own, based on their team’s transformation, and Kevin Norman was the elated winner among them, according to Tahlia Miller, another trainer.

    For three months, trainers provided four one-hour sessions per week, and a dietary coach assisted team members with their diets, including the preparation of meals without dairy or sugar. Online support was also provided, and meals were logged there.

    The participants’ “body age” was determined before and after the challenge, and the winners were judged by the number of years lost, body fat percentage, and points from a before-and-after questionnaire. Borowsky, 33, was determined to have a body age of 46 before the program, and 29 afterward.

    The next program, Summer Panic, designed to help people attain a beach body by the first day of summer, will begin on April 22 and finish by June 21, according to the gym’s owner, Bruce Cotter.  

   Michelle Kennedy, who coaches East Hampton High School’s boys tennis team, played off a half-dozen of her charges Monday with an eye toward rearranging the lineup.

    If things worked out the way she thought they might, Collin Kavanagh and Dan Okin, who have been playing first doubles, would take over the top two singles positions, at least in some of the matches, and Reese Donaldson and Matt Silich would move up from second to first doubles.

    “At the moment, with the first half of the season almost over, we’re in the middle of the pack,” Kennedy said, “behind William Floyd, Ross, and Westhampton.”

    In recent matches, East Hampton defeated Southampton 6-1, the sole loss coming at second singles, and lost at Westhampton Beach as Julian Mac­Gurn, at third singles, and Juan Agudelo and Keith Schad, at third doubles, picked up points. The fourth singles match, which was to have been between East Hampton’s Brady Yusko and Westhampton’s Nisarg Dabhi, was not contested.

    Ross, which is now coached by Juan Diaz — Vinicius Carmo having directed his full attention to Ross’s Tennis Academy — defeated Westhampton 4-3 Friday.

    The Cosmos lost at first and second singles, but won at three and four with Jack Brinkley-Cook and Jonas Feurring.

    Louis Caiola and Mikey Petersen upset Westhampton’s Cooper Lacetera and Brian Schwartz at first doubles, prevailing 5-7, 6-3, 6-1, and Ross’s third doubles team of Will Cassou and Maddison Hummel also won.

    Turning to the track teams, Chris Reich, the boys coach, said during Monday’s practice that while his charges lost last week to Sayville, there were some good things, namely Adam Cebulski and Erik Engstrom’s one-two punch in the 1,600 and 3,200 — Cebulski winning the mile, in 4:46, and Engstrom winning the two, in 10:46; Evan Larsen’s personal best of 2:06 in winning the 800; Hunter Kelsey’s 24.4 in the 200, good for second place, and Keaton Crozier’s performances in the long and triple jumps and in the 4-by-400 relay.

    Will Ellis, a sophomore, who went up against a nationally ranked senior hurdler at Sayville, was also doing well, the coach said, adding that “we gave up 30 points to them in the shot-put, discus, and the 400 and 110 hurdles.”

    “We’ve got seven to 10 guys who can break :60 in the 400,” said Reich. “Not many coaches can say that.”

    “Sayville was strong in the sprints and field events, though our team is really well-rounded. Thomas King is clearing 5-6 just on natural ability alone, and in the pole vault Henry Whitney, Liam Kessler, and Hunter Kelsey have all cleared the minimum height of eight feet. Sayville’s 4-by-8 relay won, but it was very close. We won the 4-by-4, and in the 4-by-1 we were ahead by 15 meters until the baton got passed to their anchorman, Chris Belcher, who’s got ridiculous speed.”

    Reich, who started the season with 57 on his roster, is now down to 50, “though I thought,” he said, “that by this time I’d be down to 35.”

    The team was to have had a meet Tuesday at Amityville.

    “Our first meet,” he said, “was in the snow. I’ve told the kids to bring sunscreen tomorrow.”

    Shani Cuesta, the girls coach, whose charges were to have faced off against their Amityville counterparts here Tuesday, said during Monday’s practice that there had been some personal bests in the Sayville meet. Among them Nina Piacentine’s 9:26.8 in the 1,500-meter racewalk and Taliya Hayes’s 77-1 1/2 in the discus, which was good for second place. Hayes won the shot-put with a heave of 27 feet 6 inches.

    Others to get points for East Hampton in the Sayville meet were Amanda Calabrese, who was third in the 100-meter hurdles and in the 200; Dana Cebulski, who won the 1,500, in 5:12; Cecilia Blowe, who was second in the 200 and third in the 100, and Shannon Ryan, who was third in the walk.

    In Charlotte Wiltshire’s absence, Daniella Dunphy, a junior, has become the team’s chief jumper.

    “Sayville had some terrific jumpers, though,” said Cuesta. “They had four in the 30s in the triple jump, which they won with a 34-5 1/2. . . . Katie Tikkanen, a freshman, tried the 400 hurdles for the first time for us, and came in fifth over all. Sayville beat us 103-32. We’re hoping to do better with Amityville.”