Having to forfeit at 120 and 126 pounds again denied a possible win to East Hampton High School’s wrestling team here in a match with Miller Place on Jan. 23.

    The good news, however, was that the 120-pounder, Lucas Escobar, the team’s best wrestler, who had suffered a broken clavicle earlier in the season, had been cleared to compete in the league meet at Westhampton Beach High School this Saturday.

    “Of the 13 matches wrestled, we won eight,” Steve Tseperkas, Bonac’s coach, said. Miller Place, which had been winless going into the match, as was the case also with East Hampton, wound up a 40-34 winner.

    The match began at 152 pounds, and East Hampton’s entrant, Dallas Foglia, won by a major decision, worth 4 points, over John Krause. Juan Varon was pinned in the second period at 160 by Miller Place’s Jake McKeown; Dana Harvey won a major decision over Kyle Vetrano at 170; Luciano Escobar, Lucas’s younger brother, won 11-8 at 182; Alfredo Perez won 13-4 at 195; Kevin Heine pinned Rob Leen in the second period at 220, and Richie Browne won by major decision at 285.

    Starting around again, Jonathan Hansen was pinned in the third period at 99 pounds by the Panthers’ Seamus O’Connell; Haiau Duong was pinned in the first period at 106 by Connor Hag; Kevin Boles was pinned in the third period at 113 by Alex Hin; East Hampton, as aforesaid, forfeited at 120 and at 126; Matt Smudzinski won 5-0 at 132; Anthony Pineda won by major decision at 138, and Colton Kalbacher pinned his man, Justin Simon, in the third period.

    All in all, “it was a good showing,” said Tseperkas. “If we hadn’t had to forfeit at those two weights, and if the ref had called the pins we had at 170, 182, 195, and 285 — he was slow getting down — things would have been different.”

    Regarding recent tournaments, the coach said that “we had four place-winners at Mattituck [Jan. 19]. Heine won at 220, Browne was fourth at 285, Colton was sixth at 145, and Alfredo was sixth at 195. . . . There were 13 teams there. Connetquot won it.”

    At Port Jefferson’s Bob Armstrong invitational tournament this past Saturday, Heine won at 220; Kalbacher was third at 145, edging Islip’s John Theo 3-2 in the consolation match thanks to a third-period takedown, thus avenging an earlier-season loss; Browne, who has placed in all four tournaments he’s vied in this season, was third at 285, and Luciano Escobar was fourth at 182.

    The top four in each of the league meet’s weight classes are to advance to the county meet, at Hofstra University on Feb. 10 and 11. “If you don’t make it to the semis, you’re out,” said the coach, who added that he thought Heine, whom he expected to be seeded behind Westhampton’s Jake Martin at 220, had the best chance. Lucas Escobar and Kalbacher also had chances, he said, “though both of those weight classes are loaded. Lucas will have to have a good day and Colton will have to upset someone. Richie Browne also has a chance, and Foglia’s a dark horse at 152.”

    Both of East Hampton High’s winter track teams finished at the bottom of the heap in league meets at Suffolk Community College-Brentwood this past weekend, but both are very young, and, particularly in the girls’ case, have thin rosters.

    Nevertheless, there was some good news: Chjuvaughn Cameron placed third among the freshmen in the countywide freshman-sophomore meet’s 55-meter dash Friday in a personal best time of 7.15 seconds, and, in the same category, Erik Engstrom placed fourth in the 1,600 in a personal best 5:00.54.

    “Chjuvaughn and Erik took home medals for their efforts,” said the boys coach, Chris Reich, “as did our freshman 4-by-200 relay team of Cameron, Daniel Soto, Connor Gonzalez, and Jackson Rafferty for finishing fifth. It was the best meet of the season for us.”

    Jack Bistrian, Paul King, Liam McGovern, Erik Perez (who “p.r.’d” in the 1,000), and Erik Sanchez “also did well,” Reich said.

    The team scored only 1 point in the league meet Sunday night, the result of Engstrom’s sixth-place finish in the 3,200.

    “With only one senior and with 10 of our 17 athletes being freshmen or sophomores, it’s hard to compete at the league championship level, especially having no field event athletes [high jump, long jump, triple jump, hurdles, and shot-put],” the coach continued.

    “If Adam Cebulski had stayed healthy this winter, he should have been able to break 4:40 in the mile and thus earn fourth place in the league. Because of his weak IT band, he was only able to run a 4:58, but at least he’ll be healthy and ready to go come the spring track season.”

    The girls team, which has a roster of 12, half of them ninth graders, scored points in the 1,000, the 1,500, the 4-by-800 relay, and in the shot-put at the league meet Saturday.

    Dana Cebulski placed fifth in the 1,000 in 3:10.04 and fifth in the 1,500 in 5:11.15. Cebulski also anchored the fifth-place 4x800 relay team whose other members were Devon Brown, Elena Skerys, and Alyssa Bahel. Annie Schuppe’s personal best throw of 26 feet 6 inches enabled her to place sixth in the shot-put, worth 1 point. The fifth-place showings were worth 2.

    “I’m proud of the girls and of the way they improved throughout the season,” said the girls coach, Shani Cuesta. “We had a small squad and half were freshmen, which makes it difficult to score against larger teams in the league.”

Thursday, January 31

BOYS SWIMMING, North Babylon vs. East Hampton, Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter, 4:30 p.m.

GIRLS BASKETBALL, Elwood-John Glenn at East Hampton, 6:45 p.m.

BOYS BASKETBALL, East Hampton at Elwood-John Glenn, 5 p.m.

Friday, February 1

BOYS BASKETBALL, Bridgehampton at Shelter Island, 4 p.m.

Saturday, February 2

WRESTLING, East Hampton at league championships, Westhampton Beach High School, 9 a.m.

BOWLING, East Hampton at county championships, Sayville Lanes, 9 a.m.

WINTER TRACK, East Hampton boys at small schools championships, Suffolk Community College-Brentwood, 2:30 p.m.

Sunday, February 3

WINTER TRACK, East Hampton girls at small schools championships, Suffolk Community College-Brentwood, 10 a.m.

Tuesday, February 5

BOYS BASKETBALL, Amityville at East Hampton, 4:15 p.m., and Pierson at Bridgehampton, 6.

GIRLS BASKETBALL, East Hampton at Amityville, 5 p.m.

   Across the face of the world thousands of new organizations are spawned every day. Just take a look on the Internet and you will find millions of groups and associations that have an e-mail address ending in .org. It isn’t hard to start an organization, but it is hard to keep one going.

    When an organization is a few months from turning 20 years old, and when such an organization is still doing the things it used to do, plus adding others with each new year, that organization is said to be on the road to a long future. Even when the organization is evicted from its headquarters under the shabbiest of pretenses, but continues to carry on without a home base or address of its own, one begins to think that such an organization has a spirited cause and plays a legitimate and needed role in the community in which it toils, be it global, national, state, county, or local.

    The Third House Nature Center of Montauk is such an organization. Its “Center” is the hamlet of Montauk and its purview is the vast panoply of nature and natural history that this great hamlet packs into such a small space. You name it; Montauk has it all. It has the ocean, bays, harbor, streams, and ponds including the second largest freshwater lake on Long Island, Fort Pond. It has more wetlands than you can shake a stick at and they come in all sizes and kinds, from tidal to brackish to fresh, from salt marshes to red maple tupelo swamps to cranberry bogs and ferny swales.

    It is rich topographically, with the highest elevation east of Southampton, “interdunal fossae” as in Hither Woods, the only bluffs along the entire Atlantic Coast south of New England, the Walking Dunes and dune plains, stony shores, sandy shores, and a magnificent rocky intertidal area, again the only one along the entire coast south of New England.

    Floristically, it has one of the three New York plant species on the Federal Endangered list, the sandplain gerardia, and more than 50 species considered rare to New York State. In terms of its fauna, it has the state’s only blue-spotted salamander population, Long Island’s only significant spotted turtle population, and, if we can only find them again, the state’s only population of southern leopard frogs, not to mention Long Island’s only breeding turkey vultures. It also has gray foxes, one beaver, and more than 75 fish species, both freshwater and marine. In terms of size, number, and variety, it may be the most important spot for fishing in the state. And, oh, yes, clams, scallops, and oysters.

    So what better place to start a nature club that serves children and adults alike? That’s just what the redoubtable Carol Morrison of the Concerned Citizens of Montauk did with the help of Dick Johnson and Stephanie Krusa way back in 1994. Ms. Morrison passed away a few years back, Mr. Johnson is in assisted living, and Ms. Krusa is still in there almost two decades later pitching away with as much vigor and enthusiasm as ever.

    The nature center really burgeoned seven years back during a kinder and gentler East Hampton administration, when it leased Fort Pond House, purchased by the town in 2003 when Jay Schneiderman was supervisor. Weekly lectures, workshops, reading, writing, and student projects such as a pheasant-raising coop, supplemented the weekly field trips during the day and at night examining not only Montauk’s natural history, but also looking at interesting stuff to the west in Amagansett, East Hampton Village, Springs, and Wainscott on occasion. From 2005 through 2009, the five years for which I could find records covering such varying happenings, more than 200 took place.

    On many a night the Fort Pond House served as a lecture hall where the likes of Tom Clavin, John Strong, Judith Weiss, and Scott Weidensaul discussed their recent books with both the adult and children attendees. And the nature center staged events for other groups and organizations including the Nature Conservancy, Boy Scouts, and Girl Scouts. The Fort Pond House was the perfect venue as it was a short distance from the Montauk School, which provided the center with numerous students engaged in a myriad of eye-opening events. Vicki Bustamante, who is one of the current principals in the center’s day-to-day activities, reckons that as many as 500 Montauk School students have participated since 2005.

    When the nature center was expulsed from the Fort Pond House after a five-year occupancy by the Bill Wilkinson administration, Ms. Krusa, Ms. Bustamante, the current president, Ed Johann, and the others keeping the show going had to remove all of the facility’s equipment, teaching tools, library, and the like. It was disheartening, to say the least. But they couldn’t let Montauk’s children and their parents down, so they continued the activities, but without a roof over their heads.

    Their former headquarters, a building and four acres on Fort Pond, were put up for sale. Two years later, there have been no takers. Meanwhile, the center continues to grow and expand its programs, even without a home. A chief focus for 2013 is Big Reed Pond in Montauk County Park, a few hundred feet from Block Island Sound. Very little has been documented about the pond’s creation and its natural and geologic history. To help with this project, the prestigious East Hampton Garden Club, through its longstanding annual sponsorship, has provided the Third House Nature Center with two interns, Jacqueline Smudzinski and Andrew Dixon.

    On Sunday, the interns, accompanied by Ms. Krusa and Ms. Bustamante, toured the Big Reed Pond area with a focus on the various tree species surrounding the pond. According to Ms. Krusa, herself a lifelong teacher and educator, they identified more than 15 different species, everything from sassafras to red maple. They learned quickly, even though trees in winter without their leaves, flowers, or fruit are not easy to identify.

    This column is being written on Martin Luther King Day. And like Mr. King, I, too, have a dream, although it is much less ambitious and much more local than his. I am dreaming that the town board will vote to remove Fort Pond House from the “to sell” list and lease it back to the Third House Nature Center, with whom it will serve the greatest good.

   Stony Hill Stables in Amagansett has always been a cute one, a wonderful place to start the kids riding, though when it’s come to the Hampton Classic, other South Fork barns have brought in far more ribbons.

    Now, however, that has changed: Stony Hill, whose owner is Wick Hotchkiss, and whose chief trainer for the past four years has been Aisha Ali-Duyck, can boast of five 2012 Long Island Horse Shows Association Winner’s Circle champions. They are Katarina Ammann, 9-and-under short-stirrup equitation grand champion and 13-and-under hunter grand champion (it’s the first time Stony Hill has had a double winner); Amelia Ruth, short stirrup 10-to-12 grand champion,  Caroline Cole, the mini-stirrup grand champion, and Oliver Ritter, 13, reserve jumper champion.

    “In all, Stony Hill riders won over 100 blue ribbons in 2012 and 37 championships,” said the justly-proud Ali-Duyck­ during a conversation this week at The Star.

    Asked if Hotchkiss, a well-known dressage competitor, were happy, the tall, young New York City-bred trainer smiled. “She’s very happy.”

    Ali-Duyck has a compelling story of her own, and it fits in well with the philosophy of Hotchkiss’s newly-formed Stony Hill Stables Foundation, whose goal is to avail more and more local youngsters of the joys — and responsibilities — that attend equestrian sports.

    “I’ve been riding since I was in the womb,” Ali-Duyck began, with a smile. “My mother rode with my father until she was seven months pregnant. When I was an infant, one of them would hold me on the horse and the other would take photos. It was sort of like what they do with babies in swimming pools. I was riding by myself with nothing to hold me up before I walked.”

    Her father, who, she said, grew up in a rough section of Elizabeth, N.J., had always wanted to ride, but his dream, ­because of circumstances, had to be ­deferred until he discovered in his college years the Union County-owned Watchung Stables in Mountainside, N.J.

    “He was putting himself through N.Y.U.’s Tisch School of the Arts’ film school at the time. He took my mom there on a date. She wanted them to have an activity they could do together. There are miles and miles of rolling trails, lakes, and hills on that 100-acre reservation. They cantered and galloped and fell in love with it. Riding was indeed his passion.”

    “He told the manager he’d do anything that needed doing around the stables. He read books, looked at videos . . . he’s a real genius in a lot of respects. They hired him when he was in his late 20s, and he stayed, becoming a very successful trainer.”

    “My father’s talent lies in his ability to transform young race horses who failed on the track into equestrian champions. He’s always proved people wrong who tell him his picks won’t pan out. . . . Moreover, he’s African-American . . . he’s had to overcome a lot.”

    “He’s always been my trainer. It was a family thing. I’d stay in the barn from the time it opened at 7 a.m. until it closed at 9. If it was the day of a show, I’d be up at 3 a.m. One of my favorite things has been watching him teach. He has a commanding presence. He can get a timid student and a seemingly crazy horse to perform beautifully.”

    “I was started off on a naughty horse,” Ali-Duyck continued, “and I fell off a lot, but I always got back on. I believe in the end goal, that if you’re brave you can reach your goal. . . . By the time I was 7, I was winning everything, on ponies my father had transformed or was in the process of transforming. Sometimes I was the guinea pig! Not everyone was happy. Mothers of kids I was beating who rode fancy horses said some terrible things, but my father always instilled in me that I belonged.”

    “I so enjoyed that team feeling with my father. . . . My happiest moments were when the two of us were warming up at dawn at a show, with the sun coming up and the dew on the grass. Those are the fondest memories of my childhood.”

    The sociability of riding was not limited to her father and mother (a psychology professor in New York University’s graduate school who uses dance in her work with at-risk teens in the Bronx): “I had great friendships that developed around horses. We had this whole group of girls, and some boys, including my younger brother, who also rode, that centered on the barn. There was a sense of community and teamwork.”

    “We were competitive,” Ali-Duyck said, “but in a good way. We’d always tap each other on the head before we went into the ring. For good luck, like a magic wand. We were all very close, through high school.”

    Riding “amazing ‘made’ horses” donated by wealthy alumnae at Skidmore College, where Cindy Ford was the riding coach, had been, she said, “a life-changing experience, but I wasn’t challenged academically, so I transferred to N.Y.U., where I continued to major in business on the way to becoming an event planner.”

    But riding, as had been the case with her father, ultimately (with his support) won the day.

    “It was always in the back of my head that I wanted to do dressage and teach and spend winters in Wellington [Fla.], but I knew enough about the horse world to say to myself, ‘Maybe in the next lifetime.’ ”

    “Then, in 2008 — I was a trainer at Watchung at the time — I saw Wick’s ad: Wanted, a working student to teach in the Hamptons and spend the winter in Wellington.(!)”

    “I came out and rode for Wick — that was my audition. I told her all I could offer was my loyalty and my hard work, but for Wick that was enough.  Often, working students have to buy a horse first before they’re signed on.”

    “That was the start of my career here. I began to give lessons and Wick could see I was a very strong teacher. She became my dressage trainer, and we went to Wellington, where I competed on a horse she’d borrowed from a friend and which I rode in clinics given by famous trainers. . . . Wick’s foundation has been bridging the gap between weekenders and the local kids here. There’s a great sense of community at Stony Hill, just as there was at Watchung.”

    Lara Lowlicht, the East Hampton Middle Schooler who this past year was the first recipient of a Stony Hill Stables Foundation riding scholarship, had done famously, Stony Hill’s trainer said.

    “She’s blown us all away. She knew how to ride, but she was rough around the edges. I saw she could be a champ­ion the first time I gave her a lesson. She works as hard as the hardest worker. On Shenanigans, which had been one of the school’s leadline ponies, she was the short-stirrup champion at the Saga­pon­ack Show. But on the day before the Classic — she never thought she’d ride in it — the pony injured a leg.”

    “Talk about a blow, yet Lara never complained or cried. Not even a frown.”

    “I told her I’d find her something, and I did — Dara, a school pony that hadn’t shown all summer. After an hour of jumping this horse, it was as if she’d ridden it all her life. They competed in a short-stirrup class at the Classic, a class of 29 kids, and got really great ribbons. She became one of the Classic’s poster girls.”

    “She knows,” Lara’s trainer said in parting, “that if you work hard you will succeed. She’s riding a number of the ponies who board here now. She’s turning into quite the young professional.”

    More scholarships are on the way, the young trainer said, “in dressage and jumping. We’re excited about the 2013 season. And we’ve got another ‘first.’ We’re taking five kids to Wellington to compete in the Winter Equestrian Festival this winter. . . . It’s great.”

   East Hampton High School’s boys swimming team improved its league record to 3-1 this past week with an impressive 93.5-74.5 win here over Harborfields.

    As a result of the win, the Bonackers, whose roster is deep, rose from third to second place in League II, behind undefeated Sayville.

    Harborfields, at 3-2, Hauppauge, at 3-2, West Islip, at 2-2, Deer Park, at 2-3, Huntington, at 1-4, and North Babylon, at 0-5, were as of Tuesday in East Hampton’s wake.

    In other recent action, East Hampton’s bowling team clobbered Southampton, rolling its first 1,000-point game of the season, thus putting itself in contention for the first league championship since the 2005-06 season Tuesday.

    “Thirty-three points will be up for grabs when we bowl [league-leading] Eastport-South Manor Tuesday,” East Hampton’s coach, Pat Hand, said Friday. “If we get 18 we’ll be in good shape; if we don’t, Eastport will have it locked up.”

    Also last week, East Hampton’s wrestling team almost got a win over Amityville, but having to forfeit at 120 and 126 pounds did Steve Tseperkas’s charges in. The good news is that Tseperkas expects Lucas Escobar, arguably the team’s best wrestler, who suffered a broken clavicle in a recent 120-pound match, to be back for the league championships.

    Back to swimming, Craig Brierley said that the following competitors had “standout performances” against Harborfields: Robert Anderson (who was to be named the swimmer of the meet), in the 200 individual medley; Thomas Paradiso in the 200 individual medley; Thomas Brierley in the 200 freestyle and the 100 backstroke; Shane McCann in the 50 and 100 free; Cort Heneveld in the 50 free; Alex Astilean in the 100 butterfly; Anthony McGorisk in the 100 free; Trevor Mott in the 500 free; Tyler Menold in the 100 breaststroke, and Joe Gengarelly in the 100 breast.

    With the exception of Brierley, who failed to win the 200 free for the first time this season, all of the above, including Brierley in the 100 back, turned in personal bests. Mott’s time in the 500 “was just .13 below the state cut.”

    The elder Brierley said Anderson’s performances were especially impressive considering that his grandfather (who was subsequently to die) was gravely ill. “He swam really well in all his events, though he did it with a heavy heart,” said the coach.

    Brierley added that “quite a few of the boys continue to put up best times even though they’ve been going through some heavy training.”

    Answering a question, the coach said he didn’t think the team had ever done so well. Three regular-season meets remained as of Tuesday, with West Islip, Deer Park, and North Babylon, which as of that day were in fifth, eighth, and sixth place in the eight-team league.

    As for the bowlers, while they took 31 of a possible 33 points from Southampton, Eastport on the same day was taking 29.5 from third-place Rocky Point. Going into Tuesday’s showdown, the Bonackers trailed the Sharks by 17 points.

    East Hampton jumped on the Mariners from the beginning. Jacob Grossman, who leads Pat Hand’s team with a 193.52 average, hit for 266, Gabby Green rolled a 224, Chris Duran (the team’s second-leading scorer, with a 186.52 average) had a 197, followed by Brianna Semb (175) and Jackson Clark (169). All told, then, the team tallied 1,031 in that first game, and while it slipped a bit thereafter to 793 and 800, those totals were enough to sink the second-to-last-place Mariners.

    Hand said she was not surprised by the drop-off. “I’ve seen it in the men’s league — it’s the mental part of the game.”

    Green led the team that day with a 224-569 series; Grossman had a 266-550. Mike Cenzoprano led Southampton with a 516.

    The wrestlers, as aforesaid, put up a good fight against Amityville in a battle of the winless.

    “I thought we would match up well with them,” Tseperkas said afterward, “but those forfeits, which gave them 12 points, killed us.”

    The match started at 138 pounds, went on up to 275, and then doubled around. Dallas Foglia got the Bonackers on the scoreboard with a pin at 152, and then, following two pins by Amityville wrestlers, Luciano Escobar flattened his opponent’s shoulders to the mat at 182, Alfredo Perez won 10-3 at 190, Kevin Heine (who weighs 185) won by pin at 220, Richie Browne won by pin at 275, Jonathan Hansen won by pin at 93, and Kevin Boles, who had been brought up from the junior varsity, won by pin at 112 after Haiau Duong was “teched” at 105.

    Following Boles’s match, East Hampton led 39-26, but then came the forfeits and a loss by pin at 132, enabling the visitors to prevail 44-39.

    Turning to winter track, Chris Reich, who coaches the boys indoor team, said he has hopes going into tomorrow’s freshman-sophomore meet at ­Suffolk Community College-­Brentwood. “Hopefully,” he said, “we’ll have Daniel Soto, Erik Engstrom, and Chjuvaughn Cameron finishing among the top five in the county in their events.”

    In an invitational meet this past weekend, Engstrom’s 10-minute-and-50-second time in the 3,200-meter race was a personal best. Adam Cebulski, who has missed some training because of a knee injury, ran a 5:01 in the 1,600. Cameron did a 42.23 in the 300, almost a second slower than his personal best in that event, and the 4-by-200 relay team of Jack Link, Addison Cook, Soto, and Cameron was one second off its best time, a 1:45.3.

    “The league championships are on Sunday,” said Reich, “the last meet of the season for most.”

   East Hampton High School’s basketball teams continued this past week to point toward the postseason, though the boys, with Thomas King missing because of an injury, from both games, dug themselves into a bit of a hole.

    “Two tough losses,” said the boys’ coach, Bill McKee, referring to the games with Bayport-Blue Point and Mount Sinai. East Hampton lost 74-69 to Bayport in overtime and 53-49 at Mount Sinai last Thursday.

    “I don’t want to blame the losses on Thomas’s absence,” McKee said during a conversation Friday. “In both games we had our chances. The kids stepped up . . . Rolando [Garces] started at shooting guard, Danny [McKee’s son] played the point, and Thomas Nelson played away from the basket. . . . They fought all the way.”

    “Bayport was a lot bigger than we were, but we still did a nice job on the boards. It was a tough one to lose, because the kids worked so hard. We were down 49-39 going into the fourth quarter, and came back to tie it at the end of regulation. They outscored us 13-8 in overtime.”

    “Still, I was really pleased with the way we played. Rolando had 19 points, a season-high for him. We had 20 turnovers, which wasn’t good, but most of them came in the first half. We adjusted in the second. We shot great from the foul line, 24-for-26 over all and 17-for-19 in the second half. Our foul-shooting kept us in the game.”

    “Last night,” McKee continued, “Mount Sinai’s 22-12 fourth quarter did us in. I think we were a little worn down by that point. We became a little tentative at the offensive end. Mount Sinai was bigger than us too. We didn’t shoot well. You’re not going to win if you only score 49 points.”

    McKee said he hoped that King, who had to get his upper lip stitched after having been elbowed in the recent game at Amityville, would return to action tonight at Miller Place.

    Another starter, Juan Cuevas, who took a long vacation in the Dominican Republic during and following the Christmas break, has returned here, said McKee, “though he’s got to get up to speed in his school work before he can play. I hope we’ll have him back in time for Miller Place.”

    “We’ve dug ourselves into a hole — we’re 3-4 now and in fifth place in the league — but it’s not a hole that we can’t dig ourselves out of. We need to win three of our last five games to make the playoffs.”

    Regarding the girls, Howard Wood, their coach, asked Friday how they’d fared the night before, said, “We won at Mount Sinai [46-42], but it was ugly. We’d beaten them by 19 here, so you’d think we would have been confident, but they weren’t going to roll over and play dead. It was a very, very, very difficult game. Nothing was decided until the last couple of minutes. We made so many mental mistakes. For instance, there were 20 seconds left until the half and we told the girls to take one shot. You’re supposed to wait in such a situation. You don’t want to throw it up right away, you want to wait until there are four or five seconds left so the other team doesn’t get a chance to score. . . .”

    “We had a 6-point lead near the end, and they were in a 1-and-1 situation. You don’t want to foul them then and give them a chance to score 2 points while the clock is stopped, yet we did.”

    In the final moments, he said, “We said, ‘Give the ball to Kaelyn [Ward, the senior point guard, who recently scored her 1,000th career point] and clear out.’ ”

    Lexy Jones, a post player who started, and who did well on the boards, had to come out because of a hairline wrist fracture late in the fourth quarter.

    As for the 50-47 loss at Bayport on Jan. 15, Wood said he didn’t know all that much “because Louis [O’Neal, his assistant] coached the varsity that night and I coached the jayvee” in the absence of the junior varsity’s coach, Robyn Mott.

    The jayvee, he said, was impressive that night. “They won last night too. They don’t stand on their tiptoes when they go for rebounds — they jump up in the air. They fight like champs. They’ll be good if they keep playing.”

    The varsity was 4-3 in League VI play as of Friday, tied with Bayport-Blue Point for third place, behind 6-0 John Glenn and 6-1 Shoreham-Wading River. “Two more wins and we’re in the playoffs,” Wood said.

Thursday, January 24

BOWLING, Westhampton Beach vs. East Hampton, East Hampton Bowl, 3:30 p.m.

BOYS SWIMMING, East Hampton at West Islip, 3:30 p.m.

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

Friday, January 25

GIRLS BASKETBALL, Miller Place at East Hampton, 6:15 p.m.

WINTER TRACK, East Hampton boys at freshman-sophomore meet, Suffolk Community College-Brentwood, 5 p.m.

WRESTLING, East Hampton at Rocky Point, 6 p.m.

Saturday, January 26

WRESTLING, East Hampton at Port Jefferson tournament, 7 a.m.

WINTER TRACK, East Hampton girls at league championships, 7 p.m.

Sunday, January 27

WINTER TRACK, East Hampton boys at league championships, Suffolk Community College-Brentwood, 7 p.m.

Monday, January 28

BOYS BASKETBALL, Greenport at Ross, 6:15 p.m.

Tuesday, January 29

BOWLING, East Hampton at county tournament, Sayville Lanes, 1:30 p.m.

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

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

BOYS BASKETBALL, Shoreham-Wading River at East Hampton, 6:15 p.m.

   There almost wasn’t a boys basketball game at Sag Harbor Friday night because the already-slim ranks of Bridgehampton’s Killer Bees had been pared even further by two academic ineligibilities, which had prompted the Bees’ coach, Carl Johnson, earlier in the week to forfeit a contest to Bridgehampton’s chief Class D rival, Shelter Island.

    At last Thursday’s practice, Johnson, who has played for and coached Bridgehampton teams that have won state championships — a golden era that’s ever more receding into the distance — said the two players who’d been ruled academically ineligible had rectified the failing grades, and that thus Friday’s clash in the Harbor was on.

    (Bridgehampton’s academic eligibility policy, which prohibits athletes with one failing grade from playing, is stricter than other neighboring schools’.)

    “Is the aim to punish a kid or to help him become a better student?” said Johnson. “If I’d had a junior varsity team, I would have pulled two kids up from the jayvee to replace the ones who were academically ineligible, but I don’t have that luxury. I don’t want academic requirements to be watered down, but I do think our policy is too strict. With some schools — I know, because I’ve talked to other coaches — you can’t play if you’ve got two fails, and with some it’s even three. One fail could be because of a personality conflict. Also, kids learn at different rates.”

    “We’re not going to play games with five kids anymore,” Johnson’s assistant, Joe Zucker, a well-known artist, said during a separate conversation that day. “We did that last year at Smithtown Christian and wound up with three guys playing in overtime.”

    “We had six,” Johnson recalled at that day’s practice. “Three fouled out and we finished with three kids on the court in overtime. . . . We lost.”

    Zucker, however, said he remembered one of the referees that night remarking on Bridgehampton’s grit.

    That grit also was in evidence at Pierson’s packed Spirit Night gym Friday. The Whalers’ bench was full to the brimming, whereas two 5-foot-5-inch Bees sat with Johnson and Zucker on Bridgehampton’s.

    Later, following the 58-44 loss, Johnson said he and Zucker couldn’t have been prouder of the way their charges (all seven of whom saw action) had played.

    It was a battle royal, played from start to finish at a feverish pace amid a din, though the ejection of Bridgehampton’s strong freshman inside man and the team’s second-leading scorer, Josh Lamison, in the final minutes of the second quarter, eviscerated the Bees.

    “We’ve been talking about character all week,” said Johnson. “When things don’t go your way, you can either feel sorry for yourself or come out fighting. It’s easy to give up. I’m so proud of them because they didn’t give up.”

    Asked if he thought Lamison’s ejection had been “just,” the coach said, “No. They [Lamison and Pierson’s Jake Bennett] became entwined. They were hooked together, arm in arm. The ref [who said Lamison had slammed Bennett to the floor] saw the retaliation, not the initial contact.”

    Thirty-nine personal fouls were called that night, four technicals among them.

    A putback of Jason Hopson’s missed 3-pointer that followed a 3 by Tylik Furman enabled the Bees to pull to 25-22 near the end of the second quarter, but the Whalers put the game away in the third as Forrest Loesch, a relentlessly hard-charging forward who was to finish with a game-high 25 points, led the way. A reverse fast-break layup by Loesch in the period’s final minutes treated the Whalers to a 10-point lead.

    Entering the fourth, the home team led 47-31, and the band played on.

    “It was a battle,” Dan White, Pierson’s coach, said in the aftermath. “I’m very proud of our guys. Four years ago [on his arrival here] I didn’t know a thing about the Pierson-Bridgehampton rivalry. It’s always a battle with them . . . the gym was packed. This makes us 6-0 now. Our first goal, which I think is realistic, is to win our league. We were second last year. Then our goal is to go deep into the playoffs.”

    Of Loesch, who repeatedly bulled his way to the hoop through traffic, sending bodies flying, White said, “He’s sometimes a little out of control, but,” he said with an appreciative smile, “he’s a competitor.”

    Jason Hopson led Bridgehampton with 17 points.

    Bridgehampton made only eight of its 26 free throws. Had the Bees shot 70 percent — said to be a reasonable expectation — from the line, they would have been right there.

   The East Hampton High School boys swimming team knocked Hauppauge out of a first-place tie with Sayville-Bayport by defeating the Eagles 95-75 at the Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter on Jan. 9, thus improving to 2-1 in league competition and dropping Hauppauge (3-1) into a second-place tie with Harborfields.

    The meet was swum before a full house. “Going into the last event, the 400-yard freestyle relay,” said East Hampton’s coach, Craig Brierley, “the top of the roof was coming off. The meet was decided by then, but the crowd didn’t know it.”

    “Alex Astilean led off for us with a 1:03, their guy did a 55.5. Rob Rewinski made up two seconds, turning in a 51.9 to their 54.3. They were ahead at that point by six seconds. Trevor Mott’s 51.4 — their guy did a 54.9 — brought us to within two, leaving it up to Thomas [Brierley, Craig Brierley’s son] and their anchor guy, Nicholas Lauritano. They came off the third wall together, and Thomas, who did a 50.1, pulled away in the last lap, and we wound up beating them 3:36.72 to 3:38.63. Everybody in the place was screaming. The parents were on their feet, the Hurricanes, their team. . . . It’s a testimony to how far our program has come. It was awesome, I was really pleased.”

    Hauppauge’s best swimmer, Justin Plaschka, who’s been to the states, won the 200 freestyle and the 100 backstroke, but the 200 freestyle relay team he anchored finished second — a very close second — to East Hampton’s, which comprised Rewinski, Thomas Paradiso, Astilean, and Shane McCann. East Hampton’s time in that event was 139.26; Hauppauge’s 1:39.48.

    At the intermission (time that would have been devoted to diving at UpIsland schools), East Hampton nursed a 6-point lead, having won the 200 medley relay (with Brierley, Mott, Christopher Kalbacher, and McCann), the 200 individual medley (Brierley) and the 50 free (McCann), and having placed second in the 200 free (Mott) and the 50 free (Rewinski).

    Astilean (second), Kyle Sturmann (third), and Kalbacher (fourth) got points for East Hampton in the 100 butterfly, which was won by Hauppauge’s Travis Maida. And Rewinski (third), Robert Anderson (fourth), and Anthony McGorisk (fifth) won points for the Bonackers in the 100 free, which was won by Lauritano.

    Brierley ran away with the 500 free in 5:02.61. The runner-up, Troy Maida, finished in 5:30.99. Brierley’s teammates Andrew Winthrop and Nick Pucci placed third and fourth in that long-distance test.

    Plaschka, as aforesaid, won the 100 back, though McGorisk was the runner-up, and Christian Brierley, Thomas’s younger brother, was fourth.

    Although Trevor Maida won the 100 breaststroke, and thus won 6 points for the visitors, East Hampton’s Mott (4), Joe Gengarelly (3), and Tyler Menold (2) totaled 9 given their second, third, and fourth-place finishes.

    Though Plaschka was the fastest swimmer that day, he was limited to two individual events, enabling Brierley to make better strategic use of his older son and Mott. The coach added that McCann’s 24.01 in the 50 was a personal best, as was McGorisk’s 1:02.31 in the 100 backstroke. “He took two seconds off his best time that day — he’s been dropping his time every time out.”

    “Guys have been stepping up, and we’re not even into the competitive phase of our training yet. . . . We swam 2,000 yards before the meet even began. Everybody’s at or above their projected potential. Our goal, of course, is the leagues and the countys. We’ll taper for two or three weeks leading up to the county meet. Our yardage will drop, but the quality will be heightened. We’ll be swimming at race pace with a lot of rest, focusing on the details.”

    The team’s five captains, Thomas Brierley, Mott, Winthrop, Sergio Betancur, and Christian Figueroa, of Bridgehampton, named Rewinski as the swimmer of the meet. He took third in the 100 free, second in the 50 free, and was a member of the winning 200 and 400 freestyle relay teams.

    “He’s been having some soreness in his triceps muscle,” the coach said in an e-mail, “and even though he went for a treatment right before the meet, and wasn’t 100 percent, in his opinion, he said he felt good enough to swim. That willingness to swim so that his teammates wouldn’t be let down was what earned him the captains’ accolades.”