Having enjoyed a fine fall sportswise, with the boys soccer and boys and girls volleyball teams playing for county championships — and with soccer winning it all, for the second year in a row — Joe Vas, the East Hampton school district’s athletic director, expects a rather cheery, if cold, winter.

    Numberswise, boys swimming, now coached by Craig Brierley — Jeff Thompson stepped down last spring after becoming a father — stands out, inasmuch as there are at the moment 33 on the roster — 4 seniors, 12 juniors, 9 sophomores, 5 freshmen, and 3 eighth graders.

    Two extremely versatile juniors, Thomas Brierley and Trevor Mott, undoubtedly will lead the way, though in a post-season interview last March Thompson also singled out the contributions made by Rob Rewinski, Kyle Sturmann, Robert Anderson III, Tyler Menold, Shane McCann, Andrew Winthrop, Chris Kalbacher, Thomas Paradiso, and Baxter Parcher, all of whom are returnees.

    The numbers are also good at the junior varsity level of girls basketball. Robyn Mott has 20 on the jayvee squad, a sign that that program, headed by Howard Wood and Louis O’Neal, is becoming stronger.

    Wood and O’Neal’s task, as it has been in the past few years, will be to spread the scoring out so that Kaelyn Ward, the team’s star, and a senior now, won’t have to try to do it all.

    Boys basketball, with four players returning who saw significant action last year, namely Thomas King, Danny Mc­Kee, Thomas Nelson, and Juan Cuevas, ought to be fun to watch. “We finished at 6-6 in the league and qualified for the playoffs last year,” said the head coach, Bill McKee. “We average around 6-1 or 6-2. We don’t have anyone who’s 6-6, but all our guys can rebound.”    

    As for the league, “It ought to be competitive — the other teams all have most of their kids coming back. We’re young, but I look for us to be competitive.”    

    Other returnees include Andre Cherrington, a tough senior inside player who sustained a deep thigh bruise in the football team’s final game, sidelining him for the moment; Rolando Garces, a senior guard, and Joey Sandoval, a junior guard.

    Up from the jayvee are Brandon Hughes, David Moss, Jack Ryan, and Nikko Bachelor, all junior forwards. Charles Barranco, a junior center, is, said McKee, a first-timer.

    The team was to have scrimmaged Tuesday at Center Moriches, and will be home tomorrow, at 6 p.m., to Eastport-South Manor, a nonleague opponent.

    “Last year, we relied a lot on Thomas King, and he came through, but we’re expecting other kids to make contributions  this year too. We’ll play the same up-tempo style, scoring in transition when we can. We should be all right.”

    The McKees pretty much have basketball covered here: Joey McKee is returning as the boys jayvee coach, and Kelly McKee, who formerly coached at the Ross School, is coaching the sport with Steve Redlus at the East Hampton Middle School.

    The bowling team, a coed group coached by Pat Hand, was the first Bonac team to get a taste of league competition, on Tuesday at Westhampton.

    There are seven boys on the roster and six girls — a ‘first’ here. Hand said she expected Jacob Grossman, the sophomore son of Ian and Dot Grossman, each of whom recently bowled perfect games at the East Hampton Bowl, which he manages, to lead the team. “He’s got a 190 average,” she said, “but he hasn’t bowled in any matches yet.”

    Hand said she also expects Jackson Clark, a junior, and Gaby Green, a senior, to be solid scorers. “Eastport-South Manor will be the strongest team in our league, though other than that we should be in the mix,” the coach said.

    The only winter sport to see a drop-off in numbers — a slight one — has been wrestling. “Steve Tseperkas and Lou Russo have 18 on the squad, but the kids they have are working hard,” said Vas.

    That team’s first outing will be at the Frank (Sprig) Gardner invitational tournament here on Dec. 8.

    Before parting, the athletic director said that the Hall of Fame committee is accepting nominations for the 2013 Class. Applications, he said, can either be obtained at the high school or online through the school’s Web site, ehufsd.org, “by going to links and hitting ‘athletics.’ It’s all there.”

    Moreover, he said that the East Hampton Coaches Association had recently donated $10,000 to go toward the purchase of 10 trophy and memorabilia display cases that are to run the length of a 50-foot wall opposite his office between the gymnasium doors.

    “We hope to have them up by Christmas,” he said.

Boys Soccer

    Rich King, coach of the county-champion East Hampton High School boys soccer team, said this week that J.C. Barrientos and Donte Donegal had been named to the all-county team, and that Barrientos, a senior, was the most valuable player in League VI.

    Moreover, Denis Espana and Nick West were named to the all-conference team, and Nick Tulp and Alex Serna made all-league. Christian Calle was named to the all-county academic team.

    Barrientos was one of Suf­folk’s midfielders in Saturday’s Nassau-Suffolk senior all-star game, a game that Suffolk won 6-0.

Volleyballers

    Josh Brussell, coach of the high school’s boys volleyball team, said this week that Thomas King and L.B. Lownes had been named to the all-county team, and that King was “up for county m.v.p.” King, Lownes, and Evan Larsen were named to Division II’s all-tournament team. In addition, Larsen, Henry Whitney, and Brady Yusko — the league’s rookie of the year — were all-league. Matthew Lownes was all-league honorable mention.

National Champ

    Vince Horcasitas, a real estate agent with the Saunders agency, recently teamed with Oren Motevassel of Mission Hills, Calif., to win the national 45 men’s indoor tennis doubles championship in Park City, Utah.

    Seeded third, the pair had a bye in the first round, defeated Carl R. Clark of Richmond, Va., and Carlos Garcia of Chattanooga, Tenn., 6-4, 7-5 in the quarterfinals, and two Texans, Kelly Ward and Scott Works, in the semis before defeating two Californians, Craig S. Johnson of Trabuco Canyon and Eugene K. Kim of Coto de Caza 6-3, 1-6, 7-6 (9-7) in the final.

    Horcasitas said that in the final he and Motevassel trailed 0-3 in the first set before coming back to win it, and that they had come back from 4-6 in the third set tiebreaker.

Comeback Kids

    Kevin Reynolds, who helped Mark McKee coach the Springs School’s girls tennis team this fall, has reported that the team, which went 1-6 last year, finished this season at 5-2-1. The eighth graders were Kasey Brabant, Ruby Talmage, Michelle Nguyen, Phoebe Hines, Diana Aguilar, Emily Driver, Alex Vecchio, and Hannah Rosario. The seventh graders were Lila Edwards, Maddy Schenck, and Tali Friedman.

Friday, November 30

BOYS BASKETBALL, Pierson at Hampton Bays, scrimmage, 4 p.m., and Eastport-South Manor at East Hampton, nonleague, 6.

GIRLS BASKETBALL, Pierson-Bridgehampton at Westhampton Beach, nonleague, 5:45 p.m.

Saturday, December 1

GIRLS BASKETBALL, Westhampton Beach at East Hampton, nonleague, 2 p.m.

BOYS BASKETBALL, Bridgehampton at Port Jefferson, scrimmage, 10 a.m., and Bayport-Blue Point at Ross, nonleague, 5.

SOCCER, 7-on-7 futsal finals, women’s, 8 p.m., 38-plus men’s, 9, and men’s open, 10, Sportime Arena, Amagansett.

Monday, December 3

BOYS BASKETBALL, Pierson at Center Moriches, scrimmage, 5:30 p.m.

GIRLS BASKETBALL, McGann-Mercy at Pierson, nonleague, 6:15 p.m.

MEN’S SOCCER, 7-on-7 league final, Herrick Park, East Hampton, 6:30 p.m.

Tuesday, December 4

BOWLING, East Hampton at Southold, 4 p.m.

GIRLS BASKETBALL, Ross at Bellport, scrimmage, 4 p.m.

BOYS BASKETBALL, Ross at Hampton Bays, nonleague, 4 p.m.; Westhampton at East Hampton, nonleague, and Stony Brook at Bridgehampton,  6.

Wednesday, December 5

BOYS BASKETBALL, Pierson at Shoreham-Wading River, nonleague, 4 p.m.

   It’s wait until next year for the East Hampton High School boys soccer team, which, while playing tenaciously, lost 2-0 to Jericho in the Long Island championship game at Dowling College on Nov. 14.

    Jericho was the pretty much the same type of team as Eastport-South Manor, East Hampton’s semifinal opponent — tall, fast, and well-organized. And, it should be added, very strong in the defensive end.

    “Every time we had the ball down there,” said Don McGovern, who assists Rich King in coaching the Bonackers, “they had six or seven guys in front of the ball.”

    Two lightning strikes by the Jayhawks in the first half — the first, by Harrison Reiber, in the 13th minute, following an East Hampton corner kick, and the second in the 39th, by Zach Cohen, following a takeaway and a couple of long passes, the second of which prompted the goalie, Nick Tulp, to come out too far — served to do East Hampton in.

    And yet the Bonackers, who have generally played stronger second halves this season, and who have frequently come from behind to win, did not give up.

    “It would have been easy for them to cash it in,” King said afterward in talking with reporters, “but they played much better in the second half — they made a strong effort to get back in it. I’m proud of them.”

    Nassau County coaches in the stands were reported to have said they hadn’t seen Jericho — which had 15 seniors on its roster — play a better game all season.

    King, himself, said, “I don’t think there are many teams in the state capable of playing with them. With all their seniors, they were able to keep subbing in without any falloff in their play, and, of course, they were the defending state champs — they’d had a taste of it. . . . They’re a defensive-oriented team. I don’t think they’ve given up more than a handful of goals all year.”

    Interestingly, King and Jericho’s coach, Dani Braga, had played on the same team in Nassau County in their mid-teens. “He’s a great guy,” King said. “When you lose a game to a quality guy like that you shake his hand. We played them in a nonleaguer this year, and we hope to continue that.”

    That nonleaguer wound up in a 1-1 tie, though Jericho was demonstrably the better team on the 14th, keeping the ball away from the Bonackers as they moved in groups of three or four, often playing the ball back, as they moved methodically up the field before launching long passes onto the feet of their widely-spaced fleet forwards.

    Defensively, they picked everything off before Bonac’s attackers could avail themselves of an unimpeded shot on goal. It didn’t hurt too that the Jayhawks’ goalie, Ari Lewis, was 6-2 or 6-3. He loomed large whenever East Hampton was presented with a corner kick. There were four such in the first half, all parried.

    Esteban Valverde had several chances in that first frame, but the shots were taken from outside the goal area. With 10 minutes to go until the break, East Hampton was awarded a free kick from the 25. Nick West, who took it, and who faced a “wall” of defenders, dished off to Valverde, but his shot went wide left.

    “Their counters are great,” East Hampton’s athletic director, Joe Vas, said during halftime. “They’re letting us come in and picking everything off.”

    The Bonackers attacked relentlessly throughout the second half, but never were able to free themselves up enough to put a really serious foot on the ball. West, on two occasions, and J.C. Barrientos and Denis Espana all had shots deflected going down the stretch.

    And so, East Hampton, which can take pride in the fact that it’s won two Suffolk County championships in a row, must wait a bit longer to win a Long Island championship. (Jericho beat the Bonackers in this same game last year.)

    King said afterward that he had no doubt an Islandwide championship, as well as a state championship, would come.

    “These are our goals — and they’re not coach-driven, they’re the kids’ goals,” he said.

    “We only had four seniors on this team [Barrientos, Alex Serna, Bryan Ordonez, and Christian Calle].  We’ll be around for a while.”

   When this writer recalled that John Conner ran the Fifth Avenue Mile in 4 minutes and 40 seconds at the age of 50, he was corrected by the interviewee: “Four-forty point one.”

    That’s by way of saying that runners remember their times, and Conner, who’s bearing down on his 78th birthday come February, and who has professed the desire to live to 200, has many exceedingly good times — including three world records and nine national championships — to remember.

    One of the best age-group milers and half-milers in the world in his 50s and 60s, his running career, abetted by credit card air miles that once totaled one million, was cut short about 11 years ago when a truck struck him from behind as he was cycling in East Hampton Village.

    Undaunted by a shattered hip, which was put back together with screws and flanges by one of the country’s best orthopedic surgeons, he became a top age-group triathlete, and though he now walks with a cane, he continues to walk, swim, and bike — early in the mornings before the sun comes up.

    In 1990, at the age of 55, he set world records for 55-to-59-year-old runners in the 800 (2:10.62) and mile (4:53.3) races — times that most high school runners would envy — and followed up in 1995 with a world record in the 1,500.

    For the past five years, Conner, a retired general contractor who built affordable houses here for many East Hampton families, and who, before that, was the director of Head Start, and who, before that, was an artist, winning “best in show” at Guild Hall in 1962, has been coaching a group of serious runners, young and old, at East Hampton High School’s track.

    Under his watchful eye, and as the result of his methodical workouts designed to strengthen hearts and lungs and muscles, all have improved their times, whether they’re 16 or 64, whether their race is the marathon or the mile.

    “Glenn Cunningham, a great miler of the ’40s, once said,” said Conner, with a meaningful smile, “ ‘Running is you against yourself . . . the cruelest of competitors.’ ”

    “In other words, you can take yourself to the limit and then you can go further! Running is a struggle, it’s the Agon — that’s the Greek word for it. All the speed work, all the cardiovascular work, comes down to this: You want to get into as much stress as you can handle and then equalize things so you have enough oxygen to remove the lactic acid — which is what makes you tired — and thus continue running at a high level. If you’re in shape, you can, in the shorter distances, continue at your pace despite oxygen debt.”

    “What’s oxygen debt?” He rose from his chair to explain. “It’s what they call the bear grabbing you. It’s when lactic acid takes over. You’re 50 yards away from the finish line and you’re freezing up. All of a sudden, you can hardly lift your knees anymore and your head lolls back and you’re gasping for air. That’s oxygen debt.”

    When asked if he’d been a world champion, Conner replied, “No, I was never a world champion — I was a world record holder. There’s a difference. It’s much harder to win a world championship. At a world championship [he’s contended in them in Finland, Australia, Italy, and Canada] you’ve got eight great, great, great fucking runners on the line and all of them have a plan, which to beat you! It’s a horse race.”

    The last national championships he’d won had been in 1995 in Reno, Nev. “I won the 800 and the 1,500 there. Cliff Pauling, my nemesis — we battled each other for 15 years — would beat me in the 400, I’d beat him in the mile, and the 800 was always a tossup — wouldn’t line up against me in the 800 that time. . . . To win the 800, you need speed, stamina, you can’t make a mistake, and you need a little luck.”

    “To make a runner,” Conner continued, “takes five years, sometimes longer. I tell the kids who come to my workouts that I’m not out to make them faster, I’m out to make them stronger. . . . When the heart is ‘juicier,’ it can pump 20 quarts of blood rather than 12; new capillaries are opening up when you exercise, you’re bringing more ‘gas,’ more glucose and oxygen to the muscles. . . .”

    And then, he said, there was the spiritual side (the Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, what you will). “Before Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile in 1954, everyone was saying it never could be done, that it would take too much energy, create too much lactic acid, and that the body couldn’t do it. Bannister was a wonderful scientist. He knew he could do three laps in three minutes and he told himself not to think about the fourth. In that fourth lap he was beyond the physical, in a different realm. That’s where the theory of oxygen debt and the ability to perform at a high level despite it came from.”

    “There’s a saying, ‘The body will remember.’ I remember it from my high school days at Delbarton. My coach was a Benedictine monk. He told me that if I got into good shape I could do more. . . . The body yearns for exercise. It’s amazing what it can do. I’ve tried to get the kids to become their own GPS, to know what it is to run at a six-minute-per-mile pace, to hold their form, and then, when they’re heading toward the line to take on an attitude, to say to themselves as someone’s coming up on their shoulder, ‘Who’s this intruder?!’ And then to run through the line. You gotta win the struggle against yourself, you gotta beat the Agon!”

   The Lt. Joseph J. Theinert 3-on-3 Basketball Tournament will be played at 1 p.m. on Saturday at the Shelter Island School to benefit the Lt. Joseph J. Theinert Memorial Fund, which supports programs for military families and veterans in need.

    Lieutenant Theinert, who grew up in Sag Harbor and on Shelter Island, once played the sport at the Shelter Island School, wearing the number 15 jersey, which was retired last year. He was killed in action in Afghanistan on June 4, 2010.

    Jimbo Theinert, one of his brothers, said last Thursday that the fund-raiser is “lighthearted and fun, as was Joe.” Held on Thanksgiving weekend, as it has been for the past three years, it brings people back for a positive experience, he said.

    And then there’s the competition. This year, Jimbo Theinert, who is now a teacher at the school, said he had recruited two top freshmen and brought back key players to his team, the Wrenches. He is its co-captain with John Goodleaf, who he said came up with the nickname Joe the Wrench for Lieutenant Theinert.

    The lieutenant’s high school coach, Mike Mundy, said he remembered his outstanding work ethic. “He was tenacious in everything he did . . . he never gave up, even if we were down by 20.” He recalled that Lieutenant Theinert’s last game at the school was his best.

    Tournament teams consist of three to seven players, and each must include at least one female and one student from any high school.

    Kelsey McGayhey, who was an all-county basketball player at the Shelter Island School last year, scoring more than 1,000 points in her career and having her jersey retired, has offered her services, though it has yet to be announced what lucky team will get her.

    “It is important to keep members on the same team from year to year,” Jimbo Theinert said, as it adds to the rivalry. Lieutenant Theinert’s family is split up among a few teams, he said, with his stepfather, Col. Frank Kestler, who has just returned from Afghanistan, playing on a team with his stepbrothers and stepsister. His brother Billy is on another team with some of Lieutenant Theinert’s close friends.

    Jimbo Theinert is getting younger kids from Shelter Island involved too. He said the tournament is one of the better events “for them to get to know Joe’s friends and family in a less serious light.”

    Some of the lieutenant’s friends whom he went to college with in Albany will also play, as will Dustin Mulcahy of Shelter Island, who is serving in the Army and stationed at Fort Drum, where Lieutenant Theinert also spent time.

    Carla Cadzin, a co-founder and organizer of the tournament, said there is a team from Greenport to look out for, and another called Jameson All Around Every Round, named in remembrance of the lieutenant.

    For some players, fashion takes precedence over skills — pink tutus are expected to be worn by a team called Pink Warrior Ninjas.

    New this year is the ability to play from anywhere in the world. The I Played for Joey part of the tourney offers participation and the chance to donate online.

    In addition to the basketball action, there will be snacks and a raffle contest, with prizes including gift certificates to Sweet Tomato’s on Shelter Island and the Wolffer Estate Vineyard in Sagaponack. Airbrushed tattoos will be offered in return for donations to the cause, as will memorial T-shirts, locally designed and printed this year by Cat Brigham of Shelter Island Clothing Company.

    Holding the tournament around the holiday season gives family and friends a new tradition during a time that can be hard for many people. “The event is about Joe,” said Jimbo Theinert, “the early years, the fun memories, the simple things in life. . . . He is a large part of it in a very positive way.”

   This past weekend marked the third time that East Hampton High’s Marina Preiss, a junior, has competed in the New York State championship girls swimming meet.

    Preiss, who first swam at the state level as an eighth grader, and who went up last year as well, did herself proud, placing fifth in the 50-yard freestyle in a personal best time of 24.42 seconds, and ninth in the 100 free — usually her stronger race — in 52.90.

    Her mother, Meg, who is Marina’s coach in the off-season, said, “She would have had a ‘p.r.’ in the 100 too except for the fact that at the midway point in the final she flipped too soon and got no push off the wall.”

    Marina had tied for 12th in the preliminary 50 heat, in which Catholic and private school swimmers vied with swimmers from public high schools. Spared a swim-off to break that tie — an extra race she was just as happy not to contest — she was told if she won Saturday’s B final, she’d be scored as if she had swum in the A final, which included two girls from Catholic schools.

    “That served as a great motivator,” said Marina’s mother.

    Marina peaked at the right time, Meg Preiss added. “Going into the state meet, her winning times in the county 50 and 100 races were the best she’d done this season.”

    “It was an amazing performance,” said East Hampton’s coach, John McGeehan, especially considering the fact that public high school state swim meets are open ones, not subdivided, as in soccer, track, volleyball, and the like, into enrollment classifications.

    Preiss’s next goal, said her mother, will be to qualify for the U.S. Swimming junior nationals. The qualifying time for the 50 is 23.0; it’s 51.0 in the 100.

    The junior nationals will be held in March, “in Florida,” said Meg Preiss. “There will be a sectional meet in Buffalo either in late February or early March. . . . She plans to swim in college. We’re not sure just where yet.”

Thursday, November 22

RUNNING,  3 and 6-mile Turkey Trots around Fort Pond, The Circle, Montauk, 10 and 10:10 a.m., registration, 8-9:30.

Saturday, November 24

RUNNING, Old Whalers 5K, benefit Old Whalers Community House Fund, West Water Street, Sag Harbor, 8:30 a.m., registration from 7.

BOYS BASKETBALL, scrimmages, Pierson at Mattituck and Bridgehampton at Center Moriches, 10 a.m.

GIRLS BASKETBALL, Pierson-Bridgehampton at Miller Place, scrimmage, 11 a.m.

Monday, November 26

MEN’S SOCCER, 7-on-7 league, Espo’s vs. Tortorella Pools, 6:30 p.m., Bateman Painting vs. Maidstone Market, 7:25, and 75 Main vs. F.C. Tuxpan, 8:20, Herrick Park, East Hampton.

Tuesday, November 27

BOWLING, East Hampton at Westhampton, 4 p.m.

GIRLS BASKETBALL, scrimmages, Hampton Bays at East Hampton, 4 p.m., and Half Hollow Hills West at Pierson, 6:15.

BOYS BASKETBALL, scrimmages, Ross at Port Jefferson, 4:30 p.m., and East Hampton at Center Moriches, 6 p.m.

   Goals by Nick West 6 minutes and 13 seconds into the game and with 10 minutes and 24 seconds left to play earned the East Hampton High School boys soccer team the county Class A championship at Dowling College’s Brook­haven campus Monday, by a 2-1 score over Elwood-John Glenn.

    It was the second year in a row that the Bonackers have won the county title, and the third time in four years that they’ve contested it. The exciting win set up a rematch with Jericho for the Long Island championship yesterday, also at Dowling.

    West was switched by Bonac’s coach, Rich King, from right wing to forward in the second half of Saturday’s semifinal here with Eastport-South Manor, a move that resulted in a game-winning goal by his sophomore phenom, and he continued to play forward Monday.

    After his early goal, a well-placed ground-hugger from the top of the box that wound up in the left corner of Glenn’s net, it seemed East Hampton would continue on in the same fashion, but Glenn, which tied the Bonackers 1-1 and lost to them 2-0 during the regular season, proved to be tenacious, especially the senior forward, Adan Cruz-Velasquez, who was arguably the fastest player on the field.

    The Knights tied it up on a goal by Christian Molina, a recent call-up from Glenn’s junior varsity, in the 24th minute. “It was a broken play,” Glenn’s coach, Lou Hanner, said later, “and the ball wound up on Christian’s foot. He shot it on the ground to the far post from about 10 yards out. It was his first varsity goal.”

    With Molina’s score the battle was joined. In the minutes leading up to the half, the Knights put a lot of pressure on Bonac’s defenders, though they, and East Hampton’s fine sophomore goalie, Nick Tulp, were up to the task.

    During the halftime break, King and his assistant, Don McGovern, urged their charges, who went against the wind in the second frame, to play their game, which features crisp passes on the turf and relentless attacks.

    “We regained our focus in the second half and returned to our constantly attacking style, which paid off,” King was to tell sportswriters afterward.

    Cruz-Velasquez pounded a shot just over the crossbar in the opening minutes of the second half, though the Bonackers were to have the best of it thereafter, frequently playing the ball either to Esteban Valverde, Donte Donegal, or J.C. Barrientos in the corners, hoping the skirmishes with Glenn defenders would result in a corner kick by West.

    Meanwhile, Barrientos was everywhere, thwarting Glenn’s forward progress repeatedly and initiating East Hampton attacks. Later, King said his senior center midfielder, Bonac’s best all-around player, had been “on fire.”

    And yet, in the 63rd minute, Cruz-Velasquez loomed large again, eluding his defender and breaking in on the goal one-on-one. Only a great sliding save by Tulp averted disaster.

    Then, in the 70th minute, East Hampton did it. Valverde dashed with the ball down into the right corner. Marked closely, he tapped it to Barrientos, and Barrientos’s centering pass found West, who easily beat Glenn’s goalie, Max Karen, to the left corner as Bonac’s players and fans cheered.

    At that point, King moved West, who has mainly played right wing this fall, into the back in order to bolster the defense. East Hampton hung tough for the remaining 10 minutes even with only two strikers.

    King, when asked by Newsday’s reporter about West, said, “I couldn’t ask for more from this kid. He busts his butt in practices and in the games. I’ll hold off on the superlatives because he’s only a sophomore and I’m sure there are many more wonderful things to come. He plays much larger than his age.”

    As for Barrientos, the coach said, “J.C. was on fire. He was all over the field, going up for airballs, distributing the ball . . . it’s the third time he’s played in a county final.”

    “J.C.’s one of the best players in the county,” said West. “When he has the ball I’m more confident, and I try to move to where he can find me.”

    “I love playing forward!” added West, whose older brother, Brandon, the goalie at top-ranked Messiah College and about to play in Division III’s Sweet 16, was in the crowd.

   To return to the Suffolk County Class A boys soccer final, East Hampton High’s team underwent two severe tests, battle royals with Miller Place, in the first round here Friday, a game that East Hampton won 1-0, and with Eastport-South Manor, in the semis here Saturday, a game the Bonackers came from behind to win 3-2.

    The Panthers and the Sharks were tall, bruising teams, but the Bonackers, who have been well coached by Rich King and Don McGovern, are just as tenacious in contesting 50-50 balls as they are skilled in ball-handling and passing.

    Monday’s championship game with Elwood-John Glenn at Dowling College marked the third time in the past four years that East Hampton, the defending champion, has played in a county final. East Hampton has also been the league champion in three of the past four years.

    Nick Tulp, the sophomore goalie, made four great saves in the first half of Friday’s game to keep East Hampton, which has characteristically played stronger second halves this season, in contention. A free kick just before the horn sounded by sophomore midfielder Nick West (about whom more later) from 20 yards out, which was saved by Miller Place’s goalie, proved to be East Hampton’s best chance in the opening period.

    Going with the wind, and with the sun to their backs, the Bonackers picked up the pace in the second frame, though Tulp remained active.

    In the 48th minute, Donte Donegal headed a corner kick just wide of the right post. In the 53rd, the Panthers’ keeper came out to swat away another corner kick by West, and, in the 57th minute, Donegal just missed getting to two successive passes across the goal mouth from Esteban Valverde.

    A hard ground-hugging shot by J.C. Barrientos zipped just wide left in the 56th minute, and, in the 68th, an acutely-angled rocket by Donegal was parried at the near post. Donegal put another one off the near post in the 76th — with four minutes remaining in regulation — and then, in the 78th minute, East Hampton’s relentless attackers finally got on the board, the result of a short pass from Barrientos to Bryan Ordonez, his fellow midfielder, who, rather than pull the trigger, lifted a soft shot high into the left corner of Miller Place’s nets. It was, Ordonez said amid the exulting afterward, his first goal of the season. It couldn’t have come at a better time.

    There was still a minute and a half to play. Miller Place’s coach brought everybody up, including the goalie, who stood near the midfield mark, though long clears by Barrientos and Nick Quiroz ran the clock out.

    Ordonez, a senior, sat on the bench for the first half of the season, but has stepped up his play as the fall has gone along, as has also been the case with a number of others, including Quiroz, Jonathan Chunchi, Christian Calle, and Juan Patino. There are only four seniors on this team: Barrientos, Calle, Ordonez, and Alex Serna.

    On Saturday, East Hampton was matched against Eastport-South Manor, on whose roster are 12 seniors. It was more of the same, only more so. The senior-heavy, third-seeded Sharks were well organized, moving onto the ball in threatening fashion whenever they could, and they were definitely motivated, having come off a double-overtime 2-1 win the day before over Shoreham-Wading River.

    East Hampton scored first, however, as, in the 36th minute, Serna, one of three staunch Bonac defenders (Denis Espana and Alvaro Aguilar being the others) alertly headed in the rebound of West’s free kick from the 20 that had bounced down from the crossbar and up into the air.

    Eastport-South Manor came on strong in the second half. “Their seniors were facing the possibility that it might be the last 40 minutes of soccer they were to play for the school,” King said afterward by way of explanation.

    Espana, fronting Tulp, made a sliding save of what would have otherwise been a goal four minutes into the second half, but lightning struck in the form of two Eastport headers resulting from long throw-ins in the 47th and 49th minutes. Cody Kull, a senior defender, set up both scores, the first by Matthew Hayes, the second by Daniel Cheeseman, by lofting the ball from 20 to 30 yards out into the goal mouth.

    Those goals fired up the visitors and their fans, and set the Bonackers back on their heels for moment — but for just a moment. Soon they were back to battling. In the 53rd minute, Michael Flynn tripped Donegal at the 35, presenting West with a free kick, which sailed just wide to the left of the left post. Tulp came up with a big save a minute later, following a free kick awarded Eastport-South Manor, Cheeseman sailing by him into the nets as he gathered the ball in.

    Tulp came up big again in the 61st minute, punching a shot off the right post. In the 63rd minute, a hands call on an Eastport defender amid a feeding frenzy in the penalty box presented East Hampton with a chance to tie the score, and West, who took the shot, was not found wanting, easily putting a ground-hugger by the visitors’ keeper, Ryan Flaherty, into the left corner.

    Barrientos had to come off in the 68th minute, following a collision near Eastport’s goal, but, to everyone’s relief, re-entered the game six minutes later, just before the winning play, which began with Serna’s chip up the right side to Donegal, whose subsequent cross West, who had just been switched by his coaches from the right to the left side of the field, neatly buried.

    The Bonackers held the hard-charging visitors off in the final minutes for the heady and hard-won win. Afterward, King said, “Our backs were against the wall, but we responded resiliently, with heart and intensity. For a young team to do that . . . it was a solid group effort. I’m so proud of them. Though we’re not done yet. We want to win the county, Long Island, and state championships.”