Ed Petrie, the state’s winningest public high school boys basketball coach, who on Sept. 22 became an inaugural member of East Hampton High School’s Hall of Fame, was among four honorees inducted into the Westchester Sports Hall of Fame on Oct. 10.

    An article that appeared in The Journal News said the legendary coach “developed [his] winning ways and a desire to coach in Westchester County, where he grew up and displayed great talent as a baseball and basketball player. . . . At F.E. Bellows [now Rye Neck High School] in the 1950s, Petrie played shortstop on the baseball team, beginning as a ninth grader, and was a standout guard, also beginning as a ninth grader, on the basketball team coached by Jack Hasley,” whose example inspired Petrie to become a physical education teacher and coach.

    Petrie is to be inducted into Rye Neck’s Hall of Fame in December.

More MightyMan

    Aside from Thomas Brierley, the 16-year-old East Hamptoner who was the runner-up in the recent MightyMan Sprint triathlon in Montauk, the following locals did well in that race: Craig Brierley, Thomas’s father, 47, who placed 28th over all, in 1:10:47, and who was second in the men’s 45-to-49 age group; Luis Morales, 27, of East Hampton, who was 71st over all in 1:17:25; Patricia Fall, 46, of East Hampton, who was 121st in 122:33; M. Holland, 47, of Montauk, who was 123rd in 1:22:50, and Laura Gundersen, 18, of Amagansett, who was 173rd over all, in 1:27:03, and won the 18-and-under division.

    Moreover, John Broich, 51, of Sag Harbor, and Tom McGlade, 48, of Amagansett finished 20th and 21st in the MightyMan Half-Ironman, in 5:05:43 and 5:05:49. Each placed second in his age group.

    Other local Half-Ironman finishers were Peter Zippelius, 34, of Bridgehampton, who was 85th in 5:49:15, and David Sherwood, 44, of Sag Harbor, who was 113th in 6:06:47.

Thursday, October 25

GIRLS TENNIS, county team tournament playoffs, sites of higher seeds, 3 p.m.

GIRLS VOLLEYBALL, Mount Sinai at East Hampton, 4:30 p.m.

Friday, October 26

BOYS VOLLEYBALL, Center Moriches at East Hampton, 5 p.m.

FOOTBALL, East Hampton at McGann-Mercy, Riverhead, 7 p.m.

Saturday, October 27

BOYS CROSS-COUNTRY, East Hampton at freshman-sophomore meet, Sunken Meadow State Park, Kings Park, 9 a.m.

GIRLS VOLLEYBALL, Eastport-South Manor at East Hampton, scrimmage, 10 a.m.

GIRLS TENNIS, Section XI team tournament final, Smithtown East High School, 2 p.m.

Thursday, November 1

BOYS SOCCER, first-round Class A playoff games, sites of higher seeds, 2:30 p.m.

Standings posted on Section XI’s Web site Tuesday morning showed that East Hampton High School’s boys soccer team was in first place in League VI with a 7-1-0 record, and that girls volleyball, boys volleyball, and girls swimming were in runner-up spots.

    Moreover, boys and girls cross-country were each in third place in their leagues, golf was fourth, girls tennis was fifth, field hockey was eighth among 11 teams in Division III, and girls soccer was last in League V.

    The boys volleyball team, whose record as of that day was 4-2 in League III, is to raise money at its match here with Westhampton Beach tomorrow for breast cancer research.

    In recent matches, the boys lost 3-2 to Sayville, but rebounded to win 3-0 at Westhampton. The girls, whose sole loss as of Tuesday had come at the hands of Elwood-John Glenn, last week swept Miller Place and Rocky Point, by 3-0 scores in each case. Versus Rocky Point, Melanie Mackin had 11 kills, Charlotte Wiltshire 7, and Raya O’Neal and Carley Seekamp 6 each. In addition, Maria Montoya served 5 aces, O’Neal had 16 assists, and Katie Brierley had 23 digs.

    In the division individual girls tennis tournament, East Hampton’s Gillian Neubert and Daniella Dunphy defeated William Floyd’s Kelsey Henn and Lisa Linn 7-6 (7-4), 3-6, 6-4 Monday in a semifinal-round doubles match. Abby Okin, East Hampton’s number-one singles player, was defeated 6-2, 6-0 in the second round by Ross’s Sophie Volz, who went on to lose to Mercy’s Cassidy Lessard 7-5, 6-2 in the quarterfinals. East Hampton’s number-two, Carly Grossman, who had a nice run at the end of the season, won two matches before being ousted.

    Volz, a junior from Germany, won all her league matches this fall at number-two.

    Ross’s team, ranked eighth on Long Island by Newsday, finished second to William Floyd in league play with a 10-2 record. The Cosmos, coached by Vinicius Carmo, defeated Floyd 5-2 under its bubble, but a couple of days later lost by the same score on Floyd’s courts.

    Given that his team had gone 3-9 last year, Carmo said he couldn’t complain.

    He added that “our league, League VII, is the strongest in the county. All of us — East Hampton, Mercy, and my team — can do well. East Hampton lost a lot of 4-3 matches — they had bad luck. Our league should do well.”

Carmo said Tuesday that Ross had been seeded fifth in the county team tournament, which is to begin tomorrow, with matches at the sites of the higher seeds.

East Hampton’s field hockey team fell to 6-6 Monday as the result of a 3-2 loss in overtime at Riverhead. Sophia DePasquale tied the score with a goal in the last minute of regulation, but Riverhead’s Maria Dillingham got the game-winner (and a hat trick) with 1:54 left in O.T. Shannon McCaffrey got the assist on DePasquale’s goal, which was her 12th of the season.

On Saturday, Becky Schwartz’s charges bageled Port Jefferson 5-0. The goal-scorers in that one were Alyssa Bahel, with two, and DePasquale, Amanda Calabrese, and Casey Waleko.

    Things have been going swimmingly, by and large, for the girls swimming team, coached by John McGeehan.

    The team was 2-1 in league competition as of Tuesday, having lost a close one to Huntington and having soundly defeated West Babylon in meets last week.

    East Hampton wound up losing 89-81 to Huntington at the Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter on Oct. 9, though going into the final two events the score was tied.

    “They were a little deeper than I thought,” McGeehan was to say later in the week. “It was a good meet.”

    East Hampton’s outstanding swimmer that day, he said, had been Morgan German, a junior, who recorded personal bests in her 50-yard leg in the 200 freestyle relay, in the 100-meter butterfly, and in her 100-yard leg in the 400 freestyle relay.

    She swam the first leg of the 200 relay in 27.72 seconds; she was second in the 100 fly in 1:07.76, and her 1:01.68 was the fastest leg in the 400 relay. East Hampton (German, Lydia Florio, Shannon Ryan, and Marina Preiss) won the 200 relay, and placed second in the 400 with German, Marikate Ryan, Lindsey Stevens, and Laura Gundersen.

    Preiss, a junior who swam the 50 and 100 free in the state meet last year, and who, according to McGeehan, is his only competitor with a shot at the states this season, won the 100 freestyle in 54.57 (“23/100ths of a second off the state qualifying time”), and anchored the winning 200 freestyle relay, after which she won the 100 backstroke.

    McGeehan added that Florio, one of only two seniors on the team, had in placing second in the 100 breaststroke in 1:17:51 recorded a personal best.

    Among the top performers at West Babylon Friday were Gundersen, a senior, who won the 200 freestyle; Preiss, who won the 200 individual medley and the 100 back; Florio, who won the 50 free; German, who won the 100 fly; Stevens, who won the 100 free; Sarah O’Dwyer, a ninth grader in her first year of competition, who won the 100 breaststroke, and the winning 200 freestyle relay team of Shannon Ryan, Mia Karlin-Cappello, Marikate Ryan, and Preiss.

    The Montauk Rugby Club, by virtue of a 54-27 rout of Syracuse at East Hampton’s Herrick Park Saturday, remains one of the 12-member Empire Geographical Union’s top sides, with a playoff spot in the spring guaranteed.

    The Sharks, who improved to 5-1 on the season, with one game remaining (on Saturday here with Bayonne, N.J., a lower-tier team), are tied with Rockaway for second place in the Union “record-wise,” and are third, behind Danbury, Conn., and Rockaway when it comes to total points — the chief criterion this fall, according to Rich Brierley, Montauk’s coach.

    The Union’s top six will make the playoffs, and the top two are to receive byes in the first round. “If the playoffs were this fall, a bye would be nice, but since they’re in the spring that’s kind of moot,” said Brierley, who added that “of course we want to finish as high as we can.”

    “We were slow getting started,” he said in recounting Saturday’s action.

    “Their forward pack far outweighed ours and they mauled the ball over early off a 5-meter lineout. After that early score, however, we were able to counter, bringing up more guys and pushing them before they pushed us.”

    “They couldn’t keep up with us in the open field, though. We scored eight tries [rugby’s equivalent of a touchdown], and the scoring was spread out among our forwards and backs. Flynn Gogan-Schneider, our outside center, who grew up in Scotland, and whose father owns the Zum Schneider beer garden in Montauk, was our ‘man of the match.’ He scored three tries. Connor Miller [the inside center] had two, Steve Turza [winger] had one, John Glennon [hooker] had one, and Erik Brierley [the fullback, Rich Brierley’s nephew] had one.”

Flynn Gogan-Schneider, Montauk’s 18-year-old outside center, who scored three tries, was named “the man of the match.”

 DellCollum

    “I forget what the halftime score was, but at one point, early in the second half, it was 49-5. They came on late in the game, scoring three quick tries, two of them when Gordon Trotter [Montauk’s captain and fly half] was in the sin bin [for a high tackle]. We got a second wind, though, and were the last to score, ending on our front foot, as they say.”

    In the front row for the Sharks were James Lock, Glennon, and Jim Abran, who’d been moved up from the second row. Nick Finazzo and the Irish-born Ronan Curran were in the second row. Nick Lawler and Jarrel Walker were the wing forwards, and another Irish-born player, Shane O’Keeffe, was at number-eight.

    The backs comprised B.A. Anderson at scrum half, Trotter at fly half, Miller at inside center, Gogan-Schneider at outside center, Turza and Chris Bunce at the wings, and Erik Brierley at fullback.

    Zach Brenneman, who played a half, and James Rigby, a winger, began the game on the sidelines. Montauk’s numbers have been down of late, Brierley said. “We lost our South African kid to a shoulder injury in our first game, Scott Abran, Jim’s brother, is out with a hyperextended elbow, and my son Matt is out with a shoulder injury. They were all starters. On Saturday, three other starters were missing — Ryan Borowsky, Mike Bunce, and Steve Daige.”

    The Irishers, Curran and O’Keeffe, who have been with the side “since last spring,” and who, Brierley added, were “not recruited,” have been a great help, he said, “even though they played Gaelic football in Ireland, not rugby.”

    While the man-of-the-match award went to Gogan-Schneider, “there were a lot of guys who played really well — Jarrel and Gordon in particular. Syracuse likes to run at you and pass off the tackle [rather than go to the ground], and that makes you play defense while backing up [lest you be caught offside], which is difficult. Jarrel’s and Gordon’s tackles — he must have had a dozen — brought them down and thus stopped their forward progress.”

    The Sharks, as aforesaid, are to finish out the regular season here on Saturday. Gametime will be 1 p.m.

    While perhaps not a joy forever, Saturday’s high school football game here was, for Bonac fans, a thing of beauty.

    On that beautiful day, the Bonackers, playing on all cylinders, routed Port Jefferson 28-6, with all of the scoring occurring in the first half.

    The win improved East Hampton to 2-4 in the Conference IV standings. As of Monday, Bill Barbour’s team was in seventh place among the conference’s 14 teams, with 103.320 power points. The top eight are to go to the playoffs.

    East Hampton is to play on Saturday at eighth-place Elwood-John Glenn, which is also 2-4. Glenn lost 28-14 this past Saturday to 5-1 Mount Sinai.

    At halftime in Saturday’s game here the mood was light as the Bonackers rested in the shade of the adjacent soccer field. Certainly there was every reason to be sanguine, for they’d had their way pretty much throughout the first half, to the delight of themselves and their fans.

    When a bystander said to the head coach, “So far, so good,” Barbour reminded him — and moments later his players — that there was “still a half to go.”

    As it turned out, however, most everything of note had already taken place. The home team pounced from the get-go as Danny Barros recovered a Port Jefferson fumble around the visitors’ 20-yard line, and soon after the junior quarterback, Cort Heneveld, ran the ball from there into the end zone after faking a handoff. Max Lerner’s kick was good for a 7-0 lead.

    Port Jeff replied with a touchdown of its own after Pete Vaziri missed making an interception at East Hampton’s 10. On third-and-goal from the 4, a tall receiver, who’d been hit by Lerner, twisted over the line. The kick failed, however.

    From the 34, following the kickoff, Pizzo rushed 20 yards to the Royals’ 46, after which the fullback, Andre Cherrington, made his way to the 39. Vaziri then took off for the goal line spurred on by cheers from the stands. Hearts stopped when he lost control of the ball at the 5, but Vaziri recovered his fumble, giving East Hampton a first-and-goal there. Barros carried the ball in on the next play, to be followed by another successful point-after kick by Lerner.

    A fumble recovery by Cherrington at East Hampton’s 45 stifled the visitors’ subsequent drive. After gaining 2, Pizzo zipped to the Royals’ 31, after which Cherrington bulled his way to the 24. With second-and-3 there, Vaziri cut back over the middle to the 16. Two plays later, Heneveld hit Vaziri with a pass at the 3. Cherrington scored on the next play. Lerner’s kick made it 21-6 East Hampton, a margin that while not insurmountable appeared ample.

    But just to make sure the visitors didn’t get any ideas, the Bonackers followed up the ensuing kickoff with yet another interception, this one by Chris Milia, who’d slid over from his outside linebacker position, at the Port Jeff 38. Pizzo was dropped behind the line on first down, but with third-and-12 from the 40, Heneveld hit Pizzo with a pass at the 15. Cherrington then carried to the 11, after which Heneveld rolled out and threw a perfect spiral that Thomas Nelson grabbed in the right corner of the end zone.

    That evening, during a phone conversation, Barbour said, “Yes, it was a good win. I told the kids afterward that I was proud of them, but that we still had a lot of work to do.” As for the playoffs, nothing was guaranteed, he said, “though this win keeps us in the hunt.”

    “The atmosphere was more like a playoff game” that day, he added, because both teams were playing for a possible playoff spot.

    Defensively, Barbour couldn’t complain. “Our O-line played well, especially Bryan Gamble, and we made one . . . two . . . three . . . four interceptions. Juan Agudelo made one toward the end. . . .”

    While he knew quarterbacks didn’t ordinarily play on both sides of the ball, as Heneveld, a linebacker when he wasn’t quarterbacking, did earlier that day, Barbour said, by way of explanation, “He’s a unique character.”

    Barbour said, when questioned, he thought both Glenn and Mercy (in the regular-season finale) were within reach. “Last year, we had no meaningful games. This year, every game has been meaningful, which is great. We’re excited.”

Thursday, October 18

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

Friday, October 19

FIELD HOCKEY, East Hampton at Rocky Point, 4:30 p.m.

GIRLS SOCCER, Westhampton at East Hampton, 4:30 p.m.

BOYS VOLLEYBALL, Westhampton at East Hampton, 5 p.m.

Saturday, October 20

GIRLS VOLLEYBALL, East Hampton at Long Beach, scrimmage, 9 a.m.

GOLF, East Hampton at tournament, Rock Hill Golf and Country Club, Manorville, 12:30 p.m.

RUGBY,  Bayonne (N.J.) Rugby Club vs. Montauk R.C., Herrick Park, East Hampton, 1 p.m.

BOYS SOCCER, Amityville at East Hampton, 2 p.m.

FOOTBALL, East Hampton at Elwood-John Glenn, 2 p.m.

Monday, October 22

GIRLS VOLLEYBALL, East Hampton at Westhampton Beach, 4:30 p.m.

GIRLS SOCCER, East Hampton at Sayville, 4:30 p.m.

GIRLS SWIMMING, Harborfields vs. East Hampton, Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter, 4:30 p.m.

Tuesday, October 23

CROSS-COUNTRY, East Hampton boys and girls at division meet, Sunken Meadow State Park, Kings Park, 1 p.m.

FIELD HOCKEY, Southampton at East Hampton, 4:30 p.m.

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

BOYS VOLLEYBALL, East Hampton at Eastport-South Manor, 6 p.m.

Wednesday, October 24

GIRLS SOCCER, Islip at East Hampton, 4:30 p.m.

    Fishing under sail requires a great deal of forehandedness and attention to detail, disciplines not in evidence on Saturday when the sloop Leilani headed east out of Montauk Harbor bound for the fields of fish on the north side of Montauk Point and trolling a silver spoon.

    Obviously, wind speed and direction are the first considerations. The state of the tide, which all fishermen know in order to decide on the most likely places to find hungry fish, takes on more importance under sail.

    On Saturday, the wind backed slowly from northwest to southwest as the day wore on. By late afternoon, the wind was predicted to increase to 15 knots, and the tide would be near full ebb. Once combined, wind and tide would make for a formidable force to sail against — something to keep in mind.

    But, with only eight knots of wind at the start of the ebb, Leilani approached the mosquito fleet of fly-fishing boats spread out from North Bar west to Shagwong Point along the diminishing tide line.

    The sloop was trolling the spoon on a starboard tack under full sail when the rod bent nearly double. The fish dragged line screaming from the spool as the unprepared fish-sailor attempted to reel while at the same time putting Leilani into the wind to slow her down. Too much attention to the fish, and not enough to the helm, resulted in excess pressure on what had to be a big bass. It broke free.

    Leilani came about, now trolling the silver spoon heading northwest against the tide. Hot sun, emerald green water, the boat with a kindly heel and with the first mate basking in the sun forward keeping her eye peeled under the jib for small boats.

    This time when the rod bent, it was left in its holder until Leilani hove to. A green bonito was brought over the port rail, praised for its electric colors, and set free at the mate’s insistence. Fishing under sail offers the best of both worlds, especially with such kindliness aforethought.

    Surfcasters were lined up along the beach on the north side of Montauk Point, but much of the action on Saturday took place along south-facing beaches from downtown Montauk past Gurney’s Inn, along Napeague and Amagansett to Georgica Beach in East Hampton. Casters marveled at the diversity of prey species either chased up onto the beach or disgorged from striped bass that had been landed. The prey has included “snapper bluefish” as well as “croakers, spot — stuff you never see up here,” Paul Apostolides of Paulie’s Tackle in Montauk said on Monday, referring to more southern species.

    A tournament sponsored by Paulie’s Tackle was won over the weekend by John Bruno, who hooked a 39.34-pound striper. Mike Coppola finished second with a 34.14-pounder, and Rob Santise followed up with a 28-pound striper.

    Paulie’s is now home base for the Montauk Local’s fall tournament that started on Oct. 1. Dennis Gaviola put a 21-pound striped bass on the board to lead the pack in that surfcasting tourney.

    In the Montauk SurfMasters tournament, Gary Krist, Klever Oleas, and Atilla Ozturk hold first, second, and third places with 29.15, 25, and 20-pound bass in the wader division. John Bruno continues to hold the top spot among wetsuiters. Christine Schnell, Mary Ellen Kane, and Cheryl Lackner landed 18.8, 14, and 11.8-pound stripers.

    In the youth division for 12 to 17-year-olds, Dylan Lackner is in first place with a 13.5-pound bass. James Kim Jr. is tied for first with a fish of the same size, and Phillip Schnell caught a 13-pounder for a third-place standing. Among the kids, casters 7 to 11, Brian Damm caught a 14.6-pound bass (a big fish). Witt Holmes is in second with a 13.8-pounder, and Brian Damm again holds third with a 10.2-pound striped bass.

    Harvey Bennett of the Tackle Shop in Amagansett reports increased action in the surf along the south-facing Amagansett beaches up to Two Mile Hollow. And, he reports that very big porgies are still schooling in Gardiner’s Bay. This is the time of year Bennett heads out on his cast-and-blast trips, casting for striped bass and bluefish while waiting for scoters to join his string of decoys. “The coot shooting is excellent. Lots of birds around.”

    “They began to come alive in practice this week,” Bill Barbour Sr. said following Saturday’s 39-17 loss here to Mount Sinai, which his son, and head coach, Bill Jr., had described as “arguably the best team in the league.”

    Yes, it was a defeat, but the Bonackers’ heads were not bowed. They’d given it their all, and their spirits were high throughout the fray.

    “It was a great game — I’m proud of them,” the younger Barbour said afterward. “They didn’t back down; it was a loss to build upon.”

    Some key players, including two linebackers, Jamie Wolf and Colton Kalbacher, were out that day, but their replacements stepped up.

    Things didn’t begin well. Mark Donadio broke up the middle for a 74-yard touchdown on the game’s first play, and Pete Vaziri was rocked by an onrushing Mustang as he gathered in the subsequent kickoff. But one play later, Vaziri, after receiving a pitch from Cortland Heneveld, East Hampton’s quarterback, reeled off 21 yards for a first down at the visitors’ 49-yard line.

    The drive ended one foot shy of another first down, at the Mustangs’ 40, but it was clear then that however things went, the Bonackers had come to play.

    Near the end of the first quarter, following Mount Sinai’s second TD, East Hampton drove down to a fourth-and-goal at the 7, at which point Max Lerner, whose kicking has been one of this season’s highlights, came in to kick a field goal.

    East Hampton went into the halftime break trailing 26-3, though the team came out fighting in the third.

    From Bonac’s 25, Heneveld passed incomplete for Thomas Nelson to lead it off, but Nelson grabbed Heneveld’s next aerial at the 45, igniting the crowd, after which Johnny Pizzo zipped up the middle to Mount Sinai’s 35. Following another incompletion, Pizzo ripped off more yardage before slipping at the 23. With second-and-9, Heneveld found Nelson with a pass in the end zone, the latter easily outreaching his defender in the right corner.

    Lerner’s point-after kick was good for 26-10, and a moment later East Hampton had the ball again, on Mount Sinai’s 35 following an onside kick by Lerner that Nelson leapt high to grab after the ball had traveled the requisite yards.

    A defensive pass-interference call on fourth down gave East Hampton possession at Mount Sinai’s 22. Heneveld then ran the ball down to the 15 for a second-and-3 there. Andre Cherrington, the senior fullback, bulled his way up the middle for a first down at the 12. And then Heneveld hit Pizzo with a pass at the goal line.

    Bonac fans standing at the fence near the parking lot said later they thought Pizzo had broken the plane before being stripped of the ball, but it was ruled a fumble recovery.

    Mount Sinai took over at its 4-yard line, and on the next play Michael Cortese took off up the middle, on the way to what seemed would be yet another Mustang touchdown. But Lerner brought him down at midfield, jarring the ball loose, and Danny McKee, who was subbing at linebacker, recovered the ball at Mount Sinai’s 42, giving Bonac fans a chance to cheer loudly again.

    They were to groan, however, just a moment later, when Cherrington, after bulling his way to the 25, was stripped of the ball as he was tackled. On the next play, Donadio said “adios” again. His 75-yard TD effectively clinched it for Mount Sinai.

    With many subs playing, each team scored once in the fourth. East Hampton’s score was the result of a 26-yard keeper by Heneveld, capping a 72-yard drive.

    During the postgame huddle, Bill Barbour Jr., who, as aforesaid, was upbeat, told his players that the Port Jefferson game (here on Saturday) “is huge for us — we need all hands on deck. Mount Sinai is arguably the best team in the league. I’m proud of you guys. We made some mistakes today, but we can learn from them.”

   The East Hampton High School boys soccer team clinched a county Class A playoff berth with Friday’s 5-1 win here over Mount Sinai, though while that game went smoothly, the team two days before spotted Bayport-Blue Point to a 2-0 lead before coming back to win in overtime.

    Rich King, East Hampton’s coach, said that had his charges lost to Bayport-Blue Point, “it would have been uncharted territory. We were coming off a loss to Amityville, and a loss to Bayport would have made it two in a row. Frankly, I don’t remember the last time we’ve lost two in a row in the past three years.”

    East Hampton is the defending county Class A champion, and while it lost a lot of firepower with the graduation of Mario Olaya and Milton Farez last June, their successors, among them Donte Donegal, Esteban Valverde, Nick West, and J.C. Barrientos, are very worthy.

    In clinching a playoff berth “we accomplished our first goal,” said King. “Our next is to repeat as the league champion [East Hampton, with a 6-1 record, was in first place as of Monday] and to get the highest possible seed. The only other team to have qualified so far is Sayville [the team East Hampton defeated in last year’s final]. This week, two or three more will qualify, and by the end of next week we should know all the teams. There are usually eight or nine.”

    King confessed that he was “pretty nervous” after the Bonackers had spotted Bayport-Blue Point to a 2-0 lead in the first half of the game played here on Oct. 3. A counter that caught the attacking Bonackers flat-footed led to the Phantoms’ first one, and the second, which came soon after, ascended into the upper right corner of the goal from the foot of a forward who’d beaten his defender to a teammate’s cross across the goal mouth.

    Nick Quiroz got East Hampton on the board before the first half ended with a nifty ground-hugger that beat Bayport’s diving goalie at the near post.

    “That goal was huge, perhaps our biggest of the season so far,” said King. “It was a momentum changer.”

    It’s not that the Bonackers played poorly in the first half, “we played well, but we were unlucky,” said King. “Three of our shots went off the posts. With a little bit of luck, we could have been up 4 or 5-1 going into the break.”

    East Hampton dominated play in the second half. Fourteen minutes into the 40-minute period, Denis Espana rocketed what King said might be the most beautiful goal he’s seen in high school soccer into the upper left corner of Bayport’s nets from about 25 yards out. Espana’s goal evened things at 2-2.

    With seven minutes to play in regulation, West was tripped at the edge of the penalty area. His free kick, which went just wide of the left post, was kept in play by Alvaro Aguilar, but the Bonackers couldn’t cash in.

    With five minutes to go, a header by Espana went just wide.

    And so the game went into overtime as darkness was falling — two 10-minute periods. The first team to score would win.

    That team, thanks to J.C. Barrientos’s full-sprint volley from the right side with about two and a half minutes gone, was East Hampton.

    Later, Emma Barrientos, the mother of East Hampton’s senior center midfielder,  said she came to realize it was her son who had made the goal “when I saw his [bright yellow] shoes.”

    The Bonackers, who often have been late starters this fall, lost no time on Friday, scoring two goals within the first several minutes — the first by Valverde, assisted by Donegal, who had faked out defenders with some fancy footwork near the endline, and the second by Cristian Barrientos, who’d received a pass from West.

    Mount Sinai got one back before the half. Closure was provided in the second half by Donegal (two goals) and West, on a free kick from 20 yards out.

    The Bonackers are to play Miller Place, in second place as of Monday, tomorrow. “That will be a big one for us,” said King.

   Two platform tennis courts were officially opened at the East Hampton Indoor-Outdoor Tennis Club this past weekend with well-attended clinics put on by Marco Grangeiro, the New York Athletic Club’s paddle director in Pelham, and Marie Minnick of East Hampton, who teaches the increasingly popular racket sport at four clubs on the South Fork.

    Platform tennis, or “paddle,” as it is known  colloquially, was last written about on the sports pages of this newspaper in March of 1978. That story, by Steve Bromley Jr., this writer’s predecessor as The Star’s sportswriter, was headlined “The Winter Game.”

    “It remains a winter game basically,” said Scott Rubenstein, E.H.I.T.’s managing partner. “For paddle it’s better if it’s 25 degrees out than 50.” Though, since the courts (which have lights) were finished a month or two ago, they’ve been getting quite a bit of play no matter what the weather.

    “I got the idea,” said Rubenstein, when questioned following Sunday morning’s clinic, “when I heard our members were no longer able to play at the clubs here that had courts. Seven years ago, things opened up and everybody was playing. Then, about three years ago, our members, who had been playing as guests, were asked to leave. That’s when I thought it would be nice to have our own courts and to open them up to the public. . . . I’m a strong believer that there should be more recreation here for everyone of all ages.”

    Paddle is a doubles serve-and-volley game, though the lob, Grangeiro stressed, is “the most aggressive stroke.”

    “Ninety-five percent of the time,” said Minnick, who is the fourth-ranked mixed over-60s player in the country and the reigning over-50 Long Island champion, “the last one to hit the ball loses the point.”

    The point being that in paddle, finesse and strategy trump power. As in squash, the court (four of them can fit into one tennis court, but are otherwise the same save that the net is two inches shorter) is bounded on all four sides — by chicken wire in platform tennis’s case, rather than laminated wood as is the case with squash. Which means that theoretically, a player skilled at playing the spongy ball off the wires can send up lobs all day.

    While the lob is paddle’s most aggressive shot, the first volley, the clinic-givers said, is the most important. That volley, Grangeiro and Minnick said, ought to be hit with the paddle squarely in front of one’s chest with knees bent  and with the feet square to the net. No lunging, no stabbing. Simply block it back.

    Servers in paddle get only one chance, which concentrates the mind. Just get the ball in, Minnick and Grangeiro said, and follow the ball to the net as quickly as you can, taking up a position straddling the T with your partner closer to the net at your left or right, depending on the court — ad or deuce — into which you served.

    This writer, a doubles tennis player these days who last picked up a platform tennis racket 30 or so years ago, was reminded during the clinic that the two games are, indeed, somewhat different. One needs to be more patient in paddle, for one thing, for it’s likely the rallies — assuming everyone can play the ball off the wires pretty well — will be longer. Aside from the first volley, all drives, lobs, overheads, and wire shots are to be hit from a sideways position. Backhand overheads are to be eschewed: only forehand overheads should be hit. Serve returners should favor their stronger stroke, and thus should, facing sideways and with their back toward a side screen, await the serve with one foot in the alley and one foot just beyond the baseline.

    Moreover, in paddle you can’t get away with wristy shots, and, because the court is so much narrower, there are fewer angles to be exploited. In fact, partners can pretty much control the net, the clinic-givers said, by leaving the third of it diagonally opposite the striker open.

    When lobbing, Minnick asked us to think that we were holding a frying pan in front of us, and to follow through smoothly into a Statue of Liberty pose — again, standing sideways, with the lead shoulder pointing toward where one wants the ball to go. “If I have a 6-4 partner,” the 5-foot-3 Minnick said, “you’ll want to lob over me.”

    Rubenstein said that the club’s tennis members can play paddle for $300 seven days a week year-round, until 11 or so at night. For non-members that fee will be $500. 

    “There will be no court fees,” he said, “and we’ll help set up games, the same way we do in tennis.”

    Moreover, there will be weekday paddle memberships costing $250 for E.H.I.T. members and $350 for non-members.

    A warming hut between the courts, under which there are heaters to melt ice and snow, will have a microwave, toaster, refrigerator, hot chocolate, and coffee.

    “It looks like there’s a lot of interest — it’s exciting,” said Rubenstein, who added that “the last time I played paddle was in 1978 with the late Sandy Ingraham. We played at the East Hampton Tennis Club. I was pretty confident, for I was good at tennis, table tennis, and racquetball.  He trounced me — I didn’t win a point.”

    “That was the last time I played,” he said with a smile, “though I may do it again.”