Bostwick’s (nee Cangiolosi’s) is eying its seventh straight East Hampton Town women’s slow-pitch softball league championship, though Groundworks Landscaping, a team that Kim Hren has gotten together, planted a 13-10 loss on the perennial champions in game one of a best-of-three final last Thursday.

    Thus Groundworks, which was to lose a couple of its young players to colleges earlier this week, Meghan Hess (University of Arizona) and Erika Silich (High Point), had a chance to win it all Tuesday. A Bostwick’s win that day would have brought about a rubber game at the Terry King ball field tonight.

    The insurgents reached the final by defeating the P.B.A. 5-1 in the third game of their semifinal series, which was contested Aug. 7. In the other semi, Bostwick’s swept Men at Work.

    In last Thursday’s game, Bostwick’s, which has played without several members of its core group this season, including Susie Warner, its longtime pitcher, scored four runs in the bottom of the first inning after Groundworks had put one across in the top half, on singles by Kathryn Hess, Hren, and Meghan Hess. A two-run home run by Virginia McGovern was the big hit for Bostwick’s.

    The Landscapers came back with four runs in the top of the third, two resulting from a home run by Kathryn Hess. Randi Cherill and Sarah Van Asco were credited with the other runs batted in.

    Connie Mabry, G.W.’s pitcher, shut Bostwick’s down in its half of the inning. Groundworks made it 6-4 in the top of the fourth. Silich led it off with a single, and came around to score on a base hit by Hren.

    The Restaurateurs wrested the lead back, at 7-6, in the bottom of the fourth on run-scoring hits by Mireille Sturmann and Kathy Amicucci. Neither team scored in the fifth, but in the top of the sixth Groundworks, with no one on and two outs, worked Eileen Noonan, Bostwick’s pitcher, for three more runs to go up 9-7. An opposite-field triple by Hren was the big blow, Andy Silich, the team’s manager, recounted.

    The defending champs tied the score at 9-9 in the bottom of the sixth only to have Groundworks come back yet again in the top of the seventh. Silich led it off with a single, Meredith Janis walked, a single by Emma Beudert drove in Silich, a base hit by Kathryn Hess drove in Janis, and singles by Cherill and Van Asco drove in Beudert and Hess.

    Bostwick’s, then, went into its last at-bat trailing 13-9.

    “They had runners on second and third with no outs, but a pop to short [Kathryn Hess] and flyouts to Erika and Emma around a sac fly sealed the victory,” Andy Silich said.

    Mabry pretty much handcuffed the P.B.A. in the pivotal game of the Groundworks-P.B.A. semifinal series on Aug. 7. Groundworks went up 4-0 in the bottom of the second on bases-loaded hits by Silich and Robyn Bramoff, and on a two-run throwing error.

    Groundworks made it 5-0 in the fourth, on a two-out r.b.i. single by Beudert. A bases-loaded fielder’s choice by Dale Brabant got one back for the P.B.A. in the bottom of the fifth, but Mabry held the P.B.A. in check in the sixth and in the seventh for the win.

    Mylan Le led off the P.B.A.’s last at-bat with a double, after which Meghan Pintauro drew a walk, but a subsequent double play and a comebacker to Mabry stranded the runners and ended the game.

   It was incorrectly reported in the obituary of Andy Neidnig last week that he had set an over-70 record of 2 hours and 57 minutes at the New York Marathon. He did indeed set an over-70 record, in 1989, but his time was 3:32:28.

    The former world-class miler and marathoner, who died on Aug. 6 at the age of 93, won his age group at the New York Marathon three years running, between ’89 and ’91. The 3:45:42 he ran in ’90, while it was his “slowest ever,” still placed him in the top quarter of the 25,000 entrants.

   He repeated as the “golden age” division champion in ’91 with a 3:42. As a result of these performances, he was a two-time winner of the New York Road Runners Club’s grand masters award.

Thursday, August 16

BEACH VOLLEYBALL, rounds one and two of playoffs, Gurney’s Inn, Montauk, 6 p.m.

WOMEN’S SLOW-PITCH, game three of best-of-three final series, if necessary, Terry King ball field, Abraham’s Path, Amagansett, 7 p.m.

Saturday, August 18

SWIMMING, East Hampton Volunteer Ocean Rescue Squad one-half, one, and three-mile swims, Fresh Pond beach, Amagansett, 7:30 a.m.

BASKETBALL, Amateur Athletic Union 16-and-under tournament, Montauk Playhouse Community Center, 240 Edgemere Street, also Sunday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.

ARTISTS-WRITERS GAME, Herrick Park, East Hampton, 2 p.m., batting practice from noon.

ROAR FOR A CURE CARNIVAL, East Hampton Indoor-Outdoor Tennis Club, Daniel’s Hole Road, Wainscott, 4-7 p.m.

HOOPS 4 HOPE, benefit party, 5 Hamlin Lane, Amagansett, 6-8 p.m.

Sunday, August 19

RUNNING, Ellen’s 5K Run, Southampton Hospital, 9 a.m.

   The CfAR men’s slow-pitch softball team “mercied” the defending town league’s champion, Schenck Fuels, 21-6 on Aug. 1 at the Terry King ball field in Amagansett.

    Eight-run outbursts by the insurgents in the bottom of the fifth and sixth innings did the Fuelmen in, making a seventh inning unnecessary.

    The surprising three-game sweep marked the first playoff championship for Ray Wojtusiak’s team under the CfAR banner, though the player-manager and his teammate Dick White won championships with Bistrian Gravel in 2004, ’05, and ’07, and were runners-up in ’08. Moreover, under the Indian Wells Tavern aegis they were runners-up in ’09, and, under the sponsorship of Stephen Hand’s Equipment (and with pretty much the same lineup), lost in four to Schenck’s in last year’s best-of-five final.

    In what proved to be the deciding game of this series, the Fuelmen, with Adam Gledhill and Vinnie Alversa getting the r.b.i., scored two runs in the top of the first inning, after which CfAR began to assert its rights in the bottom half. Singles by Diego Palomo, Tommy Thorsen, Joe Sullivan, and Bill Collins, the latter two driving in runs, and a sacrifice fly accounted for the scoring.

    The score was knotted at 5 after four innings, and in the top of the fifth the defending champs made it 6-5 before the floodgates opened.

    Wojtusiak singled to lead off CfAR’s fifth, and, after Palomo flied out, Thorsen doubled home Wojtusiak and Sullivan doubled in Thorsen. Bill Collins’s subsequent single scored Sullivan from second. Then Alex Tekulsky, one of three players Wojtusiak had picked up from the late lamented Independent’s team, launched a two-run home run into the parking lot. That made it 10-6, but CfAR wasn’t through: Andrew Foglia, the cleanup hitter, singled and moments later trotted around the bases when Chris Pfund homered. A solo shot by Nick Jarboe upped CfAR’s lead to 13-6.

    CfAR’s 56-year-old pitcher, Rob Nicoletti, who’s been in the league for 38 years — and who ended a brief retirement at Wojtusiak’s behest after the Independent announced its withdrawal from the league in April — shut Schenck’s formidable hitters down without a run in the top of the sixth, which furthered CfAR’s cause.

    Thorsen flied out in leading off CfAR’s sixth, but no matter, for the team was to bat around, bringing him up again.

    Following the flyout, Sullivan singled and Collins hit a two-run homer. Tekulsky singled, Foglia singled, and Pfund hit a three-run homer. Jarboe lined out to third, but Nicoletti singled and Wojtusiak tripled, driving in Nicoletti. A single by Palomo drove in Wojtusiak with the team’s 20th run. CfAR’s leadoff hitter advanced to second on a throwing error and then came all the way around on a single by Thorsen, sliding in under Vinnie Alversa’s tag with the run that ended the game and the series.

    Afterward, Wojtusiak said he wanted to “thank CfAR for letting us use their logo — we were happy to promote their cause. And we want to congratulate Schenck’s on their great season as well.”

    As for why the league, which Wojtusiak recalled as having once boasted 14 teams in two divisions, had shrunk to five — to four, given the Briar Patch Boys’ forfeits in the final two weeks — he said he found it hard to believe, despite various theories advanced as to the reasons why, that there wasn’t adequate support here for slow-pitch softball, “a common blue-collar American sport. I’ll be 40 soon, I’ve been playing in this league 21 years, and I’m having just as much fun as I did when I was 19. . . . I play in the Montauk league too. There are 9 or 10 teams there, though it’s more casual, not as competitive as the one in Amagansett. There are 15 teams in the Travis Field tournament . . . there’s got to be a way [to attract more teams]. Winning’s great, but more important, we want to keep this league going.”

   Maidstone Market continued its undefeated string of championships in the 7-on-7 men’s soccer league here, defeating Tortorella Pools 3-1 in the playoff final on Aug. 1.

    Tortorella, the tournament’s fourth seed, had upset top-seeded 75 Main 2-1 in one of the semifinals while Maidstone, the dominant men’s soccer team locally in the past four years, had shut out Bateman Painting 2-0 in the other semi.

    Thus the Market, whose manager is John Romero, finished the regular and post seasons with a 9-1-2 record, its sole loss, by a score of 2-1, coming at the hands, as it were, of 75 Main on July 11. Romero said it was the eighth straight 7-on-7 championship for Maidstone — the league plays a fall and spring season each year — though given the fact that the string began in July of 2008, it may have been the ninth straight.

    With a lineup that includes the league’s top three scorers, Mario Olaya, Gehider Garcia, and Luis Correa, not to mention the league’s best goalie, Alex Meza, and other strong players — Esteban Valverde, Antonio Padilla, Gerber Garcia, Carlos Torres, and John and Matthew Romero among them — it is hard to imagine any other team keeping up with Maidstone, at least when it is at full strength, as it was for the final contested at East Hampton’s Herrick Park.

    Afterward, the elder Romero, who because of the death of his father in Colombia this summer had not entered an 11-man team in a semipro Sunday league up the Island, told his players that they were to be commended for continuing to play with such passion despite their accustomed success.

Tortorella, which finished the regular season with a losing record, at 4-5-1, did not by any means go gently that night. A jaw-dropping 40-yard sizzler off the foot of Rene Gutierrez that sailed high over a leaping Meza into the right corner of Maidstone’s nets at the end of the first half sent the teams into break tied at 1-1.

    Maidstone took the field with Correa, Gehider Garcia, and John Romero on the front line, and with Padilla, Gerber Garcia, and Torres on defense, and with Meza in the goal.

   Tortorella’s starting forwards were David Rodriguez, Steven Orrego, and Eddie Lopez, with Rodolfo Marin, Christian Munoz, and Gutierrez defending. Craig Caiazza minded Tortorella’s nets.

    Maidstone took it to Tortorella for most of the first half, though wasn’t able to cash in until, with about 12 minutes gone in the 30-minute period, Gehider Garcia beat Caiazza to the left corner from in close after Padilla had chipped the ball up to him.

   Several minutes later, Tortorella came close as Rodriguez’s one-touch of a cross from Marin went just wide, and despite the entry into the game at that point of Olaya, the “golden boot” award winner, Tortorella seized the momentum. Before Gutierrez’s jaw-dropper, which was launched  from midfield, Munoz, Lopez, and Orrego were presented with four or five scoring opportunities much closer to Maidstone’s goal.

    Valverde joined Correa and Gehider Garcia on Maidstone’s front line when the second half began, and immediately made his presence known, rocketing a shot off the right post.

    Soon after, Correa alertly deposited a behind-the-back pass from Valverde past Caiazza from about 8 yards out for a 2-1 lead. Though a victory wasn’t guaranteed: moments later, Gehider Garcia was yellow-carded after pushing Lopez to the turf, which forced Maidstone to play a man-down for several minutes, though the champs withstood Tortorella’s attacks, and even countered with a couple of their own before the sides were all even again.

    Maidstone clinched the victory in the final minutes as Olaya, who was unmarked at the right post, tapped in the rebound of a shot taken by Gehider Garcia. Munoz and Gutierrez, who had come up to challenge Maidstone’s best ball-handler, could only look back over their shoulders as the ball went over the line.

    When it was noted afterward that the Market had been without its imposing center midfielder, Diego Marles, this season, the man who has customarily orchestrated the team’s offense, John Romero said, “Yes, no Diego, but even so these guys always find a way.”

    The weekend of Aug. 18-19 will sport two popular events here — the Artists and Writers Softball Game at East Hampton’s Herrick Park on Saturday, the 18th, and Ellen’s Run the next morning in Southampton.

    It’s the 64th year for the Artists-Writers Game, according to its impresario, Leif Hope, and it’s the 17th year for Ellen’s Run, which has underwritten Southampton Hospital’s state-of-the-art breast cancer center, named after Julie Ratner’s late sister, Ellen P. Hermanson.

    Ratner, Ellen’s Run’s founder, said during a conversation Friday that “we’ve given well over a million dollars to the hospital. Our goal was to have a facility with the rigor of a teaching hospital, but with the warmth of a community, and that’s what we’ve achieved.”

    The Artists-Writers Game, which has been a dead heat record-wise in the post-modern era, which is to say since 1988 (though the Writers are ahead 28-15-1 since the Game began to be played as a benefit in 1967), will benefit the East Hampton Day Care Learning Center, Phoenix House of Long Island, East End Hospice, and the Retreat.

    Hope said Monday that he plans this year to have a former member of the Wounded Warriors amputee touring softball team, William (Spanky) Gibson, pitch the first three innings for the Artists.

    The Wounded Warriors amputee team, which tours the country, played in — and won — a slow-pitch softball game at Sag Harbor’s Mashashimuet Park Saturday, impressing Hope, who was one of the spectators, immensely. “They hit the hell out of the ball,” he said. “It was remarkable to watch these guys. I would have loved it if they could have played in our game, but they’re booked. Maybe next year. They’re playing next in Panama City, Fla.”

    Hope said he would also present plaques before the Game begins to the widows of Roy Scheider, Barney Rosset, and Bert Sugar, longtime participants. Scheider always kept the Artists’ hopes alive with his pitching, Rosset, whose Grove Press broke new ground in American publishing, also was a groundbreaker softball-wise inasmuch as he was the first literary type to play in what had begun as an annual madcap artists’ romp. Sugar, the colorful boxing commentator and writer, announced the Game in recent years and was a flawless scorekeeper, no mean feat given the teams’ frequent brouhahas and juggled lineups.

    Ratner said she always worried about the turnouts — the race is now based at Southampton Hospital — though invariably they have been huge. “There’s a great spirit among the volunteers, the participants, and the spectators — everyone’s so supportive,” she said. “It’s a beautiful course, with two water stops, one overseen by the Boy Scouts and one overseen by the Shinnecock Reservation.”

    As far as getting to Southampton from East Hampton on a Sunday morning — initially seen as an impediment — “everyone’s asleep,” she said.

    The battle against breast cancer has been frustrating, she continued. Despite the advances in research and in targeted treatments, “the numbers haven’t changed that much over all. Well over 200,000 will be diagnosed in this calendar year, and probably 40,000 women will die. Even 20,000 would be too many. We have to stop this rampage.”

    Ratner said she expected Representative Tim Bishop and State Senator Ken LaValle would be there, though she would ask them to “just speak a word or two — not too much. The runners are all looking at their watches and are ready to push off from the starting line.” Once the gun sounded, she said, she would “walk quickly back to the finish line, hoping that I’ll make it before the first runner comes in.”

    Hope said that the Artists, despite their post-modern breakthrough, were less discomfited by losing than the Writers. It was a nine-inning game, he reminded when asked if it were seven, the usual length of a slow-pitch game. Then he added, “If the Writers are winning, it’s seven — if they’re losing, it’s nine.”

    Members of the Springs Booster Club, who hope to raise $35,000 by the end of this month so that an estimated 40 to 45 Springs School seventh and eighth graders can continue to participate on East Hampton Middle School teams, met last Thursday with the East Hampton School District’s athletic director, Joe Vas, who encouraged them in their endeavor.

    “I would love it if these combined sports can continue, but the community will have to come up with the money,” Vas said Tuesday morning. The funding for combined sports had been cut from the budget Springs School taxpayers approved in the spring. The meeting’s attendees also included Bill Barbour, who coaches East Hampton High’s varsity football team, John Krupp, who coaches the middle school’s football team, the Springs superintendent, Dominic Mucci, and its principal, Eric Casale.

    Mary McPartland, one of the Booster Club members, said over the weekend that the East Hampton Indoor Tennis Club had donated $1,000, and that six doctors had donated $500 each. “So we’ve got a lot of optimism,” she said, “but we only have 30 more days.”

    Asked if the entire amount had to be in hand by early September, Vas said school lawyers were studying that question. Meanwhile, he’s preparing the initial paperwork, he said, having to do with the applications of two Springs eighth graders — Diana Winthrop and Andrew Wilson — who want to participate on high school teams. Winthrop wants to join the girls swimming squad, and Wilson wants to play junior varsity soccer.

    McPartland said, and Vas agreed, that the affected combined sports were middle school football, coed cross-country, girls tennis, wrestling, boys lacrosse, girls lacrosse, and coed track and field.

    McPartland said the Springs School Parent Teacher Association, a nonprofit organization, is handling the donations. They can be sent to the Springs PTA, Springs School, School Street, East Hampton 11937.

    Fifteen teams duked it out in the double-elimination Travis Field memorial softball tournament at the Terry King ball field in Amagansett over the weekend, and the Mighty Midgetts, Brian Midgett’s team, came out on top.

    The Midgetts prevailed over Uihlein’s 17-12 in a key semifinal matchup of theretofore undefeated teams in the winners bracket, clinching the championship for last year’s runners-up. Uihlein’s placed second, the Bad News Bubs, last year’s champion, third, and the Pink Panthers, a team managed by Brian Anderson, one of the tournament’s founders, fourth.

    “It was great to see so many teams this year, though we’re still shooting for more,” Anderson said Tuesday morning. “We’d like this tournament to grow. If we do get 16 or more teams, we may have to add another day or use two fields. People came from as far away as the city to play. Some of the guys on the Mighty Midgetts are from Riverhead and the North Fork. We’re happy to have them come here and have fun.”

    Last year’s tourney had raised “just shy of $11,000,” said Anderson, who added that Travis Field scholarships had gone this year to Ryan Joudeh, Dana Dragone, Tanae Walker, and Nicole Miksinski. The scholarship awards are to go to East Hampton High School senior athletes who “display great leadership in sports, love their school and community, and show kindness to others.”

    It was the fifth year for the tourney, which was begun in 2008 by Anderson, Andy Tuthill, Mike Graham, Austin Bahns, and David Samot Jr. in memory of their friend, Travis Field, who died in a car accident that May at the age of 20.

Thursday, August 9

WOMEN’S SLOW-PITCH, game one of best-of-three final, Groundworks-P.B.A. winner vs. Bostwick’s, Terry King ball field, Abraham’s Path, Amagansett, 7:15 p.m.

Saturday, August 11

MEN’S SOCCER, 7-on-7 tournament, Fiske Field, Shelter Island, 8 a.m.-noon.

PADDLEBOARDING, races to benefit the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, home of Lisa and Richard Perry, North Haven, 4 p.m., registration from 3.

SPINNING, B-East Roar, benefit Max Cure Foundation, Amagansett Square, 4-7 p.m.

POLO, Monty Waterbury Cup semifinals, 10:30 a.m. and 4 p.m., Two Trees Stables, Hayground Road, Bridgehampton.

Sunday, August 12

RUNNING, Miss Amelia’s Cottage 2-miler, Amagansett Railroad Station, 9 a.m.

MEN’S SOCCER, 7-on-7 tournament, Fiske Field, Shelter Island, 8 a.m.-noon.

Tuesday, August 14

WOMEN’S SLOW-PITCH, game two of best-of-three final, Terry King ball field, Abraham’s Path, Amagansett, 7:15 p.m.

   Two events at Fresh Pond in Amagansett — one on land, one on the water — coincided Sunday, and in terms of numbers the paddleboarders, who raced three and six-mile triangular courses in Gardiner’s Bay that morning, outnumbered those who ran in the Old Montauk Athletic Club’s 5K on the roads nearby.

    Competitors came from near and far to vie in the stand-up paddleboard races put on by Lars Svanberg’s Main Beach Surf & Sport and Paddlers 4 Humanity as a benefit for the Retreat, a nonprofit organization that has provided shelter, counseling, and supportive services for victims of domestic violence here since 1987.

    Jeffrey Friedman, the Retreat’s executive director, said, as the racers, some from as far away as Martha’s Vineyard and Gloucester, Mass., prepared to launch their boards into the bay, that “our phones have been ringing off the hook since the economic downturn began. . . . Lars came to us, and we, of course, were pleased he did. Events like this — we’re also going to be one of the beneficiaries of the Artists-Writers Softball Game this year — help us to meet the rising demand for our services.”

    Just before racetime the weather on the bay looked a bit daunting, with a stiff wind out of the northeast, cloudy skies, and a strong chop. Tom O’Donoghue, who has been training for a year with Ed Cashin, was a first-timer, but willing, though he thought the conditions would “stretch the field a bit.”

    “We’ll see how [the six-miler] goes,” he said. “I’ll have to put all this training to use.”

    It had been an interesting year for him, O’Donoghue, a self-confessed former couch potato, continued. “I did the Hyner Challenge [a brutal mountain race in Pennsylvania, near Lycoming College, Cashin’s alma mater] and I’m going to do two marathons. . . .”

    “Today?” said Jonathan Shlafer, who was listening in and who hadn’t far to travel, living, as he does, about 50 yards from the Fresh Pond road-end, “in a tiny, shitty little house with a hell of a backyard.”

    One of the farthest-flung competitors, if not the farthest-flung, was the six-mile winner-to-be, Patrick Broemmel, who removed himself 20 years ago from California’s San Joaquin Valley to Oak Bluffs on the Vineyard, where he works as a carpenter and contractor and builds his own carbon fiber paddleboards.

    “I love The Vineyard Gazette,” he said in answer to a question. “I love its great big wide pages and the fact that it’s still black and white. If I want color, I can get it on the Internet.”

    As for stand-up paddleboarding, he had been doing it “since 2003,” said Broemmel, adding that racing has come just recently to New England — lagging well behind Florida, California, and Hawaii in that respect. Asked how he’d been doing, he said, “I win some and lose some. . . . I raced in Maine yesterday, though I didn’t do very well.”

    After finishing in the van of the six-mile fleet, just ahead of one of his traveling companions, Will Rich of Gloucester, he said, “It was challenging . . . all on the right going down toward that chimney, and the waves were coming across the beam, which puts you in the hardest position. On the second leg we went into the wind, which stabilizes the board, though it’s much more work, and coming in we had the wind at our backs.”

    Svanberg, who placed third, said he wasn’t all that bothered by having been bettered by two ringers from Massachusetts. “They’re probably half my age,” said the 51-year-old triathlete and paddler, adding that “over all, it was a perfect day after the wind laid down.”

    Sean T. Kellershon, 25, of Northport won the three-miler, even though, as he said, he put his knee through his board after the fin caught on the bottom at the start.

    Several people fell as the six-milers got under way, among them Roxane Robinson, a SUP teacher, who, when the accident happened, was projecting herself for third place. “It’s the first time I’ve fallen since last summer . . . well, there’s another race in two weeks.”

    Robinson was referring to the Paddle for Pink races on North Haven that are to benefit the Breast Cancer Research Foundation Aug. 11.

    A co-chair of that event, Maria Baum, the owner of the Tutto il Giorno restaurants in Sag Harbor and Southampton, who was among the three-mile competitors that day, said stand-up paddling had played a significant part in helping her get through breast-cancer chemo­therapy last summer.

    Paddling, she said, wasn’t a spin class. “You’re out on the most beautiful bays and inlets in the entire world — it’s overwhelming. You’re exhausted at the end, but you’ve done something so good for your body, and for your mind. You haven’t given a thought to how hard you’ve been working. . . . It’s overwhelming.”

    The sport, said Svanberg, “is the fastest growing water sport in the world. People have come here today from Maine, New Jersey, Massachusetts. . . .” Not to mention Northport (Kellershon), Bellport (Meaghan Shannon), and Mastic Beach, from which the 55-year-old Steven Hat hails. “I’m looking to paddle until I’m 80,” he said. “I do it five to six days a week. You know, they call us ‘the Gusu people.’ Gusu,” he added, “stands for Get Up, Stand Up.”

    Asked what was next for him, Broemmel said, “A long drive back to Cape Cod.”