The Pierson and Southold High School baseball teams were to have played for the county Class C championship in the third game of a best-of-three series at Sag Harbor’s Mashashi­muet Park Tuesday.

    Presumably, Colman Vila, Pierson’s impressive undefeated left-hander, was penciled in as the Whalers’ starter that day by Pierson’s coach, Jon Tortorella.

    Pierson, which had lost only three games going into Tuesday’s finale, last won a county championship in 2009.

    Vila was masterful in the opener on May 16 (Southold won the second game 5-4 Friday on the North Fork), giving up two hits on his way to a 1-0 shutout, striking out eight — a number of the victims fanning on changeup curves — and walking two.

    He also made a neat fielding play — catching a runner sliding into third after fielding a sacrifice bunt and faking a throw to first in the top of the sixth.

    Vila’s opposite number, Kyle Clausen, was almost as good. The righty gave up five hits, all singles, struck out five, and walked two. He also hit a batter and made a wild pitch.

    He too made a nifty fielding play, tossing to first for the out there after falling onto his back in fielding a high hopper with two outs in the bottom of the fourth.

    Pierson scored its all-important run in the third. Kyle Sturmann, the second baseman, led it off by working Clausen for a walk. The leadoff hitter, Hunter Leyser, after fouling off two bunt attempts, then singled through the left side, putting runners at first and second for Vila, whose bunt was converted into an out at third.

    Forrest Loesch, the sophomore shortstop, who bats third in the Whalers’ lineup, hit a comebacker to Clausen, resulting in a force at second, but the relay throw to first went wide, allowing Sturmann to come home with what proved to be the winning run, after which Aaron Schiavoni, the cleanup hitter, popped out to third.

    Southold threatened to score in the top of the sixth. The first batter, Lucas Hokanson, who had singled off Vila to start the game, reached on an error by Loesch. He stole second with Rob Mahoney up, but the aforementioned fake and throw to third by Vila ensued, after which Clausen singled through the right side, putting runners at first and second for the cleanup hitter, Will Fujita, whose hard 0-1 drive to right field was caught. Anthony Fedele, Southold’s catcher, popped out to first to end the inning, prompting Vila and his teammates to exult.

    Pierson had runners at first and second with one out in the bottom half of the sixth, the result of back-to-back singles by Loesch and Schiavoni, but Clausen reached back to strike out Sean Hartnett and Sturmann to retire the side.

    Vila closed the visitors out in the top of the seventh, inducing Shane Johnson to ground out second-to-first before striking out Alex Poliwoda and Alex Sinclair, the seventh and eighth hitters in the Settlers’ lineup.

May 7, 1987

    Boys tennis continued last week as the only undefeated team among the six fielded by East Hampton High School in the spring. The Bonac squad topped Mercy, Stony Brook, and Smithtown West to run its record to 7-0.

    In a 6-1 win over Mercy on April 29, all three doubles teams — Luke Wornstaff and Clark Silva, Marc Kenny and Mauricio Castillo, and Tom Kalbacher and Chris Wellenborg — won their matches without the loss of a game. It was a “first” as far as East Hampton’s coach, John Goodman, could remember.

    The late East Hampton and Mepham High School wrestling coach, Frank (Sprig) Gardner, was inducted posthumously into the Long Island Sports Hall of Fame at a recent ceremony in Garden City.

    Elizabeth McCourt and Dawn Donatuti, an East Hampton High School girls track team pairing, walked away with first place in the 1,500-meter racewalk at the conference relays on Saturday, and Mandy Brugnoni set a school triple jump record of 30 feet in a dual meet at Southampton last Thursday.

    Andy Neidnig, the 67-year-old Sag Harbor runner, won the 65-to-69-year-old division in Sunday’s Long Island marathon in 3 hours, 23 minutes, and 44 seconds.

    Neidnig, who also was the fastest runner over 60 in the 26.2-mile race, finishing 173rd among 1,033 competitors, was happy to report that he keeps getting better. Last year, his time was 3:25:05.

May 14, 1987

    The Montauk Rugby Club, according to its president, Charlie Whitmore, proved itself to be “the top side on Long Island” in Saturday’s tournament at Heckscher State Park in Islip.

    Montauk finished third among the tourney’s eight sides, scoring wins over Rockaway and Long Island after losing 13-11 to the New York Rugby Club, the eventual runner-up to the Connecticut Yankees, in the first round.

    “We accomplished what we set out to do,” said Whitmore, concerning the revived Montauk rugby team, whose spring match record was 4-3. “Everybody knows now that Montauk is back full time. Our notoriety is surfacing once again in the New York rugby world.”

    The message of the weeklong FitHampton health fair, which benefited Southampton Hospital, seemed to be: Stay loose through stretching, don’t overdo, and eat smaller portions.

    The yoga lecturer, Patia Cunningham of the Body Shop in East Hampton, spoke of yoga as “a way of keeping your body tuned up. . . . We need maintenance at least as much as our cars do.”

May 28, 1987

    The East Hampton High School boys track team, which won the League Seven championship at 8-0, added the Conference Four crown — for the first time ever — in a meet held here on May 19.

    “The key was the triple jump,” said East Hampton’s coach, Mike Burns. “That got us 22 points, and put us over the top.” Four of the triple jump’s top five were Bonackers.

    While East Hampton had only two winners that day — Jim Dunlop in the 400-meter run and Barry Johnson in the triple jump, with a hop, skip, and leap of 38 feet 4 inches — the team placed in 15 of the 17 events.

    Bonac’s runners-up were Artie Fisher in the 800 at 2:05.7; Danny Evans in the 100 at 11.2, a personal best; the 4-by-100-meter relay team of Scott Bates, Dean Foster, Jeff LaCarrubba, and Evans, in 47.2, and Rich Ross in the discus at 125-10.

    Michael Scott, the number-one player on the East Hampton High School boys tennis team, won the Conference Four singles championship Tuesday, defeating Westhampton’s number-one, Fred Nassauer, 6-2, 6-2 in a match played at Westhampton Beach High School. East Hampton also won the conference doubles championship as Luke Wornstaff and Clark Silva downed Southampton’s Teague Cameron and Tim Hull in the final, 4-6, 6-2, 6-1.

    East Hampton went undefeated in League Seven play, at 14-0, to win the league crown for the second straight year. It was 15-1 over all, the only loss coming at the hands of Ward Melville.

    It was the first time that East Hampton has gone undefeated in league play, said its coach, John Goodman.

    Goodman rated this year’s and last year’s teams as the best boys teams he’s ever had. The 1986 squad went 17-3.

   The benefits that therapeutic riding affords children with various disabilities were on display at Wolffer Estate in Sagaponack Friday evening, most easily discerned in the riders’ eyes as they performed maneuvers on horseback before a large group of spectators who looked on and applauded from a glassed-in room above the indoor ring.

    The event was put on by the Center for Therapeutic Riding of the East End, whose director, Karen Bocksel, told a visitor, “We teach horseback riding to those with physical, cognitive, and emotional disabilities. We give 25 lessons a week here, mostly to children, though we recently took on our first adult rider. . . . The Germans started therapeutic riding in the late ’40s, beginning with students who had physical disabilities. Now — it’s been in the United States since the late ’60s — it embraces all disabilities.”

    Therapeutic riding, according to a flier available to the attendees, helps to improve muscle tone, posture, balance, coordination, and endurance; sharpens sensory experience; boosts self-esteem and motivation through the acquisition of new, goal-oriented skills, and promotes social interaction with one’s fellows, of the two and four-legged kind.

    When asked if the children were fearful the first time they found themselves astride a horse, Bocksel, who has more than 20 years of experience in the field — she is PATH International’s New York State chairwoman and an instructor evaluator as well as a site accreditation lead visitor — smiled and said, “The parents are fearful — the kids aren’t.”

    Friday’s riders, who were put through their paces by Jill Carney, a certified Professional Association of Therapeutic Horsemanship instructor, included Collier Lee, Ava McKelvey, Rachel McKelvey, Amanda Shortt, and Hope Hamilton.

    When a visitor said, after watching volunteers lead horses and riders around in the ring under Carney’s watchful eye, that the kids seemed to love it, Bocksel, said, “They do.”

    “We are growing,” she added, “and we do not turn any riders away. We have a scholarship program to assist any rider who may have financial challenges. About one-third of our riders receive scholarships.”

    Questioned further, Bocksel said, “We are funded entirely through sponsorships and private donations. Wolffer gives us a substantial discount on the board of our three horses — one CTREE owns, two are free-leased from private owners — and they’ve donated office space at the stable!”

    “We have two part-time employees, the rest are volunteers. We have 25 volunteers at the moment, but we can always use more. They must be at least 14 years old and while they don’t have to have horse experience, it’s helpful. We provide a two-hour orientation.”

    “Volunteers are the heart and soul of our organization,” she said. “We could not operate without them.”

    CTREE, two of whose riders — Rachel McKelvey and Declan Carey — won ribbons in last summer’s Hampton Classic class for riders with disabilities, will hold a fund-raiser at the Sebonack Country Club in Southampton on Aug. 23. It will also hold a horseless horse show that month.

    Matt Maloney, who coaches East Hampton High’s girls lacrosse team, the first one in the program’s 12-year history here to make it to the playoffs, asked before the first-round game at Eastport-South Manor began Saturday morning that his charges be patient on offense and that they not spot the Sharks four or five goals in the early going.

    The ominous music from the movie “Jaws” was playing as the teams took the field, though Kathy McGeehan, Maloney’s soon-to-retire assistant, reminded the girls that the great white shark swallowed a depth charge in the end.

    East Hampton won the draw — one of the relatively few it was to win that day — and worked the ball around patiently before a dropped pass resulted in a turnover.

    The Sharks, the second seed in the Class B bracket of the Division II tournament — East Hampton was the seventh — quickly brought the ball down and were awarded a free position shot after Anjelica Fuccillo, a midfielder, was fouled by a Bonac defender.

    Fuccillo’s shot, however, was blocked by Nicole Miksinski, one of East Hampton’s 11 seniors, most of whom are defenders. Allison Charde’s high clearing pass for Katla Thorsen resulted in another possession for the home team, whose Dene’ DiMartino fired a shot off the post. Though moments later, Eastport-South Manor broke the ice as the result of a free position shot by Allison Gionta.

    The goals — one was shoveled into an empty net following a foiled clearing play — began to come in quick succession then. Before the midway point in the first 25-minute quarter, what Maloney had warned about had become fact as ESM sat atop a comfortable 7-0 lead and the “Jaws” theme could be heard again.

    A free position shot by Bronte Marino finally got East Hampton on the board, and, following another deflection by Miksinski, a save by Charde, and an interception by Cassidy Walsh, Carley Seekamp, with about seven minutes left until the break, beat a defender, faked high, and slipped East Hampton’s second goal under the Sharks’ much-touted freshman goalie, Sam Giacolone, for 7-2.

    Lest the Bonackers get any ideas, though, DiMartino, who was to control a number of the draws for the home team that morning, notched her second score of the half, cutting in on Charde from the left. A notched free position shot by Amanda Seekamp made it 8-3 with about four minutes to go, but again Eastport-South Manor replied as Kristen Anderson, the tallest player on the field at 6 feet 2 inches, converted a feed from DiMartino.

    A half-minute shy of the break, Maggie Carine laid the ball into an empty cage after Charde had made a save but hadn’t been able to get the ball out to her teammates.

    It was Eastport 10, East Hampton 3 at the half. The home team had outshot the visitors 16-4. Gionta had made 4-of-5 attempts, Katie Meinecke 3-of-3, and Anderson 1-of-2.

    Cheyenne Mata, a senior as is Charde, started in the cage for the Bonackers in the second half, sandwiching two saves around a goal by DiMartino in the early going.

    Giacolone was kept rather busy also in the second half, coming up with big saves on close-in shots by Dana Cebulski, Amanda Seekamp, and Marino. Maggie Pizzo, East Hampton’s formidable sophomore midfielder, beat Giacolone twice in the final frame, after cutting around a double-team with 12:44 remaining, and converting a free position shot with 9:09 to go that pulled East Hampton to 14-6. She came close to scoring off another free position shot in the final minutes, as well, but her bid zipped over the crossbar. So did one taken near the end of the game by Hailey Tracey.

    Charde was reinserted in the goal with nine minutes to play, and during a timeout two minutes later, Maloney told his players to loosen up and have some fun as the game wound down. Eastport-South Manor had the ball with a chance to score in the last seconds, but played catch instead, satisfied with the 15-6 win.

    “Unfortunately, they were too much for us,” Maloney said afterward. “We tried everything we could on the draws [Carley Seekamp, Amanda Seekamp, Walsh, and Gabriella Penati all gave it a try], but if you can’t win the majority of them, you probably won’t win the game. . . . Giacolone is a very good goalie and their defense is strong and fast. They don’t let you get anything easy.”

    “I told the girls after the game that I was proud of their efforts in the game and throughout the season. I also said that the next season begins this summer, not next February or March. We want more next year than just being in the playoffs.”

    The 11 seniors are Charde, Mata, Thorsen, Miksinski, Linsey Kromer, Maricela Rivera-Rosas, Emma Gambino, Sarah Johnson, Nicole Frank, Mariah Dempsey, and Megan Dombkowski, who, as the result of a concussion sustained in a game with Eastport on May 2, did not play Saturday.

    Madison Aldrich, a backup goalie, and five other players — Rachel Hardy, Ashley Rojas, Jen Inanagua, Maddie Wicker, and Juliana Sanabria — were brought up from the junior varsity for the varsity’s final week, and, according to McGeehan, “improved greatly.”

    Maloney added that, besides his 11 seniors — most of whom, as aforesaid, are defenders — he will miss McGeehan, who is about to wind up a 32-year teaching career. “She has done so much for the girls, the program, and has made me a better coach the past few years. She was a co-coach in my eyes, not an assistant.”

    For her part, McGeehan, who will remain on as East Hampton’s varsity girls volleyball coach, said, “He’s brought these kids so far in these past few years. He works so hard in the off-season; he’s passionate about the game. . . . He should win coach of the year. If he doesn’t win it this year, he will.”

   Lou Reale, East Hampton High School’s softball coach, said over the weekend that he was happy to have the third seed (behind Sayville and Islip) in the county Class A tournament. The Bonackers were to have begun it here yesterday with sixth-seeded Mount Sinai.

    The veteran coach, whose team lost 8-2 in the regular season finale here Friday to Sayville, which went on to grab the top seed among the A playoff teams — a seeding East Hampton could well have received had it defeated the Golden Flashes that day — said he thought East Hampton’s was the less tough of the two brackets.

    Of Sayville’s draw, he said, “Rocky Point has a really good pitcher — she beat Sayville in the regular season — and Shoreham, which also has a good pitcher, beat Sayville too. . . . I wouldn’t be shocked if Sayville loses [in the first round] to Rocky Point. A team with seven or eight losses could well wind up winning it. That’s the way it’s been this year. Everyone’s been beating everyone else. It will all come down to which team catches fire.”

    As for the 8-2 loss in Friday’s game, which was for a share of the league championship, Reale said, “You have to play a great game to win against a team like Sayville — we can hang with them. But the pitching has to be consistent, you can’t make any errors, and you’ve got to get some timely hits.”

    Merissa Selts, Sayville’s starter, whose drop Bonac’s batters were pounding into the ground, gave up only one hit through the first five innings — a Kathryn Hess single up the middle in the second on a 1-2 changeup.

    East Hampton’s pitcher, Casey Waleko, while getting through the first three frames unscathed, served up a fat two-out pitch to the visitors’ designated hitter, Nicole Petillo, in the fourth, a hanging curve that Petillo belted into the left-center gap for a 2-0 Sayville lead. Waleko then fanned Olivia Kaczmarick, Sayville’s catcher, for the second time that afternoon, to retire the side.

    Sayville made it 7-0 in the top half of the fifth. Jackie Christensen, the second baseman, drew a walk from Waleko on a 3-2 pitch to lead it off. Hess then snagged a popped-up bunt by Jess Griffen, but the leadoff hitter, Kira Karl, singled between third and short to put runners at first and second for Emily Sel­litti, whose base hit through the right side made it 3-0.

    With the count 1-0 on Selts, Waleko unleashed a wild pitch, which enabled another run to score, and then Selts singled up the middle for 5-0. The cleanup hitter, Kathleen Maehr, reached first base safely on a grounder to the shortstop, Ali Harned, and Cindy Griffen followed with a base hit of her own to load the bases for Petillo, whose subsequent two-run single through the right side — her third and fourth runs batted in of the day — upped the Golden Flashes’ lead to 7-0.

    “They were crowding the plate,” Reale was to say later, “so they could hit Casey’s curve to the right side.”

    The good news was that East Hampton didn’t call it a day at that point, but fought on.

    A double play took Sayville out of its half of the sixth as Deryn Hahn, the third baseman, snagged a hard, low liner off the bat of Karl and threw across the diamond to double off Jess Griffen, who had been hit by a pitch.

    Finally, East Hampton got something going in the bottom of the sixth. Shannon McCaffrey, with the count 2-2, singled over second to lead it off. Ceire Kenny, the ninth batter, slapped a 1-2 pitch up the line, but just foul, before striking out.

    Dana Dragone, who leads off for the Bonackers, then grounded out short-to-first, but, with two outs, Hahn singled up the middle, and Waleko, with the count 0-2, was hit by a pitch, loading the bases for Hess, who stroked a two-run double that plated McCaffrey and Hahn.

    That brought up Ellie Cassel with Waleko on third and Hess on second. After going down 0-2, Cassel fouled off the next two pitches before Selts missed twice, evening the count at 2-2. Cassel fouled off the next two deliveries as well — the latter landing a couple of feet off the right-field line as Waleko and Hess, who were subsequently told to go back where they’d come from, crossed the plate hoping that the margin had been narrowed to 7-4. Selts’s next offering resulted in a soft lineout by Cassel to Karl at third.

    Two errors, by Hahn and Harned, led to Sayville’s eighth run in the top of the seventh, but, following a subsequent single to center, Courtney Dess’s throw to Hess cut down a runner at the plate before a foulout off third and a flyout to left ended the inning.

    Maehr, who throws heat, closed the door in the bottom of the seventh, inducing Ilsa Brzezinski, who hits sixth in the lineup, to pop out to second, after which Harned, with the count 3-2, was caught looking at a called third strike, and McCaffrey struck out swinging on a 1-2 pitch.

    The winner of yesterday’s game is to play the Bayport-Islip winner tomorrow at the site of the higher seed. A best-of-three final series will decide the Class A championship.

    League VI’s regular season ended with Sayville in first, at 16-3, followed by East Hampton, at 14-5, Shoreham-Wading River, at 13-6, Miller Place, at 12-7, and Rocky Point, at 11-8.

    Islip defeated East Hampton 4-2 in a crossover on May 2, though all of the Buccaneers’ runs were unearned. “We were winning that game 2-0 and Casey had a no-hitter going until we made four errors in the sixth and two in the seventh,” Reale recalled. “We can beat anybody and we can lose to anybody. That’s the way it is with everyone. It [the playoffs] should be fun.”

    There has been talk about whether this year’s Pierson (Sag Harbor) High School baseball team is the best that ever was, though the Whalers’ coach, Jon Tortorella, is more interested in what the next game will bring.

    That next game — the first in a best-of-three county Class C championship series with Southold — was to have been played at the Harbor’s Mashashimuet Park Monday afternoon, though despite the fact that the weather permitted — it was a gray day, though otherwise pleasant — Section XI, the governing body for high school sports in Suffolk, called it off.

    It really was raining here Tuesday, and more was predicted for yesterday, and even, perhaps, for today. In the meanwhile, the 18-2 Whalers, who clinched a playoff berth in April, were anticipating the postseason.

    As for being the best ever, Bob Vishno, a former longtime baseball and basketball coach at the Sag Harbor school, said, “This school has a strong baseball tradition and we’ve had a lot of great athletes go through here. It’s hard to say they’re the best. It appears they’re one of the best, but one of the best among many.”

    Tortorella, during a conversation following Monday’s practice at the park, was not inclined to argue the point. In fact, he said, “if you look at our games this season, every one of them has been a battle. Even the ones in which we scored 6, 8, or 10 runs. We always had a big inning, and those big innings were what made the difference in what essentially were back-and-forth games.”

    There were a number of close games: In one of them it took the Whalers 11 innings to edge Port Jefferson 9-8; the Whalers played three one-run games with Smithtown Christian, losing one, and lost a game to Southold by a score of 3-0.

    Still, as is the key to any exceptional team, the Whalers, while they don’t have much depth — “Smithtown Christian has 10 kids who can pitch, really pitch” — have a good mound corps, led by the assistant coach Benito Vila’s son, Colman, whose record going into the Class C final was 8-0.

    Asked about him, Tortorella said, “He has tremendous control, he can change speeds, and has a command of all the pitches. He understands what it takes — he gets the job done.”

    In the aforementioned 9-8 win over Port Jeff, Vila “came out of the bullpen in the third inning when we were trailing 8-4 and pitched seven innings of shutout ball. We were down to our last at-bat, with two outs and nobody on, when Colman doubled. A walk followed, and Aaron Schiavoni hit a two-run double to tie the score and send the game into extra innings.”

    When the season began, Forrest Loesch, one of four or five who came over from Pierson’s feisty boys basketball team, was the number-two starter, but a shoulder injury intervened. He returned to action about two weeks ago, not as a pitcher, but as the team’s shortstop. In his absence, Tortorella had to mix and match in the infield and at the bottom of the lineup. But that was “a good problem to have,” said the coach, inasmuch as it gave others a chance to play.

Jake Bennett took over as Pierson’s number-two pitcher when Loesch got hurt, and “has done really well. He made the all-league team [as did five other Whalers] as a pitcher.”

    Schiavoni, the catcher, also pitches, as do, in short stints, Tim Markowski, Kyle Sturmann, Emet Evjen, Brendan Hemby — the sole Bridgehampton student — and Michael Heller.

    Hunter Leyser, who plays left field and third base, tops Pierson’s batting order, followed by Vila, who plays in right field when he’s not pitching, Loesch, Schiavoni, Paul Dorego, an outfielder and backup catcher, and Sean Hartnett, the center fielder. In the seventh and eighth spots Tortorella has been alternating Heller, Bennett, and Markowski — “who can play any position” — and Sturmann, the second baseman, bats ninth.

    As for hitting, “we’ve been getting contributions from everyone top to bottom, and from our bench too. We’ve got speed also, which helps. . . . Our outfielders can run down anything, though the infield is young, with some kids playing a little out of position. We could be better in that respect. . . .”

    It was by no means a given that his charges would beat Southold (which finished in third place in League IX) in the Class C final, said Tortorella, who’s in his third year of coaching the varsity. “We don’t have an advantage going in — we’ve got to beat them.”

   Kirk Edwards would like it to be known that the Montauk Racquet Club’s eight Har-Tru courts are open to the public seven days a week from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. through Oct. 31.

   “For some reason,” said Edwards, who has put in stints at the Green Hollow Tennis Club and the Racquet Club of East Hampton in the past 26 years, “people think the Town of East Hampton closed the club permanently because it was losing money. We have been leasing it from the town for the past two years and pay it a percentage of our profits. It’s a little jewel, the courts are as good as any out here, and you don’t have to pay a $2,000 membership fee up front to play. The fee is $12 an hour — you can’t beat that.”

   While open to the public, “we’re running it as a tennis club, with a fully stocked pro shop, camps, clinics, and so forth. Mats Wilander, the former world’s number-one and eight-time Grand Slam champion, will give masters clinics here on Aug. 24, and we’re trying to get Reggie Gaines, a four-time Tony Award-winning actor who loves tennis, to spend a week here giving lessons in the early summer.”

Thursday, May 24

BASEBALL, game two of county Class C final, Pierson at Southold, 4 p.m.

GIRLS TRACK, division championships, Bellport High School, 3 p.m.

Friday, May 25

SOFTBALL, county Class A tournament, semifinal games at sites of higher seeds, 4 p.m.

BASEBALL, game three of best-of-three county Class C final, if necessary, Southold vs. Pierson, Mashashimuet Park, Sag Harbor, 4 p.m.

Tuesday, May 29

SOFTBALL, game one of best-of-three county Class A final, site of higher seed, 4 p.m.

Thursday, May 31

SOFTBALL, game two of best-of-three county Class A final, site of lower seed, 4 p.m.

    A 15-12 win at Elwood-John Glenn last Thursday enabled the East Hampton High School girls lacrosse team to make the playoffs for the first time in the program’s 12-year history.

    The win, however, didn’t come easily. “We didn’t play our best, but we did play well down the stretch,” said the team’s head coach, Matt Maloney. “We scored three goals in the final five minutes and stopped them twice, which gave us the victory. Allison Charde, our goalie, had 12 big saves to prevent an upset.”

    “John Glenn has three sisters, numbers 7, 8, and 9, who broke our zone defense down a bit,” added Maloney’s assistant, Kathy McGeehan, during a conversation at Friday’s practice session. “It was tied at 12-12 with seven minutes left. They had gone up 12-11, then we tied it. Maggie Pizzo made it 13-12, Jenna Budd made it 14-12, and Amanda Seekamp, on a free position shot, made it 15-12. . . . That was nice — we had to win that one to get into the playoffs.”

    As a result, East Hampton was seeded seventh in Division II’s Class B tournament, drawing second-seeded Eastport-South Manor as its first-round opponent this Saturday. The tournament Web site on Monday had the game, to be played at Eastport-South Manor, starting at noon, though McGeehan said that because East Hampton’s junior prom will be that night, she and Maloney would try to get it moved up to 10 a.m.

    “We love the postseason,” McGeehan added. “We’re getting a second chance. We’re excited.”

    East Hampton finished in 10th place among the division’s 21 teams with an 8-6 (10-6) record and 111.620 power points. The last time the Bonackers played Eastport, away on May 2, the Sharks won 11-5.

    “We’re trying not just to be happy we’ve made the playoffs,” said Maloney. “We want to make some noise. Eastport-South Manor is a very strong, athletic team. We’re looking to see if we’ve improved in the last couple of weeks.”

The Boys

    As for the boys team, which wound up at 4-10 (4-12) and well out of the running for a playoff spot, the coach, Mike Vitulli, said, when asked to sum up, “We couldn’t overcome our penalties — we’d get tired and make mistakes, which cost us.”

    The Bonackers were pretty much routed in their last two games, with Bayport-Blue Point and Babylon. The Phantoms, who boasted three Division I-bound senior attackmen, won 20-5 and Babylon overcame a 4-2 halftime deficit to defeat East Hampton 13-4.

    Asked what had happened in the second half, Vitulli said, “We took seven penalties in the third quarter. They scored on four of those man-up situations and three or four more in transition. We weren’t able to come back.”

    Vitulli’s assistant, Owen McCormack, had said the day before Friday’s game with Babylon that he and Vitulli thought East Hampton had a decent chance — Babylon went into the game with a 5-8 record. Certainly it looked so in the second quarter, during which goals by Drew Griffiths, Jamie Wolf, and Drew Harvey increased East Hampton’s lead to 4-1 before the visitors got one back in the final minute.

    The game with Bayport-Blue Point, played here May 9, got out of hand early as the Phantoms, who took a 15-4 lead into the halftime break, scored repeatedly in transition as outmaneuvered defenders looked on.

    Vitulli said later that he’d love it if his dozen varsity returnees and the 28 players on this year’s junior varsity played more in the off-season. “We only had 20 on the varsity this spring — I’d like to have 25 to 30 next year. I think we’ll be able to do that. . . . Hopefully, we’ll come around.”

    As the result of Friday’s 1-0 loss in 10 innings here to Shoreham-Wading River, the East Hampton High School softball team’s record dropped to 12-4 in league play.

    It was the third straight loss for the Bonackers, a rarity; though, as opposed to the two previous defeats, by 4-1 here to Islip and by 2-1 at Rocky Point, this game was very well played on the part of Lou Reale’s charges.

    As of Monday morning, East Hampton was in second place in League VI, behind 14-2 Sayville. Going into Friday’s contest, Reale said if his team won out, it would at least gain a share of the championship.

    “We’ve got three games left and the other teams have two,” the coach said during a conversation over the weekend. “Everything’s still up in the air — there are five teams that can win the A’s. Everybody’s beating everybody else.”

    East Hampton was to have played at 12-5 Miller Place Monday, and was to have played Sayville at home Tuesday, games that were to have had a bearing on the playoff seedings. East Hampton was to have finished the regular season at John Glenn yesterday. Rain was predicted for each of those days.

    “It was a good game,” Reale said of Friday’s clash, which had a playoff air. Casey Waleko, East Hampton’s pitcher, struck out 14, gave up four hits, and walked one. East Hampton committed only one error, by Waleko, on a squiggler in the sixth inning. Her opposite number struck out 11 and gave up nine hits, but East Hampton couldn’t bunch enough of them together to score a run or two.

    Deryn Hahn singled in the fourth, but, with Waleko at the plate, was thrown out trying to steal second. With two outs, Kathryn Hess, the catcher, doubled deep to left-center field, but she was stranded there as Ellie Cassel, who bats fifth in the lineup, flied out to left.

    With one out in the fifth, Ali Harned, the shortstop, beat out a bunt down the third-base line. She stole second as Shannon McCaffrey struck out, and slid safely into third after the catcher’s throw sailed into the outfield. But Courtney Dess, who recently replaced Ceire Kenny at second base, struck out to end the inning.

    Waleko got into a jam in the top of the sixth. Two infield hits sandwiched around her aforementioned throwing error enabled the visitors to load the bases with two outs. Jessie Stavola, East Hampton’s former record-setting all-state pitcher, who finished up her college career at Dowling last week, and who was looking on, came out to talk to her, after which Waleko struck out Shoreham’s cleanup hitter with an 0-2 riser.

    A two-out double by Shoreham in the top of the seventh went for naught as the next batter grounded out second-to-first.

    Ilsa Brzezinski, Bonac’s sophomore first baseman, drove a two-out double off the center-field fence in the bottom of the seventh, but, following a conference on the mound, Harned popped out to short.

    That brought on extra innings. Waleko walked the leadoff batter in the top of the eighth, her first walk of the afternoon. Following a flyout to right, a bunt was laid down, but Waleko fielded it cleanly and rifled a throw to Harned at second to catch the runner sliding in there. Brzezinski subsequently made a nice scoop of a low throw from Hahn to retire the side.

    McCaffrey lined a base hit to the outfield in leading off East Hampton’s eighth. After Dess struck out, Dana Dragone, who leads off, beat out a ground ball to short — her second hit of the day — putting runners at first and second for Hahn, whose hard grounder down the third-base line forced McCaffrey. Waleko then was caught looking at a two-strike changeup that floated over the plate.

    After each side had gone down in order in the ninth, the 10th began, as is customary, with a runner on second base.Waleko struck out the first two to face her, but the number-nine hitter, Alyssa Saler, jumped on the first pitch, a hanging curve, and belted it into center field, a drive that brought the runner around for a 1-0 Shoreham lead. A Dess-to-Brzezinski groundout ended the inning, but the damage had been done.

    Brzezinski began East Hampton’s 10th on second. Harned laid down a nice sacrifice bunt that advanced Brzezinski to third, but Brzezinski remained there as McCaffrey was caught looking at a third strike and as Dess was thrown out third-to-first.

    “We played pretty well — we didn’t beat ourselves, we just didn’t get the timely hits,” said Reale, who lost a good bat last week when Sam Mathews fractured an ankle during a rainy-day workout in the high school gym, a “freak injury” that finished her for the season.

    Reale did have some problems with the bottom of his lineup Friday. “They were swinging through bunts on run-and-bunt plays, and runners were getting thrown out.”

    Concerning Stavola, his former lights-out pitcher, whose torn labrum limited her effectiveness in the latter quarter of this past season, Reale said, “She’s had a great college career [at UConn and Dowling], and she’ll be a great coach too.”

    “She’ll do her student teaching in East Hampton in the fall, and she’ll coach softball, and maybe another sport, like field hockey. We don’t know at what level yet. She’s an academic all-American and she’s made the all-region team. . . . I had her go out there to talk to Casey in the sixth because she knows a lot more about the mechanics of pitching than I do. She’ll be a super coach.”

    Stavola is one of three former protégées who have been helping Reale this spring, the others being his assistant, Erin Bock Abran, and Catherine Curti, who is expected to transfer to the State University at Cortland, where she’s expected to play softball.

    “It’s great to have these kids coming back,” he said, adding that Molly Nolan, another of his former players, is transferring from Skidmore to Cornell, where she, too, is expected to play softball.