Luis Correa’s hat trick at East Hampton’s Herrick Park on Thanksgiving eve enabled his team, Maidstone Market, to take over sole possession of first place in Wednesday’s 7-on-7 soccer league and vaulted him into first place in the league’s “Golden Boot” goal-scoring competition, with seven.

    As a result of the loss, Bateman Painting, which had been in first by one point, dropped to second. The Market was to have played fourth-place Hamptons Arsenal, and Bateman was to have played third-seeded Tuxpan in semifinal matchups at Herrick Monday night. The fall final was to have been played last night.

    Correa scored early on in the showdown with Bateman, taking a pass from the center midfielder, Diego Marles, and putting a shot by Carlos Cardenas, who was subbing in the goal that night for Francisco Wazhima. (With Wazhima in the goal, Bateman and the Market played to a 1-1 tie on Nov. 14.)

    Correa followed up soon after, converting the rebound of a direct free kick taken by Marles, whose low rocket broke through a four-man “wall” set up about 10 yards from Bateman’s cage.

    But then, when things appeared well in hand for the Market, Bateman’s Carlos Torres came up big twice in succession to tie the score at 2-2 before the half. Juan Zuluaga assisted on Torres’s second goal.

    Because of the raw, rainy weather, the referee, Alex Ramirez, waived the halftime break, and play resumed after the teams switched sides.

    Midway through the second period, after a cross by Torres had zipped through the legs of a teammate, Julian Munoz, who had been in position to capitalize, Correa notched his third score of the night after having gathered in a long cross from Winson Elegolda near right post. Correa had other close chances that night, but the three goals he scored were enough to win the game for Maidstone 3-2.

    In other games played on the 23rd, Tuxpan, facing a must-win-or-tie situation, defeated Hamptons Arsenal 2-1, and Tortorella Pools defeated Espo 2-0.

    According to Leslie Czeladko, who oversees the league and its Web site, “Arsenal was missing several key players who, had they been there, would in all likelihood have made a difference.”

    Following a scoreless first half, Arsenal got on the scoreboard when a ball struck by Tony Shoshi went in off a defender Reynaldo Yanes’s back.

    “An Arsenal win would have enabled Tortorella [Czeladko’s team] to make the playoffs, but that did not happen,” Czeladko said. “Minutes after Arsenal’s score, Bernabe Hernandez tied up the match for Tuxpan and, sometime later, he scored again to give Tuxpan the win.”

    Tortorella Pools (3-5-2) wound up in fifth place, behind Maidstone Market (6-2-2), Bateman Painting (4-2-4), Tuxpan (4-4-2), and Hamptons Arsenal (2-2-6), thus missing the Final Four. Espo finished sixth at 1-5-4.

    Before the night’s action began, John Romero, who also coached Maidstone Market in a high-powered UpIsland Sunday league this fall in which he said a number of pros played, reported that the locals had finished with a 13-4-2 record and had placed third in the playoffs.

    In addition, Romero, who owns Maidstone Market (also known as the Red Deli) in Springs, was named the league’s coach of the year.

    Interestingly, the Market didn’t begin the 7-on-7 fall season well, losing the first two games it played, by scores of 1-0 to Tuxpan and Hamptons Arsenal.

    But then the Market righted itself, winning three straight before playing to a scoreless tie with Arsenal on Nov. 7.

Thursday, December 1

BOYS BASKETBALL, Southold at East Hampton, scrimmage, 5 p.m.

Friday, December 2

BOYS WINTER TRACK, East Hampton at crossover meet, Suffolk Community College-Brentwood, 5 p.m.

BOYS BASKETBALL, Rocky Point at Pierson, Sag Harbor, scrimmage, 5 p.m.

RUGBY, Montauk Rugby Club holiday dinner, Beachhouse restaurant, Route 27, East Hampton, 6:30 p.m.

Saturday, December 3

BOYS BASKETBALL, East Hampton at Center Moriches, scrimmage, and Bridgehampton at Mattituck, scrimmage, 10 a.m.

GIRLS WINTER TRACK, East Hampton at crossover meet, Suffolk Community College-Brentwood, 11:45 a.m.

Sunday, December 4

BOYS WINTER TRACK, East Hampton at crossover meet, Suffolk Community College-Brentwood, 4:30 p.m.

Monday, December 5

BOYS BASKETBALL, Ross at East Hampton, scrimmage, 5:30 p.m.

OLD MONTAUK ATHLETIC CLUB, holiday dinner, Beachhouse restaurant, Route 27, East Hampton, 6 p.m.

Tuesday, December 6

BOWLING, Southold vs. East Hampton, East Hampton Bowl, 4 p.m.

GIRLS BASKETBALL, East Hampton at Pierson, scrimmage, 4:30 p.m.

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

Wednesday, December 7

BOYS BASKETBALL, Southampton at East Hampton, 4:30 p.m., and Ross at William Floyd tournament, 4 p.m.

Thursday, December 8

BOWLING, East Hampton vs. Eastport-South Manor, Shirley Bowl, 4:30 p.m.

In the Top 10

    Dana Cebulski, who as a freshman starred this fall on East Hampton High’s girls cross-country team, placed ninth Saturday in the regional (Maine to Delaware) Foot Locker championships’ freshman race at Sunken Meadow, in a time of 21 minutes and 30 seconds.

    She had run a 20:20.06 there in the county meet on Nov. 4, which enabled her to finish fifth among the Class B girls and to qualify for the state meet. But Cebulski’s coach, Diane O’Donnell, pointed out to her somewhat disappointed charge that she’d never had a runner finish in a Foot Locker top 10 before. “Next year,” said O’Donnell, “I told her we’d continue to train with the Foot Locker race in mind. I’m sure she’ll be able to qualify for the seeded race next year.”

    In other postseason action involving East Hampton competitors, Marina Preiss placed 12th in the 50 and 100-yard freestyle races in the recent state girls swimming championships.

Grilli Breaks Barrier

    Rodrigo Grilli, the former East Hampton Indoor-Outdoor Tennis Club pro who is being managed by Frank Ackley, broke a significant barrier this past weekend when he played in the doubles final of a $50,000 tournament in Guayaquil, Ecuador.

    “The guys who beat Rodrigo and his partner were Davis Cup players,” said Ackley, who added that “now, with a ranking of 199 in the world, Rodrigo’s in a good position. He’ll be able to get into the Challenger tournaments where the money ranges from $50,000 to $125,000. . . . Our goal now is to break 150.”

    A top-100 ranking in doubles, said Ackley, “would get you into some main tour A.T.P. tournaments, where, if you lose in the first round, you still get $2,000.”

    “Rodrigo’s back in Sao Paulo now. He’ll play in a couple of Futures tournaments in Brazil to see if he can’t pick up some more points. There’s a $125,000 Challenger in Sao Paulo after the new year where he’s got to defend 40 points. In the past two and a half months he’s had a lot of points come off, but he’s defended them and has moved ahead.”

    Ackley, himself, enjoyed a nice regional win recently at the Westbury Tennis Club, defeating the East’s number-two-ranked 60-and-over player, Al Chaskin, 6-1, 6-2. “We don’t have any tournaments out here where I could improve my ranking, and it’s a drag to play up the Island and beyond. It took me three hours to get home after my semifinal match on Saturday. The traffic was unbelievable. Still, it’s fun to go up there and whup these guys who only have to drive 20 minutes to get to the club where the matches are played.”

    In recounting during a conversation the other day how he’d come to place third in a recent men’s physique show in New York City, a finish that has qualified him to compete in national shows and has opened doors to a professional modeling career, Beni Shoshi said, “The key is dieting.”

The ebullient Kosova-born 24-year-old business owner said it was his trainer, Chris Cosich of the East Hampton Gym, who clued him into this when he went to him to train at the beginning of last summer.

“My friends would say ‘You must be doing 1,000 sit-ups to get those six-pack abs,’ but in my workouts I just do 5 to 10 minutes of stomach exercises. Most of it is diet. Chris Cosich knows all about nutrition, and I just listened to what he said. I did everything he told me to do, and I finished third in my first show, out of 65 contestants. . . . He’s proud of me. Most people who come to him and say they want to be ‘cut’ don’t follow through, he told me.”

    Thus, for the three months leading up to the show, pizza, burgers, Coca-Cola, and six packs of beer were out and skinless chicken, white fish, steamed vegetables, and water — frequently gallons of it — were in, said the 5-foot-8-inch Shoshi, tabbed by Cosich, a bodybuilder himself, to have more potential as a competitor in men’s physique, “a new and fast-growing sport.”

    “The judges don’t want to see borderline bodybuilding. If you’re veiny they mark you down, though they do want to see that you’re cut. There’s no flexing. They’re looking for a more natural look and how you come across, your presentation. . . . You’re judged on your face, everything . . . weight doesn’t make a difference . . . it’s your shape, the look. . . .”

    To get to this point — 10 pounds of muscle have been added to what had been a lean frame — was not been easy, said Shoshi. “I had to completely change my lifestyle, not only my diet, but I stopped hanging out with my friends. They wondered what was going on, but [not wanting to set himself up for a fall] I didn’t tell anyone what I was doing.”

    The work ethic was certainly there. “I think I grew up quicker than my friends,” said the young interviewee, who, along with his family, came to America from war-torn Kosova. “We had to start fresh, building up was not easy. But we are a very close-knit family and we made it happen. I’m very fortunate to be here.”

    “My uncle, Tasim Kastrati, was the maitre d’ at Gordon’s restaurant [in Amagansett] and I started in the kitchen dishwashing when I was 13. In a few years I was the face of the floor, helping to manage things. People who came there started asking, when I was 16 or 17, if I could do odd jobs for them, and that’s how my business [Hamptons Proprietor] began. In the summer I have up to 15 working for me, around 6 or so the rest of the year. It’s slowed down a bit, but we’re still remodeling kitchens and bathrooms. . . .”

    He had arrived at his smoothly sculpted look through alternately “carbing down [to get rid of fat] and carbing up [to build muscle].”

    The general idea, he said, was to “break down the fat that’s between the skin and the muscle so that the skin is tightly sealed around the muscle. It’s not easy! You have to want to do it, you have to work 100 percent. It took 12 weeks to get ready for this show. You want to eat, especially when you carb down, but you can’t. It’s work, eat, every two or three hours, and work out. When you’re home you can cheat, but you’re cheating yourself. Luckily, it was something I wanted to do. . . I view what I did as a huge accomplishment.”

    And the water. “You drink a gallon every day, but in the week leading up to the show you drink two gallons each on Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday, you’re back to one. You go down to a half-gallon on Thursday, and by 6 p.m. Friday you’re off it — you carb up. I ate a baked potato, which draws the water out of you, right before going onstage. You’re ripped then.”

    Paired with the diet is, of course, exercise.

    “I did four days a week of lifting in the gym, free weights, though sometimes the machines. There was no special workout — the biggest thing was the diet. If I changed my diet today and continued to go to the gym, I would fall off.”

    There were twice-a-day cardio workouts as well, Shoshi said, “to get your heart rate up. But you don’t run full out. If you do, you’re breaking up the muscle. You want to run or sprint-walk just enough where you lose fat, but not muscle.”

    This year’s national show is coming too soon for him to put his body through the wringer again, he said, though his recent third-place regional showing has guaranteed him entry into next year’s national show as well.

    “The last few days I’ve been eating what I’ve been craving,” he said. “I’m not dieting as strictly now. I have one or two cheat days a week. . . . The next show is in April. There’s one in June too, and one in August. I like the whole thing. I’ll pick the one that has the best exposure and the one I could do the best at.”

    A professional health and fitness modeling career could, he said, last a decade or more. “There were guys over 40 there. I was one of the youngest.”

    “After the show, I got a call from people interested in advertising nutritional products,” he said, looking down at his iPhone. “BE International. They saw my photo from the show. It’s natural stuff, a powder used in shakes that helps you recover from workouts. I’ve taken something like it on down-carb days. They’re going to fly me down to Florida. Where. . . ? I have no idea . . . I think it’s Miami.”

    Asked if he’d give up his business should a professional modeling career grow out of his men’s physique success, Shoshi laughed and, without hesitation, said, “Yes!”

    Howard Wood and his assistant, Louis O’Neal, spoke many times last season about the need for the East Hampton High School girls basketball team’s players to practice in the off-season.

    Apparently, however, not many did, aside from Kaelyn Ward, the junior point guard from whom more big things are expected this year, and Quincy King, Ward’s sister, a sophomore.

    Nevertheless, Wood, the 6-foot-8-inch former pro, said, once he’d made his way to a folding chair at the sidelines in order to rest a nagging back during Saturday’s practice, he was reasonably optimistic that the Bonac girls, who made the playoffs last season for the first time in 17 years, would do so again.

    He had begun Saturday’s practice at 8 a.m., as usual, even though four of his players — Ward, Christina Cangiolosi, Gaby Penati, and Katrina Raspa — were taking a mock ACT exam elsewhere in the high school building. “We practice at 8 on Saturdays and holidays, and I don’t want to change it, it gets them out of their rhythm,” the coach said.

    For most of Saturday’s session, Wood worked with his inside players, foremost among them the senior Sarah Johnson, who’s close to 6 feet, nudging them repeatedly out of their comfort zones as they backed toward the basket looking for layups or, after head fakes and ball fakes, hook shots.

    Meanwhile, O’Neal was working at the other end of the court on freeing up perimeter shooters for shots.

    “They’re working hard — they’re excited to continue,” Wood said as he rested his sore back. “We’ve got a lot of new ones — six from last year. Fifteen in all. A good number. We definitely want to improve. I’ve told them girls basketball still doesn’t have a banner on the wall. It’s not that far-fetched to think we can win one. The only team we didn’t beat in league play last year was John Glenn.”

    While he agreed that Johnson — and Ward as well — had grown some in the past year, what impressed him most, Wood said, was “her wingspan.” Because of that, she could play as if she were 6-plus.

    Back to last year, “If we’d made half our layups we would have averaged 50 points a game . . . but we’d hear footsteps, even though I have yet to see someone catch up and block a layup from behind,” as his younger brother, Kenny, had in the state tournament at Glens Falls in 1989.

    To give her some extra incentive, Wood has told Ward that “this year she can reach 1,000 points. In other words, by the time she finishes her senior season — her fifth year on the varsity — she could put that career scoring record out of reach. It would be very tough to break.”

    As Wood spoke, the girls began to practice foul shots. “If they miss, they run the length of the court,” said Wood, who added, as the group, following a miss, took off, “Run hard!”

    The core of the team, then, would be Ward, Johnson, and Nicole Miksinski, a forward who’s not afraid to mix it up. As for the other starters, it remained, he said, to be seen.

    “Sarah will be a force underneath, for sure — she really came on last year. We’ve got to find a second and a third scorer to take the heat off Kaelyn. We’re looking for another ballhandler too, again to take the pressure off Kaelyn. We know they can do it. . . . We definitely have girls who can shoot from the perimeter. We know they can, but they have to believe it too.”

    “Defensively,” Wood continued, “we intend to press. They tried it last year, but they didn’t get it. The key is not playing three or four feet back in practice. In practice you forget that you have friends. Because, if you don’t practice with that in-your-face attitude, by gametime, when all hell breaks loose, it’s too late. We want them to practice so hard that the game is easy.”

    Scrimmages have been scheduled for the first week in December, with Southold here next Thursday, at Center Moriches on Dec. 3, and here with the Ross School on Dec. 5.

    Steve Tseperkas, who coaches East Hampton High School’s wrestling team, is reasonably sure, with the exception of 285 pounds, “and possibly one or two other holes,” that he can fill most of the 15 weight classes this season, though, because the Bonackers are very young, he doesn’t expect much when it comes to the win column.

    Still, East Hampton, which lost eight seniors to graduation, Taylor Harned, Peter Johann, Cory Pawlukojc, and Kelly Kalbacher among them, has some interesting competitors this year as well, a group led by Mike Peralta, who, as a junior, was the sole underclassman from here to compete in the county tourney.

    Peralta, who weighs in at 145, as he did last year, “will be our go-to guy,” Tseperkas said during a practice session Friday.

    In the 2010 league tournament, Peralta defeated Rocky Point’s Matt Guerrisi in the quarterfinals, and, after getting pinned in the semis, wrestled back to third by decisioning Shoreham’s Joseph Bennett 6-3, thus avenging a loss by pin to Bennett in a dual meet.

    Peralta went on to lose in the first round of the counties to Bellport’s John Rose. At the time, Tseperkas said that of East Hampton’s county matches that one “was the biggest heartbreaker. . . . Mike was up 7-2 near the end of the second period when Rose got a reversal and put him on his back. That made it 7-6 going into the third period. Mike rode the kid out until the final 10 seconds when Rose hit a switch to win 8-7.”

    Peralta will get a chance to pay Rose back for that loss in the regular season, for East Hampton has moved up to League V with Islip, Bellport, Kings Park, Comsewogue, Huntington, Eastport-South Manor, and Harborfields. “We match up well with Harborfields,” Tseperkas said. “We’re wrestling them on Jan. 18, Senior Night.”

    Section XI, he added, has made the lightest and the heaviest weights — 99 and 285 — which used to be optional as far as dual meet scoring went, mandatory this season. “They’ve also increased the poundage by a bit, which should help kids make weight.” This year’s weights, he said, are 99, 106, 113, 120, 126, 132, 138, 145, 152, 160, 170, 182, 195, 220, and, as aforesaid, 285. They all go up by two more pounds on Christmas Day.

    “We’ve got 33 kids as of now, seven of them are new and nine of them are seniors, though three of those seniors [Milton Farez, Garrett Severance, from Pierson, and Deyvis Alvarez] have never wrestled before.”

    The seniors who have experience are Sawyer Bushman, at 120, Peralta, Christian Westergard, at 160, James Budd and Morgan Rojas, each at 170 for the moment, and Jacob Hands, at 182. Kevin Heim, a junior from Pierson who had “16 or 17 wins” last year, is also at 170 for the moment.

    Moreover, said Tseperkas, who coached the junior varsity boys soccer team to an undefeated season this fall, “we’ve got four kids from soccer — Denis Espana [a sophomore], Nelson Arcila [a sophomore], Bryan Ordonez [a junior], and Esteban Valverde [a freshman]. Valverde wrestled in junior high, the others are new, so they’ll be on the jayvee, but they’re picking it up quick — they’re strong kids.”

    Besides Peralta, Tseperkas is expecting Lucas Escobar, Bushman, and Budd to have good seasons as well. Bushman had 20-plus wins at 119 last winter and is expected to compete in the same class this time around. Escobar, a sophomore, went 26-6 at 106 pounds as a freshman.

    Tseperkas had hopes that Escobar and Bushman could win county tournament berths last year, but both lost in the league meet’s quarterfinal round. Escobar was upset 6-5 by Mount Sinai’s John Shlonsky, a wrestler he’d defeated twice before, and Bushman was caught in a cradle hold 20 seconds into his quarterfinal match with Shoreham’s T.J. Kluber.

    There’s a Kalbacher on this team as well, Colton, Kelly’s younger brother, who’s a ninth grader. He’ll probably wrestle at 126, said the coach. Kalbacher, Tseperkas added, had gone to “a 28-day wrestling camp at the University of Minnesota this summer.”

    Tseperkas took six others to a weeklong summer camp at Cornell — Peralta, Escobar, Heim, Hands, Rojas, and Gabe Vargas.

    The Frank (Sprig) Gardner tournament, named after the founder of collegiate-style wrestling, who began his career here and spent his retirement years here, is to be held at the high school on Dec. 10. “We’ll put all our varsity kids in it and some who wrestled in junior high last year who might wind up on the jayvee team,” said Tseperkas.

    Besides East Hampton, the tournament’s teams will be Westhampton Beach, Riverhead, Hauppauge, Ward Melville, Bayport-Blue Point, Southampton, St. John the Baptist, and Smithtown Christian.

Road Races

    Besides this morning’s 3 and 6-mile Turkey Day road races in Montauk, there will be a post-Thanksgiving 5K run-walk in Sag Harbor Saturday, starting and finishing at West Water Street in the village.

    The race, which is to benefit the Old Whalers Community House Fund, is to begin at 8:30 a.m. Registration will be held from 7:30.

Golf Champs

    Troy Smith recently won the men’s championship at the Sag Harbor Golf Club; Russell Miller was the senior men’s champion, and the men’s low qualifier was Mark Weinhardt.

    The women’s champion was Naree Dokjan. The senior women’s champion was Barbara Cirami.

    The following were elected as officers for the 2012 season: Bill Rozzi, president; Marshall Garypie III, vice president, and Read Vail, secretary-treasurer. Ed Early, Mark Vaughn, Paul Bailey, and Claire Blodorn were named to the board of governors.

Thursday, November 24

RUNNING, Turkey Day races, 3 and 6 milers around Fort Pond, The Circle, Montauk, 10 and 10:10 a.m.

Saturday, November 26

RUNNING, Old Whalers Community House Fund 5K run-walk, West Water Street, Sag Harbor, 8:30 a.m.

Monday, November 28

GIRLS VOLLEYBALL, East End Waves tryouts for girls 11-through-18-years-old, Sportime at the Arena, Amagansett, 7-9 p.m.

    “There’s a new sheriff in town,” the Speed Channel announcer Greg Kramer said after Ryan Pilla drove an MX5 Spec Mazda to a win in a Sports Car Club of America race last month at the New Jersey Motorsports Park in Millville.

    From sheriff, Pilla soon ascended to attorney general status as he followed up the Jersey win with an American Road Racing Championship at Road Atlanta, a race for Mazdas that attracted “all the top drivers from Canada to California

. . . the best of the best.”

    Pilla had won that same race in 2003, though he hadn’t been back in the interim, rendering the successful defense of his eight-year-old title all the more satisfying.

    Sixty-four qualified (Pilla being third) and four, driving at speeds between 80 and 135 miles per hour, dueled for the top spot, with “the Car Doctor,” who avoided a wreck by veering onto the grass in the last lap, taking the checkered flag.

    “The accident was in the middle of the track. The other guy went right and I went left, onto the grass, pedal to the floor. People in the paddock were saying afterward that it was the ballsiest move they’d ever seen.”

    “The top four,” he added, “all finished within a couple of car lengths of each other. . . . It was like a swarm of bees at the start with those 64 cars going down the main straight.”

    Pilla, whose popular shop is on Scuttlehole Road in Water Mill, not far from the late lamented Bridgehampton Race Circuit, where he also used to compete, gave a lot of credit to his six-man crew. “There were two mandatory five-minute pit stops the drivers had to take. Even if you were ready to go in three minutes, you still had to wait the full five, behind the wall. The timing of these pit stops was important. After the second one, I came out 100 feet in front of the first-place car.”

    The ARRC championship crowned a singular season for Pilla that began when he and Harvey Siegel, who had commissioned him to convert the car temporarily into “a monster dragster,” broke the world MX5 Spec Mazda speed record at the Bonneville Flats in Utah.

    At the time, Pilla said, “Never before in history had this street car, which can only get up to 105 ordinarily, gone at such speeds [165 and change]. The record we broke was 157.9 miles per hour held by a factory Honda. . . . I’d be shocked if somebody tops our record.”

    To prepare for New Jersey and Road Atlanta — with a trip to a 13-hour Enduro in Virginia sandwiched in between — Pilla and his crew converted the sleek, flaming red-and-yellow sports car on whose hood his logo is emblazoned “from a straight-line dragster into a Spec road racer, redesigning the suspension and replacing the high-horsepower engine with a lower horsepower one because on road racing tracks you’re making lefts and rights and going up and downhill, not driving in a straight line.”

    His chief rival at the Motorsports Park, Yiannis Tsiounis, a Brazilian with whom he traded the lead many times before taking over on the final turn on the way to “a white-knuckle finish,” was reported to have said that Pilla had been the toughest opponent he’d ever raced against.

    He had just wanted to finish at the 13-hour Enduro at Siegel’s Virginia International Raceway in Danville, the Car Doctor said when asked how he’d done there. “There were four of us, though the others weren’t as fast as I was. Simply finishing — we were eighth over all, among 125 cars — was a huge accomplishment. I drove three stints of an hour and a half each.”

    Having done it all with his Mazda this summer and fall, Pilla said he and a couple of teammates would race this winter in Sebring, Fla., and Miami.

    Gary Stanis, who brought traveling Police Athletic League football to East Hampton in 2008, said this week that to give the high school program a boost, the East Hampton P.A.L. organization hopes to put 20 to 25 seventh and eighth graders through a 12-week strength, speed, agility, and nutrition program at Sag Harbor’s Studio 89 this summer.

    “This won’t be play time — we’re only interested in getting kids who seriously want to improve their fitness and ability. This three-day-a-week program will improve their performance in all sports, not just in football,” said Stanis during a conversation this week.

    The cost of the program, which has yet to be reckoned, will be significantly lessened by the fact that Rich Decker, who manages Hampton Gym Corporation’s fitness centers in East Hampton, Southampton, and Sag Harbor, and who owns Studio 89, off Clay Pit Road in Sag Harbor, “the largest gym on Long Island,” will donate the space.

    Answering a question, Decker said that medical opinion had come around in recent years to support trainer-supervised strength training for 11 to 13-year-olds as a means of preventing injury. “It’s a myth that it stunts your growth,” Decker said.

Studio 89, he said, has 4,000 square feet of interior space and 20,000 square feet outside, comprising an obstacle course known as the Pit with cargo net walls, climbing and swinging ropes, jumbo tires, and the like. Body-weight training will take place there and inside, as well, using TRX suspension apparatuses. Weight training with dumbbells, he said, will be tailored to each student.

Stanis, who is now a member of the local P.A.L. organization, and Don Reese, who is its president, said that the need for earlier strength, speed, and agility training here has become painfully evident. East Hampton’s varsity, outnumbered, outmuscled, and less knowledgeable football-wise than its opponents, frequently facing foes who had played the game nine years, went 0-8 this fall.

“All the schools up the Island are doing this — by the time you get into the weight room at the high school it’s too late. Those linemen up there are all benching 300 to 350,” said Stanis, whose own example could serve as a teaching point. The 1978 Smithtown East team he captained won the Division III championship and went 8-1 after having gone 1-7 in his junior year.

    “We’re doing this from the bottom up — it has to start somewhere,” said Reese.

    “We’re calling this ‘the football revival project,’ ” said Stanis. “The trainers [Connor Miller, Avery Crocker, and Mike Roesch among them] are all excited about being part of this. They’d love to be part of a turnaround. . . . If we can feed 20 to 25 kids up to the varsity who are in good shape and know the game, they’ll be able to compete even if the other schools suit up more players.”

    There would be low-weight, high-repetition training at Studio 89, “no max weight, low rep lifting,” he emphasized, adding that “it’s a proven fact that if done the right way strength training prevents injuries rather than causes them. Professional trainers will be overseeing these kids.”

    Four hand-picked potential leaders from the targeted junior high group would embark, Stanis said, on a 10-week pilot program in March, and he expects that the visible results will persuade their peers to follow suit in June.

    “Our goal is to have 25 go through this program,” he said. “Any more than that would be a bonus, but we don’t want a whole lot of kids, only the ones who seriously want to improve themselves. We’re basically hand-picking them.”

    “Once this gets going,” said Reese, “we’re hoping that every year we’ll get kids to train with trainers for the entire year — they’ll get stronger and quicker faster that way.”

    The P.A.L. plans, moreover, to add a seventh-grade and an eighth-grade travel team next year, teams that Stanis said are to be outfitted with “the latest equipment, new uniforms and everything . . . the helmets alone cost $200 each. Which reminds me, we’d very much like to get some financial help from the community.”

    Also next fall, he said, “we’d like to bring in a couple of people who have played in the N.F.L. and live out here to give clinics on different aspects of the game.”

    Basketball has also been on Reese and Stanis’s minds lately.

    “For the first time we’re holding a holiday invitational basketball tournament for fifth and sixth-grade teams at the East Hampton Middle School, on Dec. 17 and 18. We’re looking for a sponsor for that. And, also for the first time, we’re going to take a fifth and sixth-grade team and a seventh and eighth-grade team to play in the Northport Classic,” said Reese.