October 2, 1986

    The East Hampton High School golf team set a school record for medal play, a 201, in a recent 7-2 win at Mattituck, led by Duane Bock, Bill Segelken, Pat Bistrian III, and John Becker. The former record was 204, said the team’s coach, Lee Dion, who added that in a recent 8-1 loss to Westhampton, Bock, East Hampton’s number-one, came within a stroke of tying Chris Becker’s one-round record of 35.

October 16, 1986

    Mercy did not drop as the gentle rain from heaven Saturday night. Rather, it was more like a ton of bricks as the Riverhead school’s football team, playing with evangelical zeal, scored the first time it had the ball, and went on to defeat East Hampton 8-0, thwarting the Bonac offense at every turn.

    “They beat us in the trenches,” said East Hampton’s coach, Ted Meyer. “That was really the whole ball game right there. . . . They came at us hard. They were a lot better than we gave them credit for.”

    . . . There was one moment of joy, when the third quarter began, as Dean Foster, the fullback, swept the weak side and sped 37 yards to Mercy’s 30-yard line before he was caught from behind.

October 23, 1986

    The East Hampton-Pierson High School cross-country team, buoyed by the return of Jim Dunlop III, a senior who recently ran across most of the country as part of a San Francisco-Washington, D.C., relay to raise funds for drug abuse programs, finished a surprising second to Port Jefferson in Tuesday’s Peconic Cross-Country invitational at Indian Island Park in Riverhead.

    . . . It was the first appearance this season of Dunlop, who, after his return from the Transcon relay, had to make up missed schoolwork.

October 30, 1986

    One of the Babylon High School floats in Saturday’s homecoming parade there featured a woebegone Bonacker pilloried on goalposts above a sign that gave the final score as Babylon 87, East Hampton 0. Well, it was not quite as bad as that, though it was pretty bad.

    Babylon, known for its tough football teams, in rather easy fashion routed the Bonackers 34-8. Had the hands of Bonac receivers been more sure, had kickoff and punt returners been more eager to gather in the ball, and had the crew who followed Jamie Grubb’s admirable punts downfield been more unyielding, things might have been somewhat, though not altogether, different.

    On a beautiful windy fall day, the East Hampton High School boys soccer team took Shoreham-Wading River to school here by a score of 4-0.

    Saturday’s was as good a game as the team has played this season — smooth sailing for the entire 80 minutes, leaving only superlatives in its wake.

    “We dominated today, playing our style,” said a very proud Rich King, East Hampton’s coach, afterward. “J.C. [Jean Carlos Barrientos] played a great game today.” The center midfielder had the ice-breaking goal in the first half and an assist in the second.

    And so, for that matter, did everyone else. The Bonackers, who, as a result, clinched a playoff berth with four regular season games to play, were all over the ball, attacking relentlessly and marking their opponents closely whenever they had — however briefly — possession.

    Shoreham, which had played East Hampton to a scoreless tie the first time around, had a strong wind at its back in the first half, enabling goal kicks to sail half the length of the field and throw-ins to float 25 or so yards, but, thanks to East Hampton’s spirited defense, the Wildcats could not take advantage.

    Despite attacking repeatedly, the Bonackers couldn’t utterly penetrate the Wildcats’ defense until, with a minute left to play in the second half, Mario Olaya, presented with a free kick from the 15 yard mark, dished off to Jean Carlos Barrientos, who scissor-kicked a thrilling goal into Shoreham’s nets, the visitors’ goalie looking back helplessly as the ball zipped over the line into the nets.

    “Now the goals will start to pour in,” a spectator said as the teams switched sides following the halftime break.

    And indeed they did, as Bonac’s forwards found each other time and again with crisp give-and-go passing, working the ball rapidly down the field in groupings that frequently included Barrientos, Esteban Valverde, Milton Farez, and Olaya.

    A perfect Valverde-to-Olaya-to-Farez exchange in the 46th minute resulted in East Hampton’s second goal of the afternoon, by Farez, who angled the ball in right to left.

    In the 59th minute, it was Olaya’s turn, following a long goal kick by Bonac’s keeper, Esteban Aguilar, countering a Shoreham attack. The play began with a breakaway by Barrientos, whose cross found Olaya dashing in for the kill at the far post.

    That made it 3-0, though East Hampton was not content to let it remain that way. The team continued to put the pressure on. With 7 minutes remaining, and with King having begun to substitute liberally in the final 18, Olaya stutter-stepped and shot just wide of the cage, and 30 seconds later, Valverde also shot wide, capping a play in which four players touched the ball.

    But in the 76th minute, a throw-in in Shoreham’s end wound up on the feet of Farez, who, after juking a defender, crossed the ball into the far left corner of the nets to cap the rout.

    As a result of the heady win, East Hampton’s record improved to 9-1-1. “We still have four games left,” said King, “and we need to win all of them if we want the number-one seed in the county tournament. . . . We’re happy with our performance, but we’re not satisfied yet.”

    The tournament is to begin Nov. 3.

    Earlier Saturday, from noon to 2 p.m., King and his assistants, Don McGovern and Steve Tseperkas, who is the 9-2 junior varsity’s coach, held a clinic for the area’s middle schoolers, attracting about 15 of them from Springs and the East Hampton Middle School.

    “It went well,” said King, “though I’d like to get 40 when we do this next year. Maybe we should have gotten the word out sooner.”

    A number of the clinic-takers stayed on to see the varsity play.

    The Montauk Rugby Club pulverized the Union Mudturtles, who hail from New Jersey, with a 44-11 win at a Division II match at Herrick Park in East Hampton Saturday.

    With three games left in the season, the Sharks (5-0) played excellent offense, and are well on their way to the championship.

    The match got off to a shaky start with Zach Brenneman sidelined with a hurt knee. Matt Brierly, who was back for his first full game after breaking his arm (not in rugby), joined him soon after for a cut under his eye. Steve Turza and Mark Scioscia were on hand to pick up the slack, scoring three tries between them. The first try of the day was a double-trouble effort when Turza passed the ball to Scioscia. Following with six more tries, the Sharks set the tone for Saturday’s performance. The conversion points were made by Gordon Trotter, team captain, and the score was amped to 7-0.

    A penalty kick landed the Mudturtles on the board 7-3, but they had difficulty penetrating the Montauk defensive line, which was led by Nick Lawler, second row. His stellar defense tactics made him the A-Side Man of the Match for the day. The next try was scored by Ricardo Salmeron, his fourth of the season, after Hamish Cuthbertson snatched the ball from a stolen scrum and passed it over to Salmeron.

Trotter sealed the deal with a penalty kick, pushing the Sharks ahead to 15-3. Union had a penalty kick of its own, making it 15-6, but it quickly lost steam as John Glennon scored a try, and Trotter once again made the conversion. Right before the half, Matt Brierley had his first A-side try, and the score smoldered at 27-6.

In the second half, the Mudturtles had their first try, but they were not able to break Montauk’s resistance for the rest of the match. Their psyche must have taken a plunge as the Sharks made three more tries by Mike Bunce, Turza, and Scioscia, and another conversion by Trotter. This game had the largest point and try total of the season so far. The B-side game was a tighter match, with Union ahead at 10-0, but the Sharks were able to take it at 20-15. Scott Abran was the B-side Man of the Match.

The team captain spoke highly of Montauk’s effort this week. “The boys stuck to it and played very well,” said Trotter. “We had a couple of injuries during the week at practice; one guy separated his shoulder.” This meant the team had a couple of players in positions they don’t normally play, but obviously that didn’t show on the scoreboard.

    And though Trotter said it was tough to play into the wind during the second half, again, conditions were no deterrent for the Sharks.

    “It’s good to have Nick Finazzo back. Jarrel Walker and Hamish Cuthbertson are playing really good rugby for us,” said Trotter. “We had a goal this week to not let any tries in. We only allowed one,” he added. 

    The Montauk team, whose players range in age from 22 to 40, has a lot of depth and good young athletes to call on, according to Erik Brierley. Asked at what age people stop playing rugby, Trotter replied, “We don’t.”

    “I feel great,” Matt Brierley said. “It was good to be back finally on the field.”

    The next two matches are away, and the final will be at Herrick Park on Nov. 5. Looking ahead, Erik Brierley said, “Hopefully we’ll stay undefeated. Today was a huge game for us to win. We need to keep going and keep our heads about us. We don’t want to get too comfortable with winning.”

    John McGeehan had promised the meet between the East Hampton and Harborfields High School girls swimming teams last week would be a barn burner, and it was.

    So, as a matter of fact, had been the last two meets between these teams, though this time instead of the Tornadoes winning, the Bonackers did.

    It all went down to the final relay, which East Hampton, with Maddie Minetree, Carly Drew, Laura Gundersen, and Marina Preiss, won, earning an all-important 8 points, which put McGeehan’s team over the top, 88-82.

    “When Marina began her anchor leg, Harborfields had the lead, though not by a lot,” McGeehan said later. “In that relay, they swam four laps. Marina took over in the last two. A great job.”

    Perhaps the meet really was won, though, when the coach scratched Preiss from the opening 200-yard medley relay so that he could save her for the finale.

    Lindsey Stevens, who took Preiss’s place in the 200 medley relay did fine, and the team, which also included Mikayla Mott, Drew, and Morgan German, just missed winning.

    “Morgan was touched out — it was very close,” said McGeehan, adding that, “had we won that relay, it would have been icing on the cake.”

    After the first four events — the aforementioned opening relay, the 200 freestyle, which East Hampton swept, the 200 individual medley, which was won in exciting fashion by Mott, and the 50 free, which was won by Preiss — East Hampton held a slim lead.

    And it went back and forth thereafter. McGeehan said that East Hampton’s second, third, fourth, and even fifth-place finishers had made significant contributions. “You can win every event and still not win the meet — you need those seconds and thirds and fourths to win,” he said.

    Drew, who’s only an eighth grader (one of several on the team) won the 100 butterfly in a personal-record 1 minute and 1.44 seconds — “one of the top times in the county,” according to McGeehan.

    Minetree was first in the 100 free; Gundersen took second in the 500 free, and Preiss won the 100 backstroke in 1:04.15 — “a great race,” according to her coach. Stevens, he added, had done a 1:10.39 in that event, a p-r for her.

    Mott won the 100 breaststroke, which treated East Hampton to “a 4 or 5-point lead going into the 400 relay.”

    “This puts us right up there with Sayville and Harborfields as the top three in our league,” McGeehan said. “By now these other teams know we’re to be reckoned with. Our girls have their eyes on the prize — the League III meet at Hauppauge High School on Nov. 4. To win there really would be exciting.”

    Kathy McGeehan, who coaches East Hampton High School’s girls volleyball team, had circled Oct. 12 on her calendar — the date of a return match with one of Bonac’s chief rivals, Westhampton Beach.

    In a four-hour match, the Hurricanes had beaten the Bonackers in five a month ago in Westhampton, and indeed they did so again here this past week, benefitting from strong serving and passing. East Hampton’s serving and passing, by contrast, were not good, particularly so after the team had gone up 2-1 in the match, an edge that a large hometown crowd had hoped the players would capitalize on.

    When later McGeehan was asked, “What happened?” she turned the question back upon her questioner. “What do you think happened?”

    “It just seemed like, all of a sudden, they were in total disarray.”

    The coach, in reply, mentioned several probable factors, foremost among them the lackluster serving and passing. “When we serve and pass well we win. Aggressive serving and passing are the foundations of our game. When we don’t serve and pass well, we don’t win. Also, I think we were mentally exhausted after coming back from two-down two days before to beat Harborfields. We had our setter [Raya O’Neal, a sophomore, one of the top ones in the county] running all over the place. And then too, we’re young.”

    The match began well enough: O’Neal’s serving treated East Hampton to a 10-9 lead before the visitors sided out. Then things went back and forth a bit before Maria Montoya, who came off the bench with the score 15-12 in Bonac’s favor, wowed the crowd with some of the strongest serving seen here. By the time her stint had ended 7 points later, a stint that included three aces and a kill each by Charlotte Wiltshire and Melissa Perez, Montoya and her teammates had taken control of the game.

    Unfortunately, that 7-0 skein on the way to a 25-16 win was to prove to be the girls’ finest moment that afternoon.

    Westhampton bounced back to take the second game by a similar margin, though it was East Hampton’s turn again in game three, a game which began to go the Bonackers’ way from 9-9 on. Wiltshire, abetted by several Hurricane errors and an ace, served East Hampton to 13-10, after which Westhampton’s libero, Jamie Devivo, served wide for 14-10 and Melanie Mackin tipped over two would-be blockers at the net for 15-10.

    Going down the stretch, Jenna Budd, a ninth grader who had come off the bench, served an ace, Katla Thorsen and Perez made fine digs and Wiltshire notched two thunderous kills. With Lydia Budd — Jenna’s twin — serving, O’Neal went over the top for the 25-15 final.

    At that point, the match seemed to be going Bonac’s way, but volleyball is a game of dizzying momentum swings, and, as in other team sports, errors rather than winners often prove to be decisive.

    Of Westhampton’s first 16 points in game four, 10 were attributable to East Hampton errors, two being netted serves. East Hampton was down by four at that point, prompting McGeehan to call for a timeout, during which she told her charges, “It seems like we’re hanging around and seeing if Westhampton is going to give it to us.”

    The errors continued after play resumed, however. At 21-17, Mackin was double-blocked at the net, and though Kristen Polan served long for 22-18, Montoya, who had enjoyed that great run in the first game, followed suit, for 23-18. A Mackin tip got the ball and a point back, but, with O’Neal serving, Wiltshire was called for “double contact” on a set and her subsequent netted kill closed out the visitors’ 25-19 match-tying win.

    The double-contact and carry calls, as well as sloppy passing, continued in the decisive fifth. Down 7-3, following an ace by Westhampton’s Alexa Smith (her fourth winner in what was to be a 6-point run), McGeehan lit into her charges, who, by then, seemed to be in total disarray.

    With the score 18-11 in the visitors’ favor, Bonac’s coach said during a timeout huddle, “You’re all worried about the outcome. I don’t care whether we win or lose. It’s about the process.”

    But there was no rallying the team that day as the Hurricanes went on to win the game 25-16, and thus the match, by a score of 3-2.

    “It’s going to affect us in the seedings,” McGeehan said later. “Westhampton has lost a few too, just as we have, but they’ve beaten us twice now head to head. They’ll be seeded ahead of us. . . .  But there’s a lot of parity among the ‘A’ schools, so I don’t care about being seeded below Westhampton. I just want us to have a shot.”

    Wiltshire led East Hampton in kills, with 13 in 16 attempts; O’Neal had 28 assists, and Mackin had 27 digs.

    Against Harborfields, a greatly satisfying win inasmuch as the Tornadoes have often ousted the Bonackers in the playoffs, Mackin had 17 kills and Wiltshire had 16; O’Neal had 52 assists, and Mackin had 22 digs.

    Well, the East Hampton High School football team lost the game, and by a lopsided score, but its opening drive at Rocky Point Friday night was a thing of beauty.

    Following the kickoff into Bonac’s end zone, Dan Barros was hit behind the line, but then, on second-and-12, Cortland Heneveld, the sophomore quarterback, drove up the middle for 5 yards, and, on third down, Heneveld hit Sergio Betancur with a pass for a first down at the 31.

    Heneveld went off tackle for 5 before pitching out to Barros, who ran all the way down to the Eagles’ 30 before the play was called back because of a holding call.

    No matter, on the next play Heneveld lofted a long pass into the night air that Pete Vaziri caught at the home team’s 40.

    Seven plays later, East Hampton had a first-and-goal at the 3, but the Eagles held there, stopping Heneveld and Andre Cherrington on successive plays before sacking Heneveld at the 8. With fourth-and-goal there, Heneveld passed for Drew Griffiths in the end zone, but Mike Gilmartin intercepted.

    And then Rocky Point began to go to work. An interception of a Heneveld pass into traffic set up the Eagles’ first score, a 20-yard carry into the end zone by Joe Kingston early in the second quarter. Kingston scored the Eagles’ second T.D. as well, taking a pitch from inside the 10 with 5 minutes and 58 seconds left until the half. The home team made it 21-0 (all the extra point kicks were good) when Nick Lasalla, another quick back, found the end zone from 10 yards out with 2:31 left until the break.

    At that point, Bill Barbour, East Hampton’s coach, who had been pacing the sidelines with his arms folded on his chest, let his charges have it during a timeout, but the tongue-lashing proved to be in vain as East Hampton went on to lose 35-13.

    Griffiths and Cherrington scored Bonac’s touchdowns in a 14-13 second half, during which Rocky Point substituted liberally.

    Rocky Point improved to 1-5 as the result of the win, and East Hampton fell to 0-6. The Bonackers are to play at Westhampton Beach tomorrow at 6:30 p.m.                                          

Thursday, October 20

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

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

Friday, October 21

FOOTBALL, East Hampton at Westhampton Beach, 6:30 p.m.

BOYS SOCCER, East Hampton at Mount Sinai, 7 p.m.

Saturday, October 22

GIRLS VOLLEYBALL, East Hampton at Lindenhurst tournament, 9 a.m.

FIELD HOCKEY, Rocky Point at East Hampton, 10 a.m.

GIRLS SOCCER, East Hampton at Miller Place, 10 a.m.

Monday, October 24

BOYS SOCCER, Elwood-John Glenn at East Hampton, 3:30 p.m.

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

GIRLS VOLLEYBALL, East Hampton at Miller Place, 4:30 p.m.

BOYS VOLLEYBALL, East Hampton at Eastport-South Manor, 5:45 p.m.

Tuesday, October 25

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

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

Wednesday, October 26

GIRLS SWIMMING, West Islip vs. East Hampton, nonleague, Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter, 4 p.m.

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

BOYS VOLLEYBALL, Shoreham-Wading River at East Hampton, 5 p.m.

    East Hampton High School’s golf coach, Claude Beudert, wasn’t sure when the fall began that his squad, which last spring won county and Long Island titles, would repeat as the League VIII champion.

    For one, Zach Grossman, the former number-one and the county’s individual champion, and John Nolan, the former number-two, had left for college — Grossman to Skidmore and Nolan to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute — and two, a potential starter had decided to play boys volleyball rather than golf.

    When Beudert questioned Ian Lynch, this fall’s number-one, about the defection, “He said, ‘Don’t worry, coach, we’re okay.’ ”

    And indeed the junior Ivy League hopeful was right. East Hampton’s 6.5-2.5 win over Southampton at the Southampton Golf Club on Oct. 12 assured the Bonackers of yet another league championship — their 8th straight and the team’s 12th in the past 14 years.

    “It’s pretty satisfying,” Beudert said in recounting the exciting tilt, which was all even after the first five pairings had been played, leaving it all on the shoulders of East Hampton’s sixth man, Andrew Winthrop.

    “Ian shot a one-under-par 33 on Southampton’s front nine, the best score we’ve had in the 25 years I’ve been coaching, including Zach,” East Hampton’s coach said. “Ian beat their number-one, Scott Ricca, by four strokes, and Cameron [Yusko] beat Peter Barnaby by three, so we were up by seven after those two had played.”

    “John Pizzo shot a 40 at three, but lost to their seventh grader, Christian Oakley, who shot a 36. So, we were only up by three then. At four, Evan Scheuch beat Matt Griffiths by three, so it was all even at that point,” Beudert said. “Jimmy McMullan and Nick Acquino halved their match at five, each shooting 41, leaving it all up to Andrew, who had no idea the match was hanging on him. As it turned out, Andrew beat his guy by five shots, with a personal-record 38, which couldn’t have come at a better time.”

    “In individual matches, we won 3.5 and they won 2.5, and then, by substituting Andrew’s round for Matt’s, we won the three points you’re awarded for the lower aggregate score, 192 strokes to 197.”

    Asked if his players had jumped up and down afterward, Beudert said, “No, but they were about as excited as a golf team can be. . . . When on the bus ride home I reminded Ian of what he’d said at the beginning of the season, he just smiled.”

    Quite a bit of preparation had gone into the match at Southampton, Beudert said. During the previous weekend, he and Lee Minetree had walked Southampton’s nine, whose traps and greens had been altered somewhat since East Hampton last played there. Together, they drew up a book with helpful hints having to do with “yardage, conditions, uphill, downhill, and the greens.”

    “The day before the match, Jason Jeffries, one of the assistants at Maidstone, worked with our guys on their putting, chipping, and ball-stroking, and then, too, it was nice for us that we’d played a couple of away matches before the one at Southampton. . . . You can become so familiar with your home course that you become complaisant.”

    “Barry [Raebeck, Southampton’s coach] was gracious, though I know he’s competitive. It was a case of our winning rather than them losing. When the bell rang, we answered it. To have averaged 38 per man in that competitive situation was great.”

    “Last year, a league championship was a given. This year . . . we had a bull’s-eye on our back. Winning a league championship this year wasn’t easy. Though our four returnees and the others who stepped up worked hard and showed a lot of character. John Pizzo wore the shorts he’d worn at Bethpage when we won the county championship last spring. I brought that white tee I’d picked up there as a talisman. I’ve had it in my pocket every day!”

    The 9-0 team as of earlier this week had two matches yet to play, with Pierson at the Noyac Golf and Country Club on Tuesday, and at home at the South Fork Country Club in Amagansett yesterday with Shelter Island, a nonleague opponent.

    And the spring tournament? “That can wait,” said Beudert. “For now we’re enjoying our league championship.”

    A beautiful day, some of the best trails out here, and the recent untimely death of Andrew Walsh, a 45-year-old Irish-born outdoorsman and gifted landscape designer known to many of them, brought some 70 mountain-bikers and runners to the Edward V. Ecker Preserve in Montauk Sunday to contest, following silent moments of remembrance, the Serpent’s Back Duathlon overseen by Mike Bahel, the 12-mile mountain-bike leg bracketed by two-and-a-half-mile trail runs.

    The field ran across Rod’s Valley, past the fishing pier, to the bluff jutting out into Fort Pond Bay, and disappeared up into the woods. Within 20 minutes most of the runners had reappeared in the valley, having run down a trail bordering Navy Road, and had set out up Navy Road on the tough bike leg capped by another run.

    Sinead FitzGibbon, 41, who was the women’s winner (and fifth over all, in 1 hour, 33 minutes, and 30 seconds) said, “Andrew used to say to the other mountain-bikers, ‘Look out for her — she’s got lungs in her legs!’ He loved these coastal trails. This was his favorite race. . . . We’re lucky to have it and we’re lucky to have each other’s companionship.”

    “Next August 1st,” she continued, “on his birthday, we’re going to have a duathlon with a kids’ race in Northwest Woods [where he died while mountain-biking on Sept. 13] to celebrate him. His family’s coming over from County Mayo. They’re all athletes. Simon, his brother, was here a couple of years ago. Simon’s son, David, will put a lot of pressure on the locals.”

    FitzGibbon, when asked before the race began if she was going to do all of it or compete as part of a relay team, replied, “I’ll suffer through the whole thing. But it’s okay — I loaded up on champagne last night.”

    She added that “Mike does such a great job with this race. It’s one of the toughest and one of the prettiest.”

    Among the contestants that day was Colm Kennedy, a boyhood friend of Walsh’s from Ballina, who now lives in San Francisco. “I went to college with him and we apprenticed with a tool and die maker in 1986. . . . He was a great man. He’ll be sorely missed.”

    Bahel said in a separate conversation that Kennedy had made plans to do the Serpent’s Back with Walsh, but learned just before making the trip east that his friend had died of a heart attack. “Rikki [Furman, Walsh’s life partner, who was also there that day] said he should come. He’s doing the whole race today.”

    It was no surprise that the duathlon was won, in 1:25:58, by Brian Wolff, who had won it in 2006, ’07, ’09, and ’10 as well. The string was broken by Ed Cashin in 2008, “though I made a couple of wrong turns that year, in the run and on the bike,” said Wolff, 31, who works for and is sponsored by Carl Hart Bicycles of Middle Island.

    Chris Daily, a very fit 52-year-old from Farmingdale, was the runner-up in 1:28:52. Dan Farnham, also 52, a Montauker who, along with Bahel, Brian Monahan, Ed and Caroline Cashin, Pat Wetzel, and FitzGibbon, has competed in endurance races all over the country under Walsh’s Team HOPS banner, was third, in 1:29:32.

    Later, Farnham marveled at how light Daily’s mountain bike was. You could lift it with two fingers. He would have to get one too, a spectator advised.

    “It was a good race,” said Wolff. “He’s a very strong racer — running and biking,” he said of the runner-up.

    “I used to win these things a long time ago — until he came on the scene,” said Daily. “He beats me on the bike, I beat him on the run.”

    It was nice, he added, that this was “not a super, super competitive race, but there’s a lot of spirit.”

    The fourth place finisher that day was Joe Amato, 46, of East Quogue. Caroline Cashin, 35, of Amagansett, was the women’s runner-up (and 14th over all) in 1:48:05.

    Cashin won this race in 2005, ’06, and ’09. Fitzgibbon won it in ’08. When her former wins were mentioned, Cashin said, acknowledging FitzGibbon, “Those were years she wasn’t here.”

     When Daily said he was a photographer and videographer, this writer said it was a pity he hadn’t been able to take photos that day. “My wife, Linda, clicked away,” Daily said, “but there was no card in the camera.”

    East Hampton High’s girls swimming and boys soccer teams enjoyed big wins this past week. The swimmers swamped Huntington in a meet at the Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter, evening its record at 1-1, and the soccer team, playing away, bested Elwood-John Glenn 3-1 to gain a share of the league lead.

    In other action, the golf team remained undefeated, bageling Ross 9-0 at the East Hampton Golf Club, Ross’s home course, and the girls cross-country team’s top two, Ashley West and Dana Cebulski, were winners at an invitational meet at Indian Island County Park in Riverhead.

    Girls volleyball, which was the runner-up to undefeated Elwood-John Glenn as of Friday with a 5-2 record, was to have played a nonleaguer here with Harborfields, a possible playoff opponent, Monday afternoon, and the 2-3 girls soccer team was looking that day to even its record in a game with last-place Amityville. Also on Monday, third-place Sayville and second-place East Hampton, which last Thursday easily defeated Westhampton Beach here, were to have vied in a boys volleyball match.

    Although the golf team remained atop League VIII with a 7-0 record as the result of its shutout of Ross, a big match loomed Tuesday at 6-1 Southampton. The Mariners were the last team to defeat the Bonackers, two years ago. East Hampton has not lost at home, which is to say on the South Fork Country Club’s course, since Oct. 15, 2003, according to the team’s coach, Claude Beudert.

    Rich King, the boys soccer coach, said after the boys soccer win at Glenn, the defending league champion and a county finalist in 2010, that “we were a little flat at first. Glenn scored first, as the result of a breakdown at midfield. It was a great shot that bounced down off the crossbar and was kicked in by another kid.”

    Mario Olaya, Bonac’s top scorer — and, as of last week, the third leading scorer in Suffolk County — converted a penalty kick to tie the score before halftime, and in the second half, playing “possession soccer,” East Hampton put the game away as Milton Farez, with an assist from Jean Carlos Barrientos, and Olaya scored goals.

    Olaya’s, which came with three or four minutes left in the contest, was a blast into the upper corner from about 25 yards out, a goal that King described as “unbelievable.” It was his 12th goal of the season, putting him two behind Suffolk’s leader.

    “We’ve got six games to play — the season’s halfway over — and we control our own destiny,” said King. “We’ve got games with Westhampton, Shoreham, and John Glenn left, all at home.”

    Six wins (East Hampton as of earlier this week had four, with one loss and one tie) will get the team into the playoffs.

    On Saturday, Bonac’s varsity will play host to middle school teams from Montauk, Springs, and East Hampton, in a clinic that is to begin at noon. The varsity is to play a big game with Shoreham-Wading River at 3 p.m. The junior varsity is also to play on a grass field adjacent to the turf one versus its Shoreham peers.

    If the Bonackers defeat 0-4-1 Bayport-Blue Point today, a win Saturday over Shoreham — a team that played to a scoreless tie with East Hampton the last time out — would clinch a playoff spot.

    As for girls swimming, East Hampton, whose ranks have been augmented by some strong eighth graders, namely Carly Drew, Lilah Minetree, and Mia Karlin-Cappello, placed first in eight of the 11 events and “exhibitioned” in the final three.

    Among East Hampton’s winners were the 200 medley relay team of Lindsey Stevens, Lydia Florio, Drew, and Morgan German; Marina Preiss in the 200 freestyle; Mikayla Mott in the 200 individual medley; Maddie Minetree in the 50 and 100 free; Drew in the 100 butterfly; Laura Gundersen in the 500 free, and the 200 freestyle relay team of Maddie Minetree, Mott, Drew, and Preiss.

    Of note were Maddie Minetree’s time of 25.97 seconds in the 50 free, just off her career best of 25.6; Lilah Minetree’s personal-best 1:03.6 in the 100 free (good for second place, behind her older sister); Shannon Ryan’s personal-best 30.90 in the 50 free, and Kyra Daniels’s personal-best 7:57.62 in the 500.

    The team’s seniors are Maddie Minetree, Mott, and Haley Ryan. Gundersen is a junior. Daniels, German, Lily Goldman, Serrana Mattiauda Vazquez, Preiss, Shannon Ryan, Caley Serin, and Stevens are sophomores, and Drew, Lilah Minetree, and Mia Karlin-Cappello, as aforementioned, are eighth graders.

    Concerning cross-country, Diane O’Donnell, the girls coach, said before competing in the Serpent’s Back Duathlon in Montauk Sunday that in last Thursday’s invitational at Indian Island, Cebulski, a ninth grader, won the freshman race, in 12:26 over a 1.8-mile course, and that West, a senior, won the varsity race, a 5K, in 20:03.

    “Ashley was up against some good competition, including the Hampton Bays girl, the Eastport-South Manor girl, and the Rocky Point girl. . . . It was a very good race for her. She went out hard and finished strong, though she knows now you can’t rely on your kick. Everybody has a kick. You have to make your move earlier and push the others over the edge before you start your kick.”

    East Hampton’s revived team, moreover, finished third among 13 teams, O’Donnell said. “Though the teams ahead of us, Mount Sinai and Westhampton, are in our league.”

    It was a day, O’Donnell continued, in which East Hampton’s pack — Jennie DiSunno, Emma Newburger, Brittany Rivkind, and Kerry Kaestner — enjoyed a breakthrough. “They all ran two to three minutes faster than they had on the same course two days before. Every single girl, when she saw her time, said, ‘I’m amazing!’ They just had to want it. Now they’re pumped up!”

    Getting back to boys volleyball, Dan Weaver, East Hampton’s coach, said after the win in four here over the Hurricanes, a win that improved the team’s record to 5-1 in league play, that he was “happy with the win, but dissatisfied with the effort.”

    Weaver subbed freely in the third game, which went Westhampton’s way.

    A.J. Bennett, the senior setter, finished with 17 assists; Thomas King had 12 kills and three aces; Patrick McGuirk had five kills and three aces, and Ryan Fitzgerald had four kills and five blocks.

    If East Hampton defeated Sayville here Monday, Weaver thought the Bonackers would get the second seed “and a home game” in the Division II tournament. “We got the third seed last year and had to go to Shoreham-Wading River, where we got beat.”

    There are no captains this season, the coach said in answer to a question, because “there are a lot of seniors, a lot of leaders.” Though senior-heavy, the starting lineup includes three juniors — King, L.B. Lownes Jr., and Evan Larsen.

Three Results

    As it turned out, all three Bonac teams that played Monday — girls soccer, girls volleyball, and boys volleyball — won.

    Raffi Franey’s goal in the second half treated the soccer team, which had absorbed some losses recently, to a 1-0 win over Amityville. The girls volleyball team downed its playoff nemesis, Harborfields, in five, coming back after losing the first two sets, and the boys assured themselves of a second seed in the playoffs by defeating Sayville in four.