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.

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.

All-American

    Skye Marigold, who swims for Tom Cohill’s Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter Hurricanes team, has been named by U.S.A. Swimming as one of its scholastic All-Americans, a designation that takes into account swimming and scholastic achievements. Marigold is one of 1,000 female athletes nationwide to be so honored. Cohill said Marigold, who is a freestyler primarily, is the first Hurricane to be named an All-American.

    “She’s actually the second All-American I’ve trained,” said Cohill, who is the Y’s aquatics director. “The other is Albert [Woods],” an octogenarian who has won multiple national age-group championships.

    In other Hurricane news, eight of them — Marigold, Maddie Minetree, Lilah Minetree, Carly Drew, Teague Costello, Alex Astilean, Georgie Bogetti, and Thomas Brierley — are putting in extra hours of training in the Y’s pool from 5:30 to 6:30 a.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays. When the varsity girls season is over, they’ll add fitness training as well, from 4 to 5 on Mondays and Wednesdays at Alex Astilean Sr.’s Speedfit Studio on Newtown Lane in East Hampton.

Ruggers Win Again

    The Montauk Rugby Club improved its Met Union Division II record to 6-0 and thus clinched a Northeast region playoff spot this past Saturday, trouncing Bayonne, N.J., 43-17 in an away game.

    Charlie Collins reported that “Bayonne was arguably the toughest and most skilled team the Sharks have faced this season. . . . Led by the inspired play of our forwards, especially Mike Bunce and Jarrel Walker, we took the lead in the second half and never looked back.”

    Those scoring tries for Montauk were Bunce (two), Gordon Trotter, Ricardo Salmeron, Hamish Cuthbertson, Nick Finazzo (a recent returnee), and Connor Miller. Trotter, the New Zealand-born fly half, made good on four of seven conversion kicks.

    This Saturday, the Sharks are to play at 3-3 Rockaway, a side that’s moved up from Division III owing to its 6-1 record in 2010. The Sharks can clinch the division title with a win.

Beyond Football

    The East Hampton High School football team’s players will wear purple shoelaces and their coaches will wear purple shirts in the season finale here this Saturday with Miller Place as a way of calling attention to the Retreat and its efforts to prevent domestic violence and to protect the victims of it.

    Bill Barbour, East Hampton’s head coach, has said that “the program is proud to team up with the Retreat to help raise awareness of this ever-present problem. . . . It is yet another way in which we can teach our players what it means to be a real man.”

    Suffolk County Legislator Jay Schneiderman is to speak “on the importance of students participating in ending the cycle of domestic violence” at halftime.

    In related news, the East Hampton-Springs junior high football team, at the instance of Burke Gonzalez, a defensive tackle and offensive guard, has been wearing pink socks in its games this season. The Springs School eighth grader said the money the players paid for the socks is to be donated to the Katy Stewart memorial scholarship fund.

    A half-dozen East Hampton High School teams are eyeing the postseason, foremost among them Claude Beudert’s undefeated golfers, though they’ll have to wait until next spring for that sport’s conference and county championships.

    The 12-0 golfers finished up last week with an 8.5-.5 win over Shelter Island on the Bonackers’ home course at the South Fork Country Club in Amagansett. Ian Lynch, the junior number-one, led the way with a 35-to-43 win over Jay Card, who had bested Lynch 41-43 when they played on Shelter Island.

    Lynch can also boast of having carded East Hampton’s all-time low score, a one-under-par 33, which he shot in a recent crucial match at Southampton, a win that enabled East Hampton to clinch its eighth straight league title and the program’s 12th in the past 14 years.

    Beudert said during last Thursday’s outbracket girls tennis match between East Hampton and Mount Sinai (a match that East Hampton was to win 6-1) that his number-two, Cameron Yusko, was a finalist in Channel 12’s student-athlete of the week contest. The six-year varsity veteran was certainly worthy, said Beudert, who nominated him. “He has a 98.7 unweighted grade-point average, he’s a great community-minded kid, and he’s a three-sport athlete. He’s been all-league for us three times and all-conference twice. A quality kid, all around.”

    Golf’s all leaguers this season were Yusko, Lynch, and John Pizzo, said Beudert, “though we won’t know about all-conference until the spring. My m.v.p. is Ian, the coach’s award is going to Cameron, and Matt Griffiths is my most-improved. He and Andrew Winthrop really filled in well this year.”

    Turning to cross-country, whose girls and boys teams continue on the upswing, boosted by Bill Herzog’s junior high program, Diane O’Donnell has two potential all-state competitors in Ashley West, a senior, and in Dana Cebulski, a ninth grader.

    In a recent Northeast invitational meet at Brown University, Cebulski placed fourth among 215 entrants in the 5K varsity race in 19 minutes and 24 seconds, “a very good time,” according to O’Donnell, who added that West could well have finished in the top 10 too, but, because of an aggravated calf muscle strain, had to pull out after having run two thirds of the way.

    West, herself, who was seen biking in front of the high school last Thursday, said she was rehabbing the muscle with the school’s trainer, Randi Cherill, and was confident she’d be ready for the state qualifier meet that is to be held Friday, Nov. 4 at Sunken Meadow State Park.

    Things continued to go swimmingly, as well, for John McGeehan’s girls swim team, who defeated Hauppauge 96-74 at the Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter last Thursday.

    Posting career bests were Bonac’s 200 medley relay team of Marina Preiss, Mikayla Mott, Carly Drew, and Maddie Minetree, who won in 1:57.84, and the 200 freestyle relay team of Preiss, Mott, Morgan German, and Minetree, who won in 1:45.81.

    Recording season-bests were Mott, who won the 200 individual medley in 2:21.14; Minetree, who won the 50 free in 25.93; Preiss, who won the 100 free in 55.57, and German, who placed third in the 50 free in 27.32.

    Moreover, Lydia Florio ‘pr’d’ in the 100 breaststroke, placing third in 1:19.24, and Caley Serin, who was fifth in the 200 free in 2:49.51, also had a personal record.

    In addition, Haley Ryan placed second in the 500 free in 6:41.76.

    The 4-1 girls were to have had home meets earlier this week with West Babylon and West Islip. The League III championships are to be held at Hauppauge High School on Nov. 4. The county meet is to be held at Suffolk Community College-Brentwood on Nov. 12.

    Getting back to the aforementioned tennis match versus Mount Sinai (East Hampton being the 16th seed, Mount Sinai the 17th), Michelle Kennedy, the first-year coach, reported that Abby Okin, the eighth grader who plays first singles, suffered the sole loss that day, at the hands of Daniella Stefanucci, who won 7-5, 6-3.

    Carly Grossman, at two, defeated Rebekah Lester 6-2, 6-0; Phoebe Gianis, at three, defeated Erika Mavi 7-6 (8-6), 6-1, and Margaux Eckert, at four, defeated Alexa Mani 6-1, 6-0.

    In doubles, East Hampton’s first team, Jess Bono and Daniella Dunphy, who as a result of placing third in the recent division tournament had been named to the all-county team, won 3-6, 6-4, 6-4; Caitlin Walsh and Sydney Sanicola won 6-1, 2-6, 7-5, and Gillian Neubert and Bryce Slater won 6-2, 3-6, 6-4.

    Playing in the county tournament, Bono, a senior, and Dunphy, a sophomore, won a first-round match, defeating a Bay Shore entry 5-7, 6-4, 6-4 before losing to the top seeds in the quarterfinals.

    On the volleyball court, East Hampton’s boys team, with Thomas King sitting out, defeated Huntington in four on Oct. 17 to improve to 8-1 in league play.

    “It was a big game for Huntington, which needed it to make the playoffs,” said East Hampton’s coach, Dan Weaver.

    L.B. Lownes, who usually alternates with Trevor Shea playing opposite the opponent’s setter, moved to outside hitter, King’s position, and “had some big kills,” said Weaver.

    King was to have missed Monday’s match at league-leading Eastport-South Manor as well, though Weaver said he thought the team, which he said had been practicing jump pass serve returns and defensive positioning, had a good shot.

    Four years ago, Lee Oldak, who owns the Amagansett Beach Company, and who, though not a rower himself, had been selling shells down by the seashore, went to the Snowflake Regatta on the Peconic River in Riverhead, and became hooked.

    “I loved the tailgate scene, with people cheering on the rowers from the shore . . . and I thought, ‘I can do this.’ That’s the short of it — that’s what got me started.”

    As for rowing as a sport, Oldak, who heads up the Sag Harbor Community Rowing club, which launches single, double, and four-person (quad) sculls three seasons a year from a Sag Harbor Village-owned access at Redwood Cove, describes it as “the fountain of youth . . . I swear by it. I’m 56 and in the best shape of my life. Aside from sailing, I don’t do any other exercise.”

    Asked if rowing didn’t require the rower to use every muscle in his or her body, Oldak, who since last month has had six sixth-grade girls under his wing, said with a smile, “It doesn’t require that you you use every muscle, but if you do it right, you use every muscle.”

    As for his young students, recruited by Catherine Spolarich, who had participated in his summer camp overseen by two Columbia University crew members, Dan Kirrane and Bruno Slemme, Oldak said, “They’re too young to race [in regattas coming soon in Riverhead and Oyster Bay], but they’ve been very coachable. These kids are small, but they’re handling the oars. You should see them in a quad. The only downside is that they need help getting the boats in the water — I have the boys help them do that.”

    One of the boys who helps, and who rows with the younger group, is Adrian Gaston Kestler, an eighth grader who had sailed with a Pierson-sponsored junior group at the Breakwater Yacht Club until it was discontinued. “I started rowing a year ago, in the fall and in the spring,” Adrian said on emerging from a recent practice session. “The coaching’s good. I want more kids to join.”

    Oldak and a veteran oarsman, Andrew Hart-Adler, the founder of the University of North Carolina’s crew team, who, during the aforementioned practice session, worked in a quad with a Ross School student, Will Benedict, and two from Southampton High School, Brett Listl, a former football player, and Will Mack, have been “teaching a lot of technique.”

    “It’s like golf — the technique is never-ending,” said Oldak. “I’m still learning.”

    Oldak credited Sag Harbor’s former mayor Greg Ferraris with having given the club the boost it needed in agreeing that it could use the village-owned Cove Park access strip. In season, the club’s six racing sculls — two singles, two doubles, and two quads — and its 10 recreational shells are kept on racks, not far from the little beach that serves as the launching area. Both Oldak and Hart-Adler said they’d love to have the village put in a dock there.

    Both too would love it if the numbers would increase. “Sixth graders haven’t reached the point where they’re doing sports, but after that it becomes a problem given all the things kids can do here,” said Oldak. “There are college scholarships out there for the girls, and rowing can help the boys get into college. Dan [Kirrane] was in a sweep program at Chaminade and got into Columbia with a B average. He’s rowing with Columbia’s eight in the Head of the Charles regatta today in Boston.”

    Will Benedict, the aforementioned Ross freshman, who would like to go to a boarding school that has a crew team, perhaps Salisbury, where Hart-Adler went, said that while he plays basketball, “this is my favorite sport — I love anything on the water.”

    “He’s a natural,” said the 6-foot-3 Hart-Adler, who once coached U.N.C.’s women’s team, “the first one in the South.”

    In collegiate competition, oarsmen and women handle one oar, not two, as is the case with the Sag Harbor club’s sculls.

    “Ours is a sculling program, not a sweep program,” said Oldak, who’s certified by U.S. Rowing as a Level 2 coach. “College coaches like it that kids come to them not overdeveloped on one side, but with the balance that comes from handling two oars.”

    The club, he added, which is a nonprofit one, was “always looking for donations,” whether they might be in the form of checks, shells, or uniforms. “Money’s better than shells, though we’ll take either.”

    The year-round dues are $250 for adults and $149 for 18-and-unders accompanied by an adult. Members can avail themselves of the club’s shells “during any daylight hour unless they’re being used by students.”

    Though the sixth graders won’t be racing in the Peconic River regatta on Nov. 13, Oldak was to have taken them to Riverhead yesterday, weather permitting, so that they could get the feel of maneuvering around other boats, docks, buoys, and encroaching shorelines. He’s done the same thing with them in the upper reaches of Redwood Cove too.

    “I’ll row in the Riverhead regatta, and so will Robert Montgomery, a former U.S. national champion who lives in Sag Harbor the year round and rows with us,” said Oldak. “And Roxanne Robinson, who’s been involved since we started. And I’m hoping we’ll have a boys double. We’ll bring the girls so they can watch.”

    After that, he said, he would leave for Florida. Thus he would not oversee ergometer rowing machine training this winter at Pierson High School or at the Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter, as he has in the past.

    “We’re expecting to double our numbers [of high school students] in the spring — we’re expecting 16. . . . Anybody can come. The first day will be Tuesday, April 3.”

    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.

    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 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.”

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.

    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.