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.

    Continuing to roll Saturday, the Montauk Rugby Club upended the Met Union’s Division II leader, Danbury, by a convincing score of 25-7.

    Danbury, which had beaten the Sharks last fall and edged them in the playoff hunt by 1 point, only managed one try on the home side’s Herrick Park pitch, the result of a momentary lapse after Brenden Mott, who had come in for Zach Brenneman on the wing, had made it 20-7 Montauk.

    Mott, who was to begin an Army tour two days later, scored again soon after, stripping the ball from a Danbury player near the Connecticut side’s try zone, and touching it down for the aforementioned 25-7 final.

    Rich Brierley, Montauk’s coach, said later, however, that “more than our backs, it was our defense that did it. We never let Danbury get the ball out. Their coach said later that their backs were knocking the ball on [fumbling forward] too much, but a lot of that could be attributed to our team defense. When there’s a ruck or a tackle, you have to reorganize quickly — as a team. You can’t go it alone —  your opponents will find a hole. . . . I think our defense is improving week after week.”

    Montauk has a bunch of athletic tyros who are learning quickly. Brierley singled out one of them, Jarrel Walker, as “the man of the match.” The flanker, a former C.W. Post lineman and arena football player from Bridgehampton, had been “a standout on both sides of the ball,” said Brierley. “He made many tackles, stopping their forward progress, and, offensively, it took three or four guys to bring him down. He only committed one faux pas, which earned him a yellow card, when he threw a shoulder and didn’t wrap up. But there were only five minutes left when he went out.”

    The other flanker, Hamish Cuthbertson, a coast guardsman who plays for Montauk “when he’s ashore,” was also outstanding, said Brierley. “He does a lot of things you don’t notice, like securing rucks and making tackles. He’s always in the mix.”

    When asked if there were other defenders who should be mentioned, the coach said, “It really was the whole team.”

    The locals, who improved as a result of the win to 3-0 in divisional play, only led 5-0 at the half. The margin could have been greater, but John Glennon, one of Montauk’s prop forwards, was prevented from scoring out of a five-meter scrum when the visitors “held him up,” i.e., prevented him from touching the ball down in their try zone.

    Erik Brierley, the Sharks’ young fullback, made the lone first-half try, taking a lateral from Ricardo Salmeron before streaking unmolested 25 yards down Montauk’s sideline with 10 minutes left in the period.

    Danbury had a chance to make it 5-3 soon after, but its fly half’s penalty kick from about 40 yards out hooked wide left of the uprights.

    “It was anyone’s game at the half,” said Rich Brierley. “Danbury has talented backs — they’re capable of scoring a couple tries very quickly. A missed tackle or a mistake of another kind and they would have been right back in the game.”

    But Montauk continued to put the pressure on in the second half. In the opening minutes, Erik Brierley blocked an attempted clearing kick, picked the ball up, and ran it in from the 22-meter mark. Gordon Trotter’s conversion kick was good for 12-0.

    At that point, another of the side’s coaches, Paul Cleary, shouted, “Concentration, now. Concentrate.”

    Moments later, after the visitors had run Montauk’s kickoff all the way back for their first score of the day, Cleary said to a spectator, “It’s a common occurence. Teams will score, lose focus, and give up a try by other side, just as you saw.”

    A penalty kick from 20 yards out by Trotter, which upped the margin to 8 points, gave the Sharks some breathing room however, and this time they not only held, but went on the attack, which ended with Mott’s second try of the afternoon.

    To make the playoffs, whose first round games are to be played in early November, the Sharks will have to finish among the eight-team division’s top three.

    “Lansdowne is next [in Yonkers this Saturday], and it will be a big hurdle,” said Rich Brierley. “They’re 3-0, as are we.

    Though the East Hampton High School football team lost 53-13 to fourth-place Comsewogue here Saturday, there were several things to write home about in the second quarter, to wit an 80-yard touchdown pass in which the quarterback, Cort Heneveld, and Pete Vaziri combined, an onsides kick fumble recovery by Juan Varon, and an interception by Sergio Betancur.

    Comsewogue, which improved to 3-1 as a result of the victory, was rated sixth among the small-school teams on Long Island by Newsday Tuesday. Today, at 3:30, the Bonackers are to play at Islip, whose record is 2-2.

    In other sports here there was better news: the golf team led League VIII with a 5-0 record; the boys volleyball team was in second place in League III with a 4-1 record; the boys soccer team, which flattened Mount Sinai 7-0 here Monday, was third in League VI, though it had the league’s best overall record at 5-1-1 (and probably had the best goals for-against ratio, at 27-2); the girls soccer team likewise was in third place, at 2-1 (5-1-1), and the girls volleyball team also was in third, in League VI, with a 4-2 mark, along with Westhampton and Sayville. Elwood-John Glenn led the league at 6-0, but Glenn is a Class B school, not an A school as is the case with East Hampton.

    Claude Beudert, the golf team’s coach, who lost last year’s top two, Zach Grossman and John Nolan, to graduation, was happy to be undefeated as of Tuesday, “though we need,” he said, “to get better. . . . We barely beat Pierson on our home course at South Fork by six shots, and we bested Southampton by 14. Now we’ve got to play some tough matches on the road. We’ll be at Southampton on Tuesday, and then we have to play Pierson away too.”

    Ian Lynch, his junior number-one, has been averaging around 40 strokes in the nine-hole matches. Cameron Yusko, the number-two, has been averaging 41. Yusko, by the way, had a hole-in-one in a recent practice session, on the par-three, 150-yard sixth hole, using a 9 iron.

    Jim McMullan, at three, and John Pizzo, at four, would have to kick it up a notch if the Bonackers are to remain undefeated, Beudert continued. “I’ve been telling them that if they shot in the mid to high 40s at Bethpage Black [ as they did in the Long Island championship last spring], they can do it on these courses too.”

    The team has been playing on South Fork’s front nine this fall, which “is much more difficult than the back nine, where we played our home matches last year. We shot a total of 213 in the match with Southampton, but 230 in the one with Pierson.”

    East Hampton played Shelter Island at the Gardiner’s Bay Country Club Monday. “It was a wonderful day, and it was great to play on another course — we get into a pattern at South Fork. Ian lost his first match of the year, to Jay Card, who’s one of the top golfers in the county. Cameron led the way with a 42. Par was 35. They’d played a pro-pro tournament there that morning — they’re playing at The Bridge today — and the greens had been cut twice. They were like a pool table, soft but slick. It was a treat — the kids loved them.”

    In other sports contests Monday, boys soccer, as aforesaid, shut out Mount Sinai here 7-0. Mario Olaya led the way with three goals. Christian Calle, Esteban Vargas, Nick West, and Esteban Valverde also scored. Esteban Aguilar started in the goal; Nicholas Tulp played some in the second half.

    Olaya, after scoring the first three goals, sat out most of the second half. Rich King, Bonac’s coach, said the senior striker is “one of the top five in the county in scoring,” a fact that is even more striking given the fact that he has spent about 90 minutes looking on from the sidelines.

    “At one point in Monday’s game we had six freshmen on the field,” said King. “Three of our goals in the second half were scored with six freshmen playing, the same as it was when we played Amityville.”

    As for a 2-1 loss recently at Westhampton Beach, East Hampton’s first of the season, King said, “We had some really good chances, but couldn’t finish. They scored the winning goal with three minutes to go. There was a breakdown at midfield on a counter, and their kid got off a low shot to the near post from about 15 yards out.” The Bonackers outshot the Hurricanes that day, but it was little consolation.

     East Hampton and Shoreham-Wading River, which at 2-0-1 led League VI as of Tuesday, played to a scoreless tie on Sept. 21.

    East Hampton was to have played at Elwood-John Glenn Tuesday. “If we win,” said King, we’ll at least have a share of first place. Glenn is the defending league champion and county finalist. Any time we play them it’s huge.”

    King added that he’s excited about the program here. “There’s a lot that still could happen — we’re near the halfway point — but I think,” he said, “that we have a legitimate shot at the county championship. . . . Our jayvee [coached by Steve Tseperkas] is undefeated, and, as I said, we’ve got all these freshmen on the varsity who play well.”

    Along that line, he said that on Saturday, Oct. 15, from noon until 2 p.m., “there will be a clinic — the first such we’ve had here — for the junior high teams from Montauk, Springs, and East Hampton.”

    The junior high players will be asked to stay on to see Bonac’s junior varsity and varsity play their Shoreham-Wading River counterparts. The jayvee will play on the grass that day, and the varsity on the turf.

    Bonac’s girls soccer team, at 5-1-1, had the second-best overall record in its league as of Tuesday. Sayville, which as of that day shared the lead with Miller Place, which also was undefeated, had the best overall record at 7-0-0.

    A fleet of 24 boats contending in the North American JY-15 championships sailed 10 races mostly over windward-leeward courses in Sag Harbor over three days last weekend with Paul-Jon Patin of Forest Hills, who has world Sunfish and Interclub Dinghy championships to his credit, emerging as the victor.

    Steve Kelley of Sayville, the principal race officer, who oversaw three races on Friday, four on Saturday, and three on Sunday, said he was surprised to hear it was the first time Patin would have his name inscribed on the perpetual JY-15 North American trophy.

    “For him not to have won before shows you that we had very good sailors,” said Kelley, who competes year round in these quick yet relatively comfortable 15-foot mainsail and jib craft. “I’ve always had a special feeling for these boats — they’re very easy to work with. I started my kids crewing when they were 6. They’re in their 20s now.”

    Nine of the races were contested over tactically challenging upwind-downwind courses. Kelley tried one triangular course (an upwind leg with port and starboard reaches), “but the wind wasn’t heavy enough and they couldn’t plane off — the sailors didn’t like it.”

    As aforesaid, the fleet, with a due south wind, got in three races Friday afternoon, “two of them twice around and the last one once around,” beginning at 2 p.m. “There was a very consistent north breeze Saturday morning, Kelley said, “but it became confusing — very, very shifty — in the afternoon, to the extent that it became an unfair contest. I had to cancel one of the races. . . . We got in three races on Sunday and were done by noon.”

    The runner-up to Patin, by a relatively narrow margin, was Bill Nightingale, who won the North American championships two years ago, and placed second last year. Nightingale’s wife, Julie, was his crew.

    The Nightingales were atop the leaderboard by the end of the first day, with a third, a first, and a third. Patin and his crew, Felicity Ryan, were fourth at that point.

    “This is dinghy racing, the real deal — you get so much bang for your buck,” Bill Nightingale said at a buffet dinner Friday at the Breakwater Yacht Club, which held the races and whose members made up about half of the fleet.

    When asked if she was always aboard in the competitions, Julie Nightingale said, with a laugh, “He doesn’t do nearly as well when I’m not crewing for him.”

    Her husband said it helped that he was also a boardsailer and thus sensitized to subtle wind changes on the water. He boardsails at Napeague Harbor in Amagansett — “the best place on the earth for windsurfing.” That boardsailing experience was especially helpful sailing JY-15s swiftly downwind, he  said.

    “You sometimes plane on these boats,” he continued, “but the main thing is that they’re fun for anyone who wants to get into sailing. . . . Rodney Johnstone [the JY-15’s designer] is a genius.”

    As it happened, Rodney Johnstone was there that night.

    When asked why he had designed the JY-15, the 74-year-old Stonington, Conn., resident said, “I wanted to get husbands and wives and fathers and daughters sailing together. I wanted it to be something families could do together. And it was a family creation — I designed it with one of my sons, Alan. Since we started — we’ve since sold the company — 3,500 JY-15s have been built. Number 3,504 is here today.”

    When told one of the sailors had said the boat was tippy, Johnstone said, “Any small boat is tippy . . . there are hiking straps so you can lean out. Even an old guy like me can sail them. I still do.”

    Johnstone had spent the afternoon on the committee boat. “I have other obligations,” he said. “Otherwise, I would have sailed today.”

    Asked how the JY-15 compared to the Olympic dinghy, the 470, Johnstone said, “I think the JY-15 is an improvement on the 470. It’s a lot easier to sail and more comfortable.”

    Bill Nightingale’s sister, Sara, who also raced — one of three women skippers among the 24 — said Monday that the series had gone down to the wire. “Paul-Jon was up by 11 points going into the final day, but my brother won the first two races Sunday before disaster [in the form of a bad start] struck him in the last one.”

    That bad start had been the difference, said Patin, who, with Ryan, had wrested the lead with three firsts and a second in Saturday’s racing.

    As for the class, Patin said JY-15s “aren’t super technical, but very simple, and sailors of all sizes, ages, and abilities can compete at a high level in them. That’s where Rodney Johnstone’s genius comes in. He’s gotten younger, by the way, since the last time I saw him. I’d also like to say what a fantastic job Steve Kelley and the club did in putting these races on.”

    Sara Nightingale said that she’d “love to encourage more women to get into this — I’d be glad to teach them. You don’t have to be that strong to sail a JY-15, you just have to be smart.”

    Nightingale said that the Breakwater club, which is on Sag Harbor’s Bay Street, is “quite affordable,” and welcomes new members. “We sail every Sunday afternoon, at 3, at Havens Beach,” she said.

    Breakwater runs a very popular summer program for junior sailors, and, in the fall and spring, one for local high school students — Pierson recently dropped out, though its middle school is represented in the spring. Two of the high school program’s students, Caitlin Cummings and Sam Kramer, both of the Ross School, competed last weekend.

    Of Kramer, who crewed for her, Sara Nightingale said, “He was amazing — a great, great kid. . . . We finished 11th.”

    Lee Oldak, a fellow Breakwater member, who heads up Sag Harbor Community Rowing, and who placed 10th in the championship series, said Monday he hoped more high school kids would turn out for the sailing classes, which are overseen by Tom McArdle at the yacht club four afternoons a week.

    As for rowing, Oldak, who owns the Amagansett Beach Company in Amagansett, said, “I’ve got seven sixth grade kids — six girls and one boy — who are rowing with me now, along with high school students from Pierson, Ross, and East Hampton. We use racing shells — up to fours.”

    Classes are held three afternoons a week and Saturday morning at Sag Harbor Cove.

    Two rowing regattas, he said, were coming up — in Oyster Bay on Nov. 6, and in Riverhead on Nov. 13.    

Sharks in First

    The Montauk Rugby Club improved its Met Union record to 4-0 Saturday with a 26-14 win over the Lansdowne R.F.C. in Yonkers. Thus the Sharks are now in sole possession of first place in Division II, though to clinch a playoff spot they’ll probably have to defeat Bayonne, N.J., in an away game on Oct. 22. Meanwhile, Union, N.J., is to play here Saturday at 1 p.m.

    “Lansdowne had a lot of Irish internationals playing for them, but their fitness level was a little off,” Rich Brierley, Montauk’s coach, said Tuesday. “Our forwards and backs were better.”

    The Sharks held a slim 12-11 lead at the half, but scored two tries — one by Steve Turza and the other by Mike Bunce — in the second. Gordon Trotter, the New Zealand-born fly half, who handles Montauk’s kicking, made good on four penalty kicks and converted both tries.

Badminton Club

    Dick Baker announced recently that the 31st season of badminton play had begun at the Amagansett School gym. Games are played there Wednesday evenings from 7 to 9. Baker’s e-mail address is [email protected].

Tai Chi Classes

    Rosie Orlando and Carolyn Giacalone are beginning a six-week, hourlong Tai Chi for Health class at the Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter tomorrow at 11:45 a.m. The first class will be free. Those who sign up for the six-week session will pay $80. Drop-ins are to pay $20.

    “Learn the 12 forms of tai chi while increasing your balance, coordination, and energy,” a flier announcing the new classes says.

    In Sag Harbor, Fred Soroka, whose Epic Martial Arts studio is at 75 Main Street, is offering free tai chi and chi kung classes on Tuesday and Sunday mornings this month.

Goalie Lauded

    Curran Brierley, the freshman goalie on the University of Maine-Farmington field hockey team, has thrice been named the North Atlantic Conference’s rookie of the week this fall. Before going to college, Brierley starred in the cage at East Hampton High School.

Mighty Men

    Thomas Brierley, who’s 15, placed third over all in the recent Mighty Man Sprint Triathlon in Montauk (750-meter swim, 17K bike, and 5K run) in 1 hour, 3 minutes, and 47 seconds. Teague Costello, who trains with Brierley, placed 13th in 1:07:54. Because Brierley was a top-three finisher, Costello also topped the 19-and-under age group. Thomas’s father, Craig, placed third in the men’s 44-to-49-year-old group in 1:14:51.

Thursday, October 13

GOLF, Westhampton Beach vs. East Hampton, South Fork Country Club, Amagansett, 4 p.m.

BOYS SOCCER, East Hampton at Bayport-Blue Point, 4:30 p.m.

BOYS VOLLEYBALL, East Hampton at Center Moriches, 6:15 p.m.

Friday, October 14

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

GIRLS VOLLEYBALL, East Hampton at Rocky Point, 4 p.m.

YOUTH FOOTBALL, fund-raiser at Beachhouse restaurant, Route 27, East Hampton, 6-9 p.m.

VARSITY FOOTBALL, East Hampton at Rocky Point, 7 p.m.

Saturday, October 15

BOYS SOCCER, clinic for junior high players, noon-2 p.m., followed by varsity and junior varsity games with Shoreham-Wading River at 3, East Hampton High School.

GIRLS SOCCER, East Hampton at Rocky Point, 12:30 p.m.

RUGBY, Union (N.J.) Rugby Club vs. Montauk R.C., Herrick Park, East Hampton, 1 p.m.

Monday, October 17

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

BOYS VOLLEYBALL, Huntington at East Hampton, 5 p.m.

BOYS SOCCER, East Hampton at Amityville, 4:30 p.m.

Tuesday, October 18

GOLF, East Hampton vs. Pierson, Noyac Golf and Country Club, 4 p.m.

CROSS-COUNTRY, Miller Place girls vs. East Hampton girls, and Westhampton Beach boys vs. East Hampton boys, Indian Island County Park, Riverhead, 4:30 p.m.

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

GIRLS SOCCER, East Hampton at Elwood-John Glenn, 4:30 p.m.

GIRLS VOLLEYBALL, Elwood-John Glenn at East Hampton, 5 p.m.

Wednesday, October 19

BOYS SOCCER, Westhampton Beach at East Hampton, 4 p.m.

    The East Hampton Police Athletic League football program, now in its fourth year, will hold a fund-raiser tomorrow at the Beachhouse restaurant on Route 27 from 6 to 9 p.m.

    There will be food, drinks, a D.J., raffles, and a silent auction of more than 100 donated items.

    Money raised will go toward new equipment, said Don Reese, who heads the program and coaches its 11-year-old traveling team, which is ranked among the Island’s top 20.

    “We’re 3-1, though we should be 4-0,” Reese said Tuesday. “If East Hampton is to have a future in football, these kids, if they stay together, are it. Last year, as 10-year-olds, they only lost one game. There are 20 kids on this team who can play.”

    Reese said East Hampton’s program comprises five age-group traveling teams at present — the 11s, 10s, 9s, 7 and 8s, and 5 and 6s — and is looking to have eight teams next year, with the addition of separate seventh and eighth-grade teams and 5 and 6-year-old teams.

    Practice sessions for all the P.A.L. squads are held Tuesday and Thursday evenings at East Hampton High School from 5 to 6:30, and on Saturdays from 9 to 11 a.m. Games are usually played Sundays. Most of the teams, with the exception of Reese’s 11-year-olds, are to play at home on Oct. 23.

    Besides Reese, the other coaches are Joe Hren, whose 9-year-olds are undefeated, at 5-0; Ron White, whose 10-year-olds have yet to win; Bill Gardiner, whose 7 and 8s won their first game Monday, and Joe Pannasch, whose 5 and 6s, who play eight on a side, are to play their first game in the coming week.

    “Over all, I’d say the program is really moving along,” said Reese.

    The Ross School’s Tennis Academy, the first of its kind on the East Coast inasmuch as its students play and study at a school — their 12-hour day being pretty much evenly divided between sport and studies — has six members, all boys between the ages of 11 and 15, in its first class.

    Vinicius Carmo, Ross’s Brazilian-born boys and girls tennis coach, would eventually like to see the Academy grow to 24 — by two or three a year, say — but for the moment he’s pleased with his initial half-dozen, whose United States Tennis Association tournament results, he thinks, should serve as the Academy’s best recommendation when it comes to parents eager and financially able to further their children’s tennis ambitions.

    Carmo is not promising that these young players will wind up on the pro tour, though he thinks they could well wind up with college scholarships, and that, because of their immersion from an early age in high-pressure situations, they’ll have the wherewithal to succeed in whatever they choose to do in life.

    “Essentially,” he said during a recent conversation, “it’s a school for life. These kids will be much more mature — they’ll have to deal with a lot at a younger age. This Academy is geared to building character. Even if they play professionally, their top-level athletic life will be short. What will they do after 33? Here, they’ll be challenging themselves — they’ll have a leg up on their peers. They’ll be better people, more confident.”

    The first class comprises Fernando Fernandez of Sao Paulo, Brazil, a 15-year-old ninth grader who “found us through the Internet”; Trippie Tuff, a 14-year-old ninth grader who has been a mainstay on Ross’s boys team for the past two years; Carl Grant, a 13-year-old eighth grader who was on the team last year; Lucas Larese, a 13-year-old eighth grader from New York City who attended Ross’s summer camp; James Ignatowich, an 11-year-old sixth grader whose parents moved here from Connecticut, and Jiahui Guo, a 15-year-old 10th grader from China, a Ross boarding student who, Carmo said, “loves tennis.”

    The Academy’s tennis instructors, who also will travel with their charges to two U.S.T.A. tournaments a month, are Carmo, Mauricio Gattuso, Alejandro Tejerina, and Daniela Muscolino — two Brazilians and two Argentines.

    A typical day, said Carmo, begins with drills on Ross’s enclosed courts at 7 a.m., followed by breakfast at 8:30 and classes (in cultural history, English, mathematics, a foreign language, and science) from 9 to 2. Tennis techniques are taught and practiced from 2:15 to 3:15. From 3:15 to 4:15, Joao Monteira of the Core Dynamics fitness center in Water Mill oversees tennis conditioning, though Paul Weinhold, a well-known sports psychologist who lives in New York City and Amagansett, meets with the group in that hour on Fridays. From 4:30 to 6:30, it’s study hall and dinner, and from 6:30 to 8 there’s match play.

    Asked if his charges weren’t exhausted by the end of the day, Carmo said, with a smile, “They’ve been taking it in stride — they’re kids and they love to play tennis.”

    And as far as tennis instruction goes, “We can really work with them, much more closely than we would in an ordinary school situation.”

    As aforesaid, tournament play may prove to be the proof of the pudding when it comes to parents sitting for the moment on the sidelines. Carmo said Larese “got to the finals in his first Level 1 tournament, and beat two kids he’d lost to before, by scores of 6-1, 6-1 and 7-6, 6-2. James placed third in a tournament in Massachusetts that drew the best players in New England. So, already the results are good, because they’re playing so much. . . . We’re also trying to get matches with other clubs. Patrick McEnroe has a great group at Flushing Meadows . . . and you should say we’re also trying to get good adults to play our kids because they have to learn how to handle different styles — hard, soft, slice, junk. . . . Anyone who thinks they’re good are invited to play matches!”

    There had been a question as to whether the Academy students could also play on Ross’s tennis teams, though Carmo said Section XI, the governing body for high school sports in Suffolk, had ruled against such an interchange.

    No matter. “I think our boys team will be among the top ones anyway. We’ve got Felipe Reis, who will be our number-one, Harrison Rowen, Will Greenberg, Louis Caiola, Jack Brinkley-Cook, and two seventh graders who are good, Michael Peterson and Jonas Linnmann-Feurring. Seven good players.”

    Although the football team was blanked 39-0 by Eastport-South Manor under the lights here Saturday night, there were enough good sporting results inside and outside that day to fuel East Hampton High’s homecoming spirits.

    Even as the football team was taking its lumps under the lights, joy reigned in the grandstands, with irrepressible students holding up an oversize headshot of Pete Vaziri (a tribute to his 95-yard touchdown runback against Kings Park) and brandishing placards that seemed to say “Bonac Pride Reientiess” (“Relentless,” apparently), “Get ’Em,” and “Let’s Go Bonac.”

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    At halftime, the band played, the dance team did the cancan, the cheerleaders leapt, and Ryan Joudeh, a running back sidelined for the moment because of an ankle sprain, and Kathryn Hess, the girls soccer goalie, who had just learned she’d been named second team all-state in softball, were hailed as homecoming’s king and queen.

    The day before, at a pep rally in the school’s auditorium, all the fall’s teams took the stage, with the golf and boys soccer squads hoisting trophies aloft — the golf team’s attesting to its Long Island championship last spring and the soccer team’s attesting to its triumph in the recent 10-team East End Cup tournament sponsored by Bridgehampton National Bank. The boys cross-country team waved an American flag, the girls tennis team came with rackets and served Nerf balls to their schoolmates, and the girls swimming team, which debuted in a nonleague meet at the Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter Saturday — one of eight teams to participate in homecoming contests — tossed out Nerf balls too.

    Earning homecoming Ws were field hockey, which crushed Hampton Bays 8-0, with goals by Dana Dragone (two), Meghan Dombkowski (two), Amanda Calabrese, Alyssa Bahel, Nicole Miksinski, and Laura Perez; boys soccer, which, likewise, crushed Amityville 7-0; girls soccer, which prevailed 1-0 over Elwood-John Glenn in double overtime, and girls volleyball, which swept Bayport-Blue Point by 25-17, 25-19, and 25-16 scores.

    In the girls volleyball match, Melissa Perez and Katla Thorsen each had six aces; Melanie Mackin had 14 kills, Perez eight, and Raya O’Neal seven. O’Neal had 16 assists and Maggie Pizzo had 10. Defensively, Thorsen had 17 digs, O’Neal had 12, and Lydia Budd had 10. The team had nine blocks in all.

    Girls swimming, while it did not win, “did very, very well,” according to the team’s coach, John McGeehan. “We went up against Half Hollow Hills, which is a League I school — we’re in League III. Half Hollow Hills was second in the county last year, to Connetquot.”

    Among East Hampton’s winners were Marina Preiss, in the 50 and 200-yard freestyle races; Carly Drew, an eighth grader, in the 100 butterfly; Maddie Minetree in the 100 free; Mikayla Mott in the 100 breaststroke, and the 200 medley, 200 freestyle, and 400 freestyle relay teams.

    Although it was the team’s first meet of the season, Preiss, in the 50 and 200 free, Minetree, in the 100 free, and the 200 freestyle relay team of Minetree, Drew, Morgan German, and Preiss were close to meeting New York State qualifying times.

    McGeehan said he wasn’t sure what the final score was, “but it was close.”

    A few of the girls cross-country runners took part in the Suffolk Coaches invitational meet at Sunken Meadow Saturday morning, with Ashley West placing 18th in the 5K Class A race in 21 minutes and 36 seconds, and with Dana Cebulski placing fifth in the freshman 1.5-mile race in 8:56. Diane O’Donnell, East Hampton’s coach, said she’s not seen a faster time run in that distance so far by runners in Cebulski’s division. West was in a field of 140 from 19 schools, Cebulski went against about 100 other ninth graders.

    It appeared for a while last week that Bonac’s girls had earned their first win of the season in a meet at Sunken Meadow with Mount Sinai, but O’Donnell said later she’d not seen Mount Sinai’s first runner cross the line. “It can be confusing — there are all sorts of races going on, boys and girls, and she must have come in with a group of boys.”

    Thus, instead of winning 27-28, East Hampton lost 25-30. Nevertheless, West and Cebulski served notice, finishing one and two over the three-mile course. West won in 20:24 and Cebulski “was a heartbeat behind.”

    The potential to win meets is there, the coach continued during a conversation Monday. “We’ll get one and two. How we do, though, will depend on the other four. I’m going to talk to them about team strategy at practice today. It’s the first time in a long time that I’ve had that luxury!”

    In another homecoming contest, the girls tennis team lost twice to McGann-Mercy by 4-3 scores, a suspended match at second doubles carried over from the teams’ first meeting having preceded the regularly scheduled match here.

    Getting back to the field hockey team, it wound up doing surprisingly well in a 3-2 loss to Shoreham-Wading River — Newsday’s fourth-ranked team in any sport on Long Island — here last week.

    Shoreham jumped out to a 3-0 lead by the half, but East Hampton came back with goals by Dombkowski and Bahel in the second, and almost tied it with a shot by Dragone that was said to have been taken just outside the circle.

    As for boys volleyball, its coach, Dan Weaver, said Monday that, despite the homecoming loss in three to Eastport-South Manor, he still thinks the Bonackers and the Sharks are the two best teams in Division II.

    “We lost the first 25-11, which was disappointing — they had two jump servers we couldn’t handle initially — but we bounced back after that, losing the second 27-25 and the third 25-23,” the coach said.

    Thomas King, an outside hitter, had 16 kills for East Hampton. “Thomas carried us at times,” said Weaver. “He was dominant.”

    The boys volleyball team made the playoffs last year, losing to Shoreham in the semifinal round. “We should make them again this year,” Weaver said.

Thursday, October 6

GOLF, East Hampton vs. Ross, East Hampton Country Club, 3:30 p.m.

FOOTBALL, East Hampton at Islip, 3:30 p.m.

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

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

BOYS VOLLEYBALL, Westhampton at East Hampton, 5 p.m.

Sunday, October 9

SERPENT’S BACK DUATHLON, Ed Ecker County Park, Navy Road, Montauk, 9 a.m.

Monday, October 10

GIRLS SOCCER, Amityville at East Hampton, 10 a.m.

GIRLS VOLLEYBALL, Harborfields at East Hampton, nonleague, 10 a.m.

BOYS VOLLEYBALL, Sayville at East Hampton, 10 a.m.

Tuesday, October 11

GOLF, East Hampton at Southampton, 4 p.m.

GIRLS TENNIS, William Floyd at East Hampton, 4 p.m.

CROSS-COUNTRY, East Hampton boys vs. Harborfields boys, and East Hampton girls vs. Elwood-John Glenn girls, Sunken Meadow State Park, Kings Park, 4:30 p.m.

FIELD HOCKEY, East Hampton at Greenport-Southold-Shelter Island, 4:30 p.m.

Wednesday, October 12

GIRLS TENNIS, East Hampton at Ross, 4:30 p.m.

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

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

GIRLS VOLLEYBALL, Westhampton at East Hampton, 5 p.m.