One thousand seven hundred and thirty-six runners crossed the finish line behind the Springs School Saturday — 336 marathoners, 1,279 half-marathoners, and 121 contenders in the 5K.

    A 25-year-old California mathematician by way of Washington, D.C., Shaun Maguire, won the marathon in 2 hours, 44 minutes, and 46 seconds. Chris Koegel, the defending champion, who experienced Achilles problems about 10 miles into the 26.2-mile race, was the runner-up, in 2:52:19.

    Maguire waited at the line for Koegel to finish, a gesture that the race directors, Amanda Moszkowski and Diane Weinberger, remarked upon.

    Moszkowski and Weinberger, by the way, who have overseen this huge event, which benefits Project MOST, Southampton Hospital, and the East Hampton Day Care Learning Center, the past five years, have been named as the recipients of the Old Montauk Athletic Club’s 2011 community service award.

    The club’s athlete of the year, Sharon McCobb, was there that day too. She placed 36th in the half-marathon, in 1:38:09, and thus won the women’s 45-to-49-year-old group.

    “I did better last year,” McCobb said after crossing the finish line, a fact she attributed to the humidity.

    Perhaps because of the humidity, the ambulance was called out five times, though in each case, Moszkowski said later, “it was nothing serious.”

    The marathon’s women’s winner — and fourth over all — was Mary Beth Ryan, 28, of Holden, Mass., in 3:08:53.

    Steven Mitchell, 31, of New York City won the half, in 1:25:30, with Jason Hancock, 37, a Southampton resident who teaches kindergarten at the Amagansett School, second, in 1:26:16. Veronica Jackson, 24, of New York City was the women’s winner — and fourth over all — in 1:28:07.

    Barbara Gubbins, who is twice Jackson’s age, nevertheless finished third among the women, in 1:29:58.

    Like Koegel, Gubbins came into the race with a slight injury, a tight left calf muscle in her case. “I hurt it in the Run for Ron this August,” she said. “I didn’t run for two weeks after that. I did 18 miles last weekend and it tightened up. That’s why I’m wearing compression socks today.”

    She ran with Jackson and the eventual runner-up, Sarah Chase, a 31-year-old Manhattanite, for the first seven miles, after which she “watched them battle it out. . . . It’s exciting to see how this race has blossomed.” Gubbins is to run in the New York City Marathon in November.

    “Maybe they should call this the Springs School marathon,” Owen McCormack, who coaches the school’s junior high girls soccer team, said, alluding to the fact that a Springs eighth grader, Erik Engstrom, had won the 5K in a record time of 19:20.

    Tonio Vassilaros, a 17-year-old cross-country runner at Columbia Prep in New York City, whose father, John, has supplied the runners with free cups of Vassilaros coffee for the past five years, said he couldn’t keep up with the Springs 13-year-old.

    “ ‘That kid is something,’ ” John Vassilaros reported his son as having said.

    “That’s a spectacular time for an eighth grader,” said John Conner, a former national-class age group miler and 800 runner who lives next door to the start-finish line. “A six-minute pace would work out to an 18:36 . . . his pace was around 6:15. . . .”

    Not far behind Engstrom, in fourth place, was his classmate Jackson Rafferty, in 20:44. “That’s what makes you fast,” Conner said, when told Engstrom was a classmate of Rafferty’s. Vassilaros was fifth. Mollie Duggal, 34, of Southampton was the women’s 5K winner, in 23:51.

    McCormack had all of his players, about 30 of them, run in the 5K, saying afterward, with a smile, that “it was a good thing there was a medical tent nearby.” The 5K field also included five members of the I-Tri program, the aim of which is to promote self-confidence and camaraderie among young girls through athletics.

    Jim MacWhinnie, a 39-year-old Southamptoner who experienced a nigh-fatal accident several years ago when he was crushed by a fuel oil tank, but who later made a remarkable recovery, placed second in the half-marathon’s 35-to-39 group, in 1:35:12. He and Kevin Barry, East Hampton High’s boys cross-country coach, who placed third among the 45-49s, in 1:37:33, are to run in the Chicago Marathon next month.

    Before the race, the 49-year-old Barry, who lives on Shelter Island, said he was going to jog that day. Asked about his cross-country team, he said, brightening, “We’re undefeated . . . for three more days. From now on, we’ll either be going up against defending league or county champions.”

    The team’s two wins, though, over Pierson, in a nonleaguer, and Rocky Point, were, he said, “a huge step — a league championship for us is not too far away.”

    Had he thought East Hampton stood a chance of winning a banner this fall, he might have brought Engstrom up to join his team of seniors and sophomores, all of whom he’s found to be “very coachable.”

    Mike Hamilton, in 18:57, and Adam Cebulski, in 18:58, had been the top two in the Rocky Point meet. Seven of the top 10 had been Bonackers, a group that also included Thomas Brierley, Ryan Lewis, Deilyn Guzman, Mike Peralta, and Alex Osborne. Brierley, said Barry, had placed fifth over all in 19:46. It was, he added, the first time the sophomore had broken 20:00.

    Among the marathon’s place-winners were Caroline Walsh, 24, of Montauk, first among the 20-to-24-year-old women; Erin Tintle, 39, of East Hampton, who won among the 35-to-39-year-old women; Mike Bahel, 45, of East Hampton, who was second among the 45-to-49-year-old men, and Paul Maidment, 60, of East Hampton, who won among the 60-to-64-year-old men. Bahel was the seventh-place finisher over all in 3:17:05.

    Place-winners in the half included Charles Whalen, 49, of Montauk, second in the 45-49s; Ruben Pinillos, 50, of Sag Harbor, third in the men’s 50-54s; Jackie Minetree, 51, of Sag Harbor, third in the women’s 50-54s; Jeff Yennie, 62, of Sag Harbor, second, and Arthur Nealon, 64, of East Hampton, third in the men’s 60-64s; Richard Mohlere, 65, of Shelter Island Heights, first in the men’s 65-69s, and Carole Ostroff, 68, of Bridgehampton, first in the women’s 65-69s.

    While the Hamptons Marathon raises money for the aforementioned three local beneficiaries, many runners, including 250 associated with Team in Training, 80 with the American Cancer Society, 19 with Friends of Karen, 14 with Somaly Mam, and six with JackRabbit Sports (who had been picked from among 325 applicants to train throughout the summer with Jon Cane), raised funds for other charitable causes as well.

    In the world of sports, youth has its cachet; however, when it comes to boccie, seniority, and all its wisdom, has its perks. The Founders, a boccie ball team of 59 to 88-year-old men, took the Southampton Boccie League championship Sept. 18 on the court at North Sea Park. Their opponents, Southampton United, a much younger team, 37 to 61 years old, were defeated 12-6 in the first game, and again, 12-6 in the final deciding match.

    The overcast day with its slight fall chill did not deter the crowd’s presence or their enthusiasm. Clustered at the end of the court, which is about 16 feet long, the players took turns tossing balls down the trimmed turf in an attempt to get as close as possible to the pallino, a smaller ball thrown down the court at the start of the game. In Italian, boccie means to kiss, and the object of the game is to accumulate points by being closest to the pallino.

    You get two points if your ball touches, or kisses, the pallino. “We put a dollar bill through the two balls, if it goes through, it’s a no go, if not, then you get the points,” said Rich Van Houten of the winning team. Such a feat was achieved only twice this season.

    “Nice shot, John,” yelled a man sitting in the front row of the bleachers as a member of the Southampton United threw a ball that neared the pallino. Cries of “Oh no,” echoed through the crowd as a green ball smashed into a red one and knocked it away from the prize, and when a green ball hit the wall, “Aws” flooded the court. The audience burst into applause after a green ball rolled up next to the pallino, putting the Founders firmly ahead of the game. “Sal, they’re good,” said the same heckler to a member of Southampton United. Woefully, Sal Ficara Jr. replied, “We don’t have a chance.”

    The idea for a boccie league originated with Steve Marciw, who said, “I remember playing and watching my parents and grandparents play.” He then approached Chris Nuzzi, a Southampton Town councilman, to get the green light. Mr. Nuzzi discussed it with the town board, and, according to Mr. Marciw, the town offered to build some courts for the league, on one condition, Mr. Nuzzi told Mr. Marciw, “ ‘You run the league, and the town doesn’t have anything to do with it.’ ” Mr. Marciw agreed and enlisted the help of his friend Sal Ficara Sr., a fellow boccie aficionado who has played the game with him at parties for years.

    In 2008 they started with eight teams, and this year there were 24 teams and 138 players. “This is the first time any team has repeated the championship,” said Mr. Marciw, who officiated at the event via microphone wearing a Boston Red Sox baseball cap. 

    The Founders lost the championship the first season, but have been victorious two years in a row. “We don’t like losing,” said Saverio Naclerio, the only Italian Founder. The former Pork  Store owner hails from Naples and still retains a strong accent. “I played boccie when I was younger in Italy. There are different rules here. We create more of them.”

    Charlie Mottern, one of the Founders, who is also the league’s treasurer, learned boccie after he married his Italian wife. “Her relatives taught me on a clay court in the backyard,” he said. “It’s a great thing.”

    When Ron Forman was in his 20s, he lived on Thompson Street, near Prince Street in Manhattan’s Little Italy. He saw the men in his neighborhood playing boccie down the street. “Finally on a Saturday one of the men asked me, ‘Why don’t you play?’ ” said Forman. They taught him the game, but he had stopped playing until this summer, when he joined the Founders.

    Mr. Van Houton, another member of the team, was turned onto the game by Mr. Marciw. “We developed the league, and I love it,” he said. Mr. Van Houten plays in Florida during the winter, and runs a league there. “It’s great to be on the winning team,” he said.

    The oldest member of the Founders,  the elder Ficara began playing boccie after his neighbor gave him a boccie set, and let him use his backyard court.  Ficara taught his kids, and two of his sons are on the Southampton United team. Involved with starting the league,  Ficara worked with  Marciw to secure four courts at the park. When asked how he felt about winning the championship  Ficara Sr. said, “I’m getting used to it.”

    “It’s a simple game and a lot of fun,” he said. “We made our own rules, and try to make it as simple as possible. When we have a discrepancy, no one but an official is on the court.”  Naclerio said they play more by the original rules in Naples. “They think they are the only rules.” The group decided to merge the Italian rules and the American ones. “We got the official rules from Rome. We read them, and then we decided which ones we wanted to adopt,”  Van Houten said.

    The concluding shot of the day was made by Ficara Sr., who earned the last two points. “That was the closer,” he said. And after that,  Mottern said he overheard Ficara Jr. say, “My father would say you’ve learned another lesson.”

    When asked how he felt about losing to his dad, Sal Jr. said, “Well, how could we win? They were 13-1 this season. You know how we got here? We didn’t play them all season,” he said.

    Any money raised by the league throughout the season goes back to the community. “What isn’t used for our end-of-season party or mail is contributed to charity. We donated $500 to the scholarship fund for kids for summer camp, S.Y.S. [Southampton Youth Services], and $250 each to two food pantries. There might be more this year because we have a larger group,”  Mottern said.

    The Montauk Rugby Club, playing before a large crowd at East Hampton’s Herrick Park on Saturday afternoon, defeated the Princeton Athletic Club 42-27 to improve its Met Union record to 2-0.

    The Sharks got off to a quick start and led 22-10 at the half, but let up a bit in the second half before finishing strong.

    The result encouraged Rich Brierley, the side’s coach, and its New Zealand-born captain and fly half, Gordon Trotter, who said afterward “the guys are putting it together. We moved Connor [Miller] out of the forwards and put him at inside center. He did very well there. Jarrel [Walker, a former C.W. Post lineman and arena football player] has come a long way. . . . It was the first home game for Zach Brenneman [a recent graduate of Notre Dame, where he was an all-American lacrosse midfielder]. He’s scored two tries in two games. . . . I’m loving it. We got soft at some point in the second half, probably because the captain [himself] ran out of gas.”

    Trotter, who first “retired” two years ago, added, with a broad smile, that “I’m playing one more season and I’m done.” It’s an oft-heard refrain in Montauk Rugby circles.

    Bert Wiegand, 56, whose sobriquet is Bert the Baker, one of those semi-retirees, was on the sidelines that day and said seeing all the young guys tearing about made him want to suit up again.

    He had called it sort-of quits after sustaining a concussion making a tackle in a friendly game here last spring with the Long Island Rugby Club, the team he’d founded in 1972. Later, when his wife asked him if, finally, he’d retired, “I didn’t answer.”

    “You should have said you weren’t retired — just a little tired,” Steve Brierley, whose son, Erik, was playing fullback, said helpfully.

    Chris Carney, another player who’s hung up the spikes, but not for good, subbed in among the backs in the second half, and it was good to see, for most of them, while quick, don’t have much experience.

    In the end, Rich Brierley said that while “their forwards had an edge, our backs [Brierley, Ricardo Salmeron, Steve Turza, Mark Scioscia, Brenneman, Miller, and Brian Anderson among them] were far superior. . . . Ricardo was excellent, Scioscia too. It was the first time Connor had played at inside center. It was a defensive move — he’s a good tackler.”

    Going in, he had thought Princeton’s backs would have been better, given the fact “they’ve got a 7s team in the summer.”

    Montauk scored six tries (worth 5 points each, rugby’s equivalent to touchdowns), to which Trotter had two penalty kicks (worth 3 points each) and three conversion kicks (worth 2 each).

    After Trotter had made good on a penalty kick early on to get Montauk on the board, Mike Bunce Jr., the number-eight man and the team’s M.V.P. in 2010, came out of a scrum from about 10 meters out for the Sharks’ first try and Trotter added 2 more points with his conversion kick through the uprights. Scioscia and Trotter had made it 17-3 by the time the visitors touched the ball down in Montauk’s end zone. Scioscia replied with a 60-meter scoring dash before the half ended.

    Tries by Salmeron and Trotter made it 32-10 before the aforementioned loss of concentration and Princeton’s determination resulted in three unanswered tries for the visitors before Brenneman, who was on the left wing, closed out the victory, gathering in a lateral from Trotter and streaking 40 yards down the left sideline for the decisive score.

    Danbury, a Connecticut side that edged out Montauk for a playoff berth by 1 point last fall, is to play here Saturday at 1 p.m. Last week, Brierley said he thought “the two Connecticut teams” (Danbury and the Connecticut Yankees) would prove to be the Sharks’ toughest division rivals this season.

Saturday, October 1

TRIATHLON, MightyMan Sprint (750-meter swim, 17K bike, and 5K run), Fresh Pond, Montauk, 6:40 a.m.

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

RUGBY, Danbury Rugby Club vs. Montauk R.F.C., Herrick Park, East Hampton, 1 p.m.

FOOTBALL, Comsewogue at East Hampton, 2 p.m.

FIELD HOCKEY, East Hampton at Rocky Point, 2 p.m.

BENEFIT RIDE, for Lisa Craine and family, B-East fitness studio, Amagansett, 4-5:30 p.m., followed by party at Stephen Talkhouse, 6-7:30.

GIRLS SOCCER, East Hampton at Hampton Bays, nonleague, 7 p.m.

Sunday, October 2

TRIATHLONS, Half Ironman (1.2-mile swim, 56-mile bike, and 13.1-mile run) and MightyMan Olympic (.93-mile swim, 25-mile bike, and 6.2-mile run), Fresh Pond, Montauk, 6:40 a.m.

Monday, October 3

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

GIRLS TENNIS, East Hampton at Westhampton Beach, 4 p.m.

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

BOYS VOLLEYBALL, East Hampton at Shoreham-Wading River, 4:30 p.m.

Tuesday, October 4

GOLF, Center Moriches vs. East Hampton, South Fork Country Club, Amagansett, 4 p.m.

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

GIRLS CROSS-COUNTRY, East Hampton vs. Shoreham-Wading River, Indian Island County Park, Riverhead, 4:30 p.m.

BOYS CROSS-COUNTRY, East Hampton vs. Sayville, Sunken Meadow State Park, Kings Park, 4:30 p.m.

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

Wednesday, October 5

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

GIRLS TENNIS, East Hampton at Southampton, 4 p.m.

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

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

September 4, 1986

    In the limelight on Aug. 26, after he had upset John McEnroe 1-6, 6-1, 6-3, 6-3 in the first round of the United States Open, Paul Annacone, the 23-year-old East Hampton-reared tennis professional, found himself cast out of it two days later as he lost 4-6, 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, 7-6 to Aaron Krickstein in the second round.

    “It’s been a pretty draining week for Paul,” said his father, Dominic, on Tuesday. “For me too. I just hope he maintains his sanity through all this. . . . I have a lot of respect for these pros — emotionally, tournament tennis is incredibly wearing.”

—

    Milan Holecek, a Czechoslovak singles and doubles champion who has spent the last two summers teaching at the Buckskill Tennis Club in East Hampton, said recently he knew why the Czechs were so good. “The problem in the United States is that those who have enough money to pay for all the training and traveling are usually not hungry enough to get good.”

    “I used to teach a kid in Florida who had great potential and claimed to be extremely interested in tennis, but he wasn’t willing to work — he really didn’t need to. That would never happen in Czechoslovakia, where he would have been fighting for his life to qualify for playing abroad.”

    . . . He looks for another Czech sweep at the United States Open this year. “Lendl will win. . . . Among the women, Martina will win — no question. She is stronger than all the other women put together.” — Philip Boroff

—

    Kevin Barry of Shelter Island and Dr. Bob Semlear of Sag Harbor were in the van of Monday’s 6.2-mile Great Bonac Foot Race, as they had been a week before in a 3-miler here to benefit the American Cancer Society, but this time Barry won, in 33 minutes and 4 seconds, besting his training partner, Semlear, by 57 seconds.

September 11, 1986

    East Hampton High School’s football coach, Ted Meyer, thinks the Bonackers, with 13 returning lettermen, “really have a good chance” to win League Seven, and thus gain a postseason Division Three playoff spot.

    . . . The offensive line, which Meyer says “can be one of the best East Hampton has ever had,” includes, at center, Bill Barbour, a 6-0, 202-pound sophomore; at guard, Peter Cooper, a 6-0, 190-pound senior, and Orlando Blowe, a 6-2, 205-pound senior, and, at tackle, David DiSunno, a 6-3, 225-pound junior, and Joe Luksic, a 6-1, 195-pound senior. Barbour’s backup will be Jason Menu, a junior; Cooper and Blowe’s, Steven Loper and David Carmichael, both juniors, and DiSunno and Luksic’s, Rich Ross and Bill Almeraz, both seniors.

September 18, 1986

    Jim Bolster, 31, the Columbia University swimming coach, repeated Saturday as champion of the Mighty Hamptons Triathlon in Sag Harbor, besting 501 other entrants over a 36-mile course in 2 hours, 35 minutes, and 44 seconds.

    Bolster won Mighty Hamptons last year in 2:41:36, but in Saturday’s race choppy seas in Noyac Bay caused the swim leg, ordinarily a mile and a half, to be cut by a half-mile.

    . . . Bolster said that the swim was “brutal . . . one of the roughest” he had experienced. His left hand and elbow were skinned as the result of a fall in the 25-mile bicycle leg on a newly paved stretch of road. Despite that, he logged the fastest bike time of the day, a 1:07:54, building up a six-minute lead going into the 10-mile run.

    Used to fielding perennial powerhouses, Kathy McGeehan, East Hampton High School’s girls volleyball coach, may have one again, though this fall, because the team is young — there are four ninth graders who are making significant contributions and three sophomores — she will in all likelihood be able to savor the satisfaction that comes from watching her players grow over the course of the campaign.

    There will be few breathers this season inasmuch as the Bonackers are in a tough league, made all the more so by the addition of Elwood-John Glenn, and, as usual, are playing in large, hotly contested weekend invitational tournaments.

    How far will they go? Who knows, but win or lose, this team, McGeehan thinks, promises to be an exciting one to watch.

    In the week past, bouncing back from an almost-four-hour agon with Westhampton Beach, which the Hurricanes wound up winning 27-25 in the fifth game, East Hampton rocked Rocky Point in three and was a semifinalist Saturday in a 20-team tourney of mostly AA schools (East Hampton is an A) at Eastport-South Manor. The girls began playing at 8 a.m. and returned home at 7 that night.

    McGeehan said neither she nor her assistant, Sara Faraone, could remember having played in or having coached in a match that went as long as the one at Westhampton did.

    The Bonackers won the first game, lost the second and third, won the fourth, and, as aforesaid, lost the decisive fifth “when a mishandled ball dribbled over the net and hit the right sideline. We were wishing it out.”

    With the score 24-24 (East Hampton having rallied to overcome a 4-point deficit), “Westhampton’s outside hitter slipped on a wet spot on the court and dislocated her kneecap. There was a 25-minute delay while we waited for the ambulance.”

    The long wait proved to be a bit of a momentum killer, “though,” McGeehan said, “I’d rather take a loss than have my outside hitter out for a couple of weeks.”

    At 25-all, an East Hampton bid for a kill landed out of bounds, and the aforementioned wished-out shot that was in ended the marathon.

    Westhampton is to play here on Oct. 12, and McGeehan has circled that date on her calendar.

    Besides Westhampton, Glenn, which, according to McGeehan, “hasn’t lost a league game in 11 years,” and Rocky Point, other teams in East Hampton’s league, League VI, are Sayville, Miller Place, and Amityville, a team the Bonackers bested in three in their league opener.

    There were, the coach said in answer to a question concerning the playoffs, “a lot of good A schools this year — some of them are better than the double-As. Westhampton is certainly one of them, and then there are Sayville, Kings Park, Islip, Harborfields, Eastport-South Manor. . . .” Glenn is a B school.

    There are four ninth graders on the varsity squad this year — Lydia Budd, Jenna Budd, Carley Seekamp, and Katie Brierley — all of whom, as aforesaid, are contributing in one way or another. The returnees include four seniors — Katla Thorsen, Melissa Perez, Mariah Dempsey, and Sarah Johnson; three juniors — Melanie Mackin, Maria Rueda Montoya, and Charlotte Wiltshire, and three sophomores — Raya O’Neal, Maggie Pizzo, and Christina Cangiolosi.

    McGeehan said that Lydia Budd’s setting ability would increasingly enable the number-one setter, O’Neal, a talented sophomore, to be a part of the attack. Jenna Budd, Lydia’s twin, is, said McGeehan, “an outside hitter who serves and passes well.” Brierley is playing in the back row, and Seekamp “did a great job” at middle blocker in the tournament for Melissa Perez, a senior who had to sit out with a sore ankle.

    Pizzo, a national-champion lacrosse midfielder, “is playing aggressively at libero,” the position vacated by Kim Valverde, an honorable-mention all-American now at Baruch College.

    East Hampton won its pool, which included Smithtown West, Northport, Plainedge, and Walt Whitman, and defeated Bay Shore in three in a quarterfinal pairing. In the semis, Connetquot, which had upset St. Anthony’s, took two straight from the Bonackers, who didn’t get going until the second game, which ended at 25-23 in Connetquot’s favor.

    The six-foot Wiltshire, who plays opposite the setter, “came into her own as a blocker on Saturday” and was named to the all-tournament team. “Offensively and defensively, it was a personal-best day for Charlotte,” said McGeehan, who added that she was “really pleased with our team’s performance. . . . It’s an exciting team. We’re going to be playing everybody as hard as we can.”

    When they entered the locker room at East Hampton High School prior to Sunday morning’s practice session, the boys soccer team’s players saw waiting for them the Bridgehampton National Bank East End Cup, attesting to the fact that they’d bested nine other teams in a tournament that dates to 2002.

    The Bonackers shut out all three of their tournament opponents — Mattituck by 4-0, Hampton Bays by 3-0, and Center Moriches by 4-0.

    Still, there was an outside chance that Westhampton Beach, which played at Southampton Saturday night, might sneak in. Though, to have done so, the Hurricanes would have had to best the Mariners by four goals. As it was, Southampton won that game 1-0 and thus finished as the tourney’s runner-up with three wins and a goal differential of 9-2 vis-a-vis East Hampton’s 11-0.

    It was the second year that East Hampton had entered a team in this competition, which has, since the beginning, been overseen by Don McGovern, the former Pierson head coach who now is assisting Rich King with East Hampton’s squad.

    Mattituck, 2010’s Long Island Class B champion, had won the cup in 2008, ’09, and ’10, though last year’s win was owing to the fact that East Hampton had to forfeit its three wins on realizing it was carrying an ineligible player.

    As it turned out, King and McGovern’s charges clinched the East End Cup with a 4-0 win here over Center Moriches last Thursday in which Mario Olaya — Newsday’s player of the week — scored three goals, one in the first half and two in the second. Milton Farez scored the other.

    The Red Devils, a nonleague opponent — as were Mattituck and Hampton Bays — fought tenaciously, and though East Hampton clearly was the dominant team, Center Moriches used an offside trap to great effect in the first 40 minutes, causing one observer to say at halftime that the Bonackers must have been called for violating the offside rule more than 20 times in the first half.

    “We were undisciplined,” King said when asked about the visitors’ tactic afterward. “There are several ways you can counter that trap — we adjusted better in the second half.”

    Both teams’ goalies — East Hampton’s Esteban Aguilar and Center’s Jason Albert — came up with big saves early in the second half. Aguilar leapt up to the crossbar to bat away a 25-yard free kick in the 45th minute and recovered in time to parry the rebound. Two minutes later, Albert stopped Juan Carlos Barrientos, who had come in on him one-on-one. Albert came up big in the 52nd minute as well, preventing Olaya from making it 2-0.

    Olaya did make it 2-0, however, in the 56th minute, as he headed the ball he’d received from Esteban Valverde over the onrushing Center Moriches keeper, who, after coming out to the edge of the box, could only look back helplessly over his shoulder as the ball entered the nets.

    Bonac’s center midfielder capped his hat trick in the 77th minute, assisted by Esteban Vargas, and one minute later, Farez, assisted by Valverde, completed the rout.

    Afterward, King said to his players that “the preseason is over now. It’s all league games after this — you’ll be in a battle every single match.”

    East Hampton was to have begun the league season with Bayport-Blue Point here on Monday. The team was to have played at Shoreham-Wading River yesterday, and will be at home against Amityville on Saturday at 3:30 p.m.

    Outnumbered, outweighed, and outplayed, the East Hampton High School football team took a drubbing in its home opener Saturday, losing 42-7 to Kings Park, which in turn had been routed the week before by Islip.

    And “drubbing” is not overstating the case: Three Bonackers went down that day, Ryan Joudeh, a running back, by way of a sprained ankle, and two — Dan Barros, arguably the team’s best defender, and Cortland Heneveld, its sophomore quarterback — by way of concussions.

    Barros lay motionless on the field for about 20 minutes in the first quarter as everyone — both teams having taken a knee at the sidelines — waited for the arrival of an ambulance.

    “All of a sudden, winning and losing doesn’t mean anything anymore,” Bob Budd, a volunteer assistant, said when, finally, an East Hampton ambulance took the hard-playing junior linebacker away.

    Heneveld, who was hit hard throughout the game, was decked decisively early in the fourth period, and, though he was able to walk off after some time on the ground, remained dazed and was driven off the field by the trainer, Randi Cherill.

    Later that day, Cherill said during a brief telephone conversation that she’d heard from one of Barros’s parents that he was “okay,” and on Monday Joe Vas, East Hampton’s athletic director, after confirming that both players had experienced concussions, said they were “okay.” They would not be allowed to practice or play again, he said, “until a doctor certifies that they can do so.”

    The injuries — it was the first time in this writer’s memory that two Bonackers were rendered hors de combat in such a way in a game — served to underline the fact that East Hampton, whose squad has been reduced to around 23 players, a half-dozen of whom are said to be new to the game, was overmatched, at least on that day.

    Afterward, Bill Barbour Jr., the head coach, told his charges that he was proud of the way they’d played, despite the odds, and that the way they’d stepped up would prove helpful in meeting challenges off the field in their future lives.

    Kings Park scored right off the bat, recovering a fumble by Heneveld on East Hampton’s first possession at the 20-yard line, and added another touchdown and two extra points before the first quarter ended.

    Barros went down moments after Kings Park’s second score, as Drew Griffiths, who played well on both sides of the ball, was running back the kickoff.

    Griffiths recovered a Kings Park fumble at East Hampton’s 37 early in the second period, but soon after that Heneveld fumbled himself, at Kings Park’s 45, with Luke Toscano, who had scored the visitors’ first touchdown, recovering. Seven plays later, the Kingsmen were in East Hampton’s end zone again, an 11-yard scamper by Tommy Milich, who was to score twice more that afternoon, capping the drive.

    But then, wonderful to tell, an East Hampton moment arrived as Pete Vaziri gathered in the subsequent kickoff at the 5 and, with Barbour urging him to head for the middle of the field, ran it back all the way. Jhovani Hernandez’s point-after kick was good, and, all of a sudden, with the score 21-7, the spirits of the hometown fans brightened.

    Momentarily, that is. Two more touchdowns by Milich were to come, as was one on the return of a Hernandez kickoff that began the second half.

    The fourth quarter was scoreless, though it was notable for the fact that Vaziri was pressed into action as the quarterback after Heneveld was taken to the sidelines.

    Though the visitors had substituted liberally by then, Vaziri directed in the final moments an 84-yard, 11-play drive that ended as Griffiths, who’d gathered in a pass, was hauled down at the Kings Park 8.

    “What a job Vaziri did,” Bill Barbour Sr. said after the teams had shaken hands.

    “You get these lean years, and this is one,” his son said. “But we’ve got a good core of about 10 kids who are showing up for practice and having fun. They worked hard all summer. I hear Southampton is facing the same problem. We’ve had a lot of injuries, guys were playing out of position, but they stepped up. I told them I was very proud of them.”

    The 0-2 Bonackers are to take the field at 7 p.m. Saturday in a homecoming game with 1-1 Eastport-South Manor.

    At last, Diane O’Donnell thinks she’s got a girls cross-country team able to make some noise, a team headed by a hard-working senior, Ashley West, and a fleet freshman, Dana Cebulski.

    But it takes more than two to score in cross-country. You need a pack of goers as well, and O’Donnell thinks she has that in Jen DiSunno, Kerry Kaestner, Emma Newburger, and Brittany Rivkind, who all ran 25-something in the Peconic Invitational meet at Southampton’s Red Creek Park last Thursday.

    West won the race, in exciting fashion, dueling with Center Moriches’s Ryleigh Donegan throughout the final half mile of the 5K course.

    Donegan, who made the state meet last year, and West, who trained hard this summer, alternated the lead several times until, with about 200 meters remaining, West “blew her away. Everybody was yelling and screaming. Ashley ran an excellent race, an excellent strategic race. Last year, she probably would have ended up second, but she pushed the other girl over the edge.”

    West’s time of 21 minutes and 22 seconds was a record for the reconfigured course, which had a hill added near the end of it.

    There was other good news that day inasmuch as Cebulski, a ninth grader, won the freshman race, topping a field of about 30 competitors. Cebulski covered the 1.5-mile course in 9:30. O’Donnell said that she had done 21:27 in a three-mile scrimmage two days before with Pierson. “The nearest one to her was about a minute behind,” said East Hampton’s coach, who added that Jackie Messemer placed fourth, in 11:21.

    Turning to other East Hampton sports, on Monday the field hockey team, which had suffered a disappointing 2-1 loss Friday at the hands of Greenport-Southold despite having outshot the Porters 13-6, rebounded to defeat William Floyd 1-0 here. Nicole Miksinski got the goal midway through the first half. Meghan Dombkowski, arguably the team’s best player, scored Friday’s goal, the result of a penalty shot awarded in the first half when the visitors’ besieged goalie sat on the ball.

    Becky Schwartz’s charges were to have played Shoreham-Wading River at home Tuesday. Shoreham was listed in Tuesday’s Newsday as the fourth best sports team on Long Island.

    Also on Monday, the girls tennis team won, besting the Ross School 5-2. Ross is rebuilding, having lost last year’s top five, including its number-one player (and county singles champion) Nadia Smergut, who now lives in New York City.

    In contrast, East Hampton, which has a new coach in Michelle Kennedy, has a balanced lineup, headed by an eighth grader, Abby Okin, who, though 12, is playing in 14-and-under United States Tennis Association East region tournaments.

    Bonac’s doubles pairings are Ricki Slater, a junior, and Carrie Sullivan, a senior, at number one; Caitlin Walsh and Sydney Sanicola, both juniors, at two, and Gillian Neubert, a sophomore, and Bryce Slater, an eighth grader, at three.

    The win improved East Hampton to 2-2, though it could improve to 4-2 Saturday, should the final set of the second doubles match that was suspended last week at Mercy, and a subsequent homecoming match with the Riverhead Catholic school go its way.

    Though the boys soccer team grabbed the headlines this week for having won the Bridgehampton National Bank East End Cup tournament, the girls team, coached by Mike Vitulli, looks as if it will be competitive as well. The girls shut out Pierson 2-0 in a nonleaguer here Saturday as Tiffany Gutierrez and Raffi Franey scored goals in the first half. Kathryn Hess, East Hampton’s athletic goalkeeper, made sure nothing got by her. It was her second shutout of the young season.

    “I’ve got the most depth ever,” Vitulli said afterward. He was looking forward to playing three games this week, the first, on Tuesday, at Westhampton, which had outscored Pierson 4-0 in a recent scrimmage.                 

    Saturday will be crammed sports-wise what with the fifth running of the Hamptons Marathon, a home rugby game, and a full schedule of East Hampton High School homecoming contests capped by a football game under the lights with Eastport-South Manor at 7 p.m.

    Amanda Moszkowski, who shares the Hamptons Marathon race directing chores with Diane Weinberger, said earlier this week that “we closed out registration for the marathon and half-marathon at 2,500. There will be 2,000 in the half, 500 in the full, about the same proportion as last year. We’ve got two runners from Qatar, one from Australia, two from Belgium, one from Germany, one from Spain, and runners from 34 states.”

    There will also be a 5K, which people can register for Saturday morning. There won’t be a mile race, however. “We hoped to get some elite local runners and it didn’t work out that way,” said Moszkowski.

    Chris Koegel, the defending marathon champion, has pulled out because of an injury, though the women’s winner, Lisa Tecklenburg of Cincinnati, is expected to return. John Honerkamp, who won the half last year, will be running a marathon in Berlin Saturday. In the absence of Bridget McKenna, last year’s women’s winner in the half, “we’re looking for Barbara Gubbins to win it,” said Moszkowski.

    The races are to start behind the Springs School at 8 a.m. The marathoners and half-marathoners divide at mile six, at the intersection of Stony Hill Road and Deep Lane near the Quail Hill farm in Amagansett. Marathoners and half-marathoners can be seen again at Marty’s Deli at Neck Path. Marty’s is at mile 10 of the half and at mile 23 of the marathon.

    The race, now in its fifth year, benefits Project MOST, Southampton Hospital, and the East Hampton Day Care Learning Center. “In the past four years we’ve netted $175,000 for our beneficiaries,” said Moszkowski, who added that runners also raise money for charities of their own. “Last year,” she said, “Team in Training raised $600,000 for cancer research.”

    As aforesaid, East Hampton High School’s homecoming schedule will be full Saturday, with a girls soccer game with Elwood-John Glenn and a boys volleyball game with Eastport-South Manor at 10 a.m., a field hockey game with Hampton Bays at 10:30, a girls volleyball game with Bayport-Blue Point at 1 p.m., a girls tennis match with McGann-Mercy and a girls swimming meet at the Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter with Half Hollow Hills at 2, and a boys soccer game with Amityville at 3:30.

    The Montauk Rugby Club is to play the Princeton Athletic Club in its Met Union Division II home opener at East Hampton’s Herrick Park at 1.

    From 3:30 to 6:30, there will be a barbecue and community tailgate party with a rock-climbing wall, a bounce house, face painting and tattoos, and carnival games at the high school. The homecoming king and queen will be announced at halftime of the football game with Eastport-South Manor.