High school sports made a stuttery recovery in the past year of Covid. The good news was that there were at the high school level two fall seasons in 2021, in which 11 mostly-playoff-caliber East Hampton High teams contended.

The first day of the new year was drizzly and drab, and, to some, depressing, though you wouldn’t have known it had you been at East Hampton Village’s Main Beach or at the Beach Lane road end in Wainscott for the New Year’s Day plunges that afternoon.

The first two and a half quarters of the Holiday Classic boys basketball game that East Hampton High played at Southampton on Dec. 28 “were the best we’ve played all year,” East Hampton’s coach, Dan White, said following the 69-60 loss to the Mariners.