“Did we . . . win?” the sportswriter asked on arriving late at East Hampton High. “They won,” a young fan answered on his way out.

“Our defense was good enough for us to win,” Dan White, East Hampton’s coach, said after a 45-30 loss to Eastport-South Manor here, but when it came to offense there wasn’t much to write home about.

Southampton Town has more than 60 freshwater ponds. Most of these ponds are contaminated to this or that degree, but the most contaminated are given a label by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation that speaks to their fragility.