The East Hampton High School boys basketball team was thrown a curve, as it were, on Feb. 17 when its coach, Dan White, learned with three minutes left in that day's game with Bayport-Blue Point that a Mattituck player had that morning tested positive for Covid-19.
Thus a 10-day quarantine for White and his charges loomed inasmuch as East Hampton, all of whose players had tested negative on Feb. 16, and Mattituck had played the day before.
White, whose team had played Islip, Southampton, and Mattituck in three consecutive days, had feared a positive test, either on an opposing team or on his, would shut down his team's already shortened season.
"Though the good news," he said during a telephone conversation Monday, "is that we might be able to play a playoff game Friday or Saturday."
As of Monday, East Hampton, which defeated Bayport-Blue Point with ease, 58-40, was 3-1 in League VI play, which presumably presented Section XI, the governing body for Suffolk public high school sports, with a knotty tiebreaker problem, as some teams will have played six games and some, like East Hampton, four by the end of this week. "There are many teams in our situation," White said.
The top two teams from Leagues V and VI are, according to Section XI's schedule, to vie for the Conference III title, with the semifinal games to be played at the higher seeds tomorrow at 4 p.m., and the final to be played Saturday at the higher seed at noon.
Concerning the quarantine period, White said, "We might be able to play a playoff game on Friday or Saturday, assuming we make the playoffs and assuming we're cleared to play."
As for this year's squad, the coach has been impressed. "We're very good, very young, smart, and we have the skills."
Jack Dickinson, one of three sophomore starters, finished the Bayport-Blue Point game with a career-high 25 points, and Finn Byrnes, another sophomore, who has a nose for the ball, finished with 10 rebounds. The third sophomore, Luke Reese, sat through much of the second half "because of a foot issue."
"He's okay now," the coach said Monday.
Benefiting from a number of turnovers, the Bonackers jumped out to a 15-9 lead in the first quarter, and virtually put the game away with an 18-3 second period during which Topher Cullen and Charlie Condon hit 3-pointers and Dickinson frequently drove to the hoop.
"In any event, we should be solid in the next two years," said White.
And, as for a possible playoff berth, "We're hoping," he said in signing off.
This story has been updated to correct a player's name.