The parking lot that serves the Terry King ball field and the Sportime Arena in Amagansett was chock-full throughout this past weekend, mainly because of the 34 games played from Thursday evening through Sunday evening in the Travis Field memorial double-elimination softball tournament, but also because of a 5-on-5 basketball tourney benefiting Down syndrome research in which 72 players, including about a dozen former East Hampton High School stars, vied Saturday morning.
It was not known as of Monday morning how much the Travis Field Foundation raised, but evidence that it was substantial could be found in the fact that “this was the first year that we sold out our new apparel,” according to Alexa Wolf, who oversaw the event with Sondra Vecchio.
Seventeen teams, at least two of them including present-day and former East Hampton High School students on their rosters, went at it in A and B brackets. The Raptors, a Montauk team of Davis and Daunt family members primarily, repeated as the A bracket champion, in a nail-biting final — a rarity in slow-pitch — Sunday evening. Bonac Vice, one of the high school teams, which included Carter Dickinson, Tyler Hansen, Hunter Eberhart, Aryan Chugh, and Emma Terry in its lineup, blew out the Talkhouse, a first-year entry, 21-2 in the B bracket final.
“It’s almost as if this [17-year-old] tournament has been reinvented,” Wolf was pleased to say in referring to the influx of younger players. “This year, two of Travis’s first cousins, Ella Field and Aidan Stone,” who weren’t born when Travis died in 2008, became eligible to play.
The Raptors chanted, “Travis! Travis! Travis!” as they hoisted the championship trophy following their 8-7 win over the Panthers that had for an hour and a half commanded the rapt attention of several hundred fans ringing the field of play.
Being a double-elimination tourney, the Panthers, a team made up largely of Travis Field’s friends, had to win twice Sunday night to garner the trophy — the Raptors, who went in at 3-0, only needed to win once, which they did . . . barely.
The “away” team, the Raptors scored a run in the top of the first inning thanks to a sacrifice fly by Tyler Davis that scored Stevie Bahns, who had led off with a double and had advanced to third on a flyout by Leo Daunt.
Ricky Wesnofske, the first of three left-handed batters at the top of the Panthers’ lineup, led the bottom half off with a double, and, following Casey Crowley’s infield pop, was driven in by Sawyer Wirth, who advanced to second on the throw home. Colin Davis, the Raptors’ exuberant pitcher, retired the next two batters he faced, leaving the score tied at 1-1.
Brian Pfund, about whom more later, popped out to right in leading off the Raptors’ second at-bat. A single by Dustin Lightcap and a popout to Brian Anderson, the Panthers’ pitcher (who had driven up from Raleigh, N.C.), followed, after which Colin Davis’s high fly ball was caught at the fence in left-center.
Dylan Field lined a Davis offering up the middle in leading off the Panthers’ second, but Davis retired the next three, Nicole Fierro, Austin Bahns, and Anderson, the latter’s popout to right stranding Field at third.
After the Raptors went down one-two-three, the Panthers pounced for three runs in their third, Chris Pfund leading it off with a hard-hit single down the third-base line that Wesnofske followed up with a home run over the center-field fence. One out later, Wirth also homered, to put the Panthers up 4-1.
The fourth inning was scoreless, but the Raptors came alive in the top of the fifth, wresting the lead back at 5-4. Brian Pfund got the rally going with a towering home run over the fence in right-center, a blow that prompted his teammates to run from the dugout so they could exchange low-fives with him and flop backward onto the third-base line as he made his way home.
But that wasn’t all: One-out singles put runners at first and second for Anthony Daunt, who doubled in another run, after which his brother Richie singled in another, tying the score at 4-4. Their sister Lacey, batting 11th in the order, then grounded into a forceout at second that enabled Richie to come home with the Raptors’ fifth run.
The Montaukers made it 8-4 in the top of the sixth, thanks to a sacrifice fly by Brett Davis that drove in Leo Daunt, who had doubled and advanced to third on Tyler Davis’s flyout to right, and to a home run by Lightcap.
Colin Davis retired the Panthers in order in their sixth, and Anderson kept the Raptors off the board in the top of the seventh.
And then the fun began. Dylan Field led off the bottom of the seventh with a line-drive single. One out later, Austin Bahns beat out a double-play bid that would have ended the game. Then, with two outs, Anderson singled, Chris Pfund singled, Wesnofske singled, and Crowley singled — Crowley’s hit bringing the Panthers to within one, at 8-7, and bringing up Wirth, who had homered earlier, with the potential tying run on third and the potential winning run at second. The lefty lined a Colin Davis offering to right. But Richie Daunt was there to make the catch and thus eat the Panthers’ dreams.
“The entire town is here,” Kelly McKee, one of the tournament’s staunch umpires — Riley Duchemin being another — said between games Saturday afternoon. “People don’t realize what a commitment these players and volunteers, all hard-working people, have to make. It’s an amazing event.”
There were five Travis Field scholarship winners this year — Dickinson, Hansen, Jocelyn Garcia, Jonathan Armijos, and Addison Barletta. Dickinson and Hansen threw out first balls before the Thursday opener. Moreover, said Wolf, “the foundation, on the recommendations of their teachers, made $500 donations so that two eighth graders at Springs School, where Travis went, can buy athletic equipment. We also want to thank the Stephen Talkhouse for hosting the bracket bash party this year and Lee Greenwood, who came and sang ‘God Bless the U.S.A.’ ”
