Sports

Blackfishing has been tough of late, “but bass, blues, and false albacore are still running well in Plum Gut,” Ken Morse of Tight Lines Tackle said, and anglers have experienced blitz-like fishing for striped bass around the Montauk Lighthouse.

When Monday’s county Class AA high school boys soccer semifinal was over, and when it had sunk in that Huntington, the tournament’s third seed, had defeated second-seeded East Hampton 3-1 in a penalty kick shootout that followed almost two hours of riveting play, not only did Bonac’s players tear up, but so did their coach, Don McGovern.

The seventh-seeded West Islip Lions came in loaded for bear here Thursday afternoon, hoping that, somehow, they could upset the county Class AA tournament’s second seed, East Hampton. But, despite the fact that the visitors contested every ball, and pretty much matched the Bonackers when it came to corner kicks and free kicks, East Hampton emerged the winner, by 1-0, and will play third-seeded Huntington here Monday.

East Hampton High’s homecoming football win over Eastport-South Manor Saturday afternoon was rendered all the more dramatic owing to the fact that the team’s head coach, Joe McKee, was struck by a truck that morning as he was walking across Newtown Lane.

East Hampton High’s boys soccer team, the League VI champion, is to play seventh-seeded West Islip here in a first-round match today at 2 p.m., plus more sporting news, from field hockey to cross-country.

With interest in baseball here surging “through the roof,” in Tim Garneau’s words, he and other active community members are pushing to have a four-row, three-section, 132-seat grandstand built on leveled ground behind home plate at East Hampton High School’s varsity field in time for the spring season.

Bonac’s golf team, which plays in the top league in Suffolk County, is to play host today to Hauppauge in a first-round county team tournament match at the South Fork Country Club in Amagansett.

“Local spots like the Sag Harbor bridge, Nichols Point, and the black spindle rock pile outside the breakwater have been producing of late,” Ken Morse of Tight Lines Tackle said from behind the counter of his new establishment in Southampton.

There is something creepy about cormorants. From most distances, they look black, with long thick necks, tails, and wings. In flight, they appear like black crosses. Against a cormorant, fish have no hope; the tip of their orange bill is hook-shaped, a perfect tool to capture over 250 species of fish. Soon those single black crosses will join to form sky-wide, shape-shifting patterns as they migrate away.

Cristian Candemir, a 29-year-old Montauker and Starbucks barista, is in training for the inaugural America’s Strongest Man under-200 championships in Orlando, Fla., next month.

The East Hampton High School boys soccer team is now in contention to win the League VI championship, and the field hockey squad continued on the upswing by beating Shoreham-Wading River, which came in at 11-1.

Before the water turns to ice here on the East End, the local fishing scene seems to be holding up just fine. Bass, bluefish, tuna, sea bass, porgies, and blackfish are hungry and on the feed.

As of earlier this week, the East Hampton boys volleyball team was riding a five-game winning streak, and its coach was anticipating making the playoffs. Plus much more from the world of Bonac sports, from cross-country to girls tennis.

Some of the best collegiate golfers in the country vied in the Maidstone Club’s fourth 54-hole intercollegiate tournament over the course of two sunny days last week, one of them shooting a club-record 60 on the beautiful links-style course.

Bonac girls volleyball has won four straight, girls swimming remains undefeated, and the J.V. football team crushed Comsewogue here on Saturday.

The closing of Tight Lines Tackle in Sag Harbor is most unfortunate. Small mom-and-pop, one-man businesses like Ken Morse’s establishment continue to be squeezed out because of high rents. It’s a troublesome trend that has become too frequent here.

East Hampton High’s boys soccer team went up against league-leading East Islip here Saturday, and in a physical game triumphed 1-0 thanks to an early goal by John Bustamente.

From a homecoming celebration of 75 years of Bonac football to an epic hot dog eating contest, it happened here, sports fans.

Triathletes taking part in Event Power’s triathlon festival in Montauk on Sunday saw the distance swims canceled because of high bacteria levels, but still competed in bike and run legs.

There was doubly good news Saturday afternoon: It didn’t rain and East Hampton High School’s football team ran through Amityville’s line like a knife through warm butter.

“Yeah, the weather gods have not been cooperating of late,” Ken Morse at Tight Lines Tackle in Sag Harbor said of the slow fishing. “The winds were relentless, but it appears things are finally going to calm down.”

East Hampton High’s teams are going full tilt, with field hockey losing its first game of the season, girls swimming beating West Babylon, and boys soccer defeating Eastport-South Manor, among other results.

Field hockey, undefeated as of Monday, continued to give Bonac plenty to cheer about, defeating Sayville 2-1 here last week, while boys soccer bageled Westhampton Beach 4-0. The football team, however, lost its homecoming game with Harborfields.

They ran 48 miles over the course of 48 hours, with cat naps in between four-mile jogs, raising more than $145,000 for the Michael J. Fox Foundation’s Parkinson’s disease research work.

Rick Slater would have quarterbacked the 1978 East Hampton High School football team, but three “taxpayer revolt” budget defeats torpedoed the team. “It’s still a nightmare,” he said.

Just as Tropical Storm Ophelia ushered out summer, Ken Morse, the man behind Tight Lines Tackle in Sag Harbor, is moving out — to Southampton.

Despite the foul weather, almost a thousand runners turned out for the Hamptons Marathon, Half-Marathon, and 5K at the Southampton Intermediate School Saturday. The races were won, respectively, by Jake Gallagher, 36, of Larchmont, N.Y., in 2 hours, 43 minutes, and 45 seconds, Jordan Daniel, 28, of Westhampton Beach in 1:08:43, and Danny Cohen, 24, of Solon, Ohio, in 18:01. 

Ron White, the former president of the Bridgehampton School Board who also served as the varsity boys basketball head coach for six years, is stepping down from the board, according to a meeting agenda put out by the school on Wednesday afternoon.

There was a lot going on in September of 1998, including the day cricket came to Southampton.

George Cafiso is about to be inducted into East Hampton High School’s Hall of Fame for the second time, as a member of its 1953-54 boys basketball team. Here he talks about that and the 1952 football team.