Sports

East Hampton's 9-10 boys Little League all-star team came close to joining the 9-10 girls in the District 36 winner's circle this past week, but fell short in a championship game played at Riverhead's Stotsky Park Saturday morning.

Last week, I was mugged. Someone pulled my lobster traps, whatever lobsters they may have contained, and three dozen oysters I had placed in the traps and left the rope tangled in knots. "Some people really suck," said my companion, who helps me on deck.

Five equestrians who have competed in the Hampton Classic's Grand Prix -- McLain Ward, Kent Farrington, Laura Kraut, Jessica Springsteen, and Lucy Deslauriers, as an alternate -- have been picked to represent the United States in the coming Tokyo Olympics' team show jumping competition.

After many recent gloomy days, there are plenty of opportunities to enjoy what should be nicer weather coming up.

Drew Harvey of Sag Harbor and his friend Payton Dwight cycled 3,400 across the country to raise money to build pull-up and parallel bar fitness stations under the banner of the Dawgpatch Bandits, a group founded in reaction to the 2016 overdose death of a Sag Harbor teacher, coach, lifeguard, and triathlete.

“Soccer, wrestling, football, no matter which of those sports you play, rugby is totally addictive — it’s called the rugby bug,” Kevin Bunce Jr. said.

Striking a positive note in the lengthy process of grassroots fund-raising required before breaking ground on renovations and expansion of the Montauk Skatepark, the Montauk Skatepark Coalition said its mid-June art auction was a big success and that it is continuing its efforts through Labor Day.

Kim Tetrault, the longtime chief oyster guru at the Cornell Cooperative Extension Marine Center in Southold, tends oysters hatched in late March and scallops still too tiny to be seen without a microscope.

Samantha Duane of East Hampton certainly skates through life, and this summer, she's inviting other people to join her for friendly skate gatherings that the ex-roller derby pro hosts Monday nights in the parking lot of the Clubhouse off Daniel's Hole Road.

Opportunities to enjoy the outdoors and bask in the beauty of the East End are plentiful in the upcoming days.

In an athletic awards dinner held recently at the Clubhouse, Matthew McGovern and Bella Tarbet were cited as winners of the Paul Yuska Award, given to the best athletes of East Hampton High School's senior class, and the latest Hall of Fame picks were recognized.

After a concussion ended his high school baseball career, Jake Epstein became Bonac's biggest cheerleader. "I couldn't play sports, but there was nothing stopping me from waving a flag and screaming," said the class of 2021 president.

The Hamptons Collegiate Baseball League's Sag Harbor Whalers are fortunate to have solid catchers on the roster of 27 this season, and one of them, Marika Lyszczyk, has notched a lengthening series of firsts in baseball.

Rarely a week goes by when I don't receive a question from friends or readers about what to look for when buying fish. It's really a rather basic question to answer. Read on . . .

Want to get outside? Here are some upcoming activities that promise to satisfy your thirst for the outdoors. 

On Saturday, the East Hampton Trails Preservation Society invites hikers to explore the numerous trails of Amagansett’s hilly and shaded Stony Hill area, featuring glacial kettles and a mature beech forest. Those interested are to meet on Red Dirt Road (1/4 mile east of Accabonac Road) at 9 a.m. More information is available by calling 212-769-4311. 

It was Noah Avallone's first time surfing in California, but he quickly got used to it on his 9-foot-3-inch Paul Surf longboard, taking the West Coast and Hawaiian surfers in his age group unawares.

Following a robust discussion during a June 15 meeting of the East Hampton School Board, the decision was made not to change a policy barring seventh-grade athletes from moving up to varsity-level teams in most sports.

Walking along the weathered docks of Montauk Harbor on Saturday morning, it was nice to see that a great many boats, both of a commercial and charter/open craft nature, were out to sea on a warm, breezy day. Fishing is a tough business in good times, but it was an even greater challenge during the pandemic to secure much-needed income. Thankfully, that seems to have changed.

The wind off the water felt good on a hot and humid Shelter Island 10K race day Saturday, more than one runner said, and it also felt good to be racing unrestrictedly again after the year-plus-long coronavirus-imposed hiatus.

Tom Cohill, the Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter's aquatics director, thinks its youth swim team, the Hurricanes, is "the best pound for pound in the state," which was borne out in a meet with Huntington last week.

John Romero Sr.'s Maidstone Market men's soccer team began this spring season with three straight wins, but bowed, shorthanded, 1-0 on June 10 to the East Hampton Soccer Club. 

"Please help save our beautiful Mashashimuet Park!" said Diane Schiavoni, who is leading a fund-raiser to restore the park's grandstand. She announced on Facebook that she will kick off the initiative by offering a donation for a bundle of shingles worth $150; she hopes community members will do the same. Any amount is appreciated, she wrote, with hope for "many more years of watching our great school teams compete at our local park!"

The East Hampton High School softball team and the South Fork Islanders boys lacrosse team, on which seven Bonackers play, lost first-round playoff games in the past week. The boys tennis team and the girls and boys track teams also saw postseason action.

Ryan Fowkes, a sophomore at George Washington University who set two school records this school year, and Paige Duca, a Boston College graduate student who ran cross-country and track there as an undergrad, won the Old Montauk Athletic Club's Montauk Mile with ease on Sunday.

The lead character playing the part of Ahab these days is a commercial lobster diver from Provincetown, Mass., named Michael Packard, and in this updated adventure on the high seas, Packard, while diving near his hometown last week, said he was inhaled by a whale.

The combined South Fork Islanders boys lacrosse team reeled off five unanswered goals in the opening of a crucial game Friday, and the win earned them the playoff berth they've long been seeking.

Evan Masi was late to Harborfields, having just taken an A.P. test, but drove in the winning run in the bottom of the ninth, assuring the Bonac softball team of its first playoff berth in more than a decade.

Leslie Czeladko, the manager of East End Soccer, was taken aback to see "Endless Summer II," and not the 7-on-7 league, playing at East Hampton's Herrick Park on the evening of June 2.

The three-day Memorial Day weekend northeaster that brought about rough seas and winds up to 40 miles per hour was nasty on many fronts. 

Some of the biggest names in skateboarding culture have signed on to support the renovation and expansion of the Montauk Skate Park, which will benefit from an art auction to be held on Saturday at the Montauk Beach House.