Sports

Joe McKee, who has been working hard to rebuild East Hampton High School's football program in recent years, was happy to take the field here Saturday afternoon with the first varsity team he's coached since the fall of 2016, as the untried Bonackers, who had only two weeks to get ready, faced Babylon.

The junior varsity team has begun a 10-day quarantine period after one of its players, a Pierson student who played in Saturday's game with Babylon's jayvee, tested positive for Covid-19 over the weekend.

Anthony Daunt of Springs barely got any sleep for four and a half days straight not long ago, but it wasn't his infant daughter, Mila, who was keeping him up, but rather the Moab 240, an ultra race in Utah.

The first game to be played on East Hampton High School's turf field in a long while was contested by the East Hampton and Pierson boys soccer teams Monday in typically brisk Bonac spring weather. The nonleaguer — the first of the season for both teams — was, in contrast, hotly contested, though the Bonackers proved to be the more solid squad, and thus wound up winning 2-0.

"Right now, our plans are all systems go, but we recognize that anything could still change," said Marty Bauman, the show's communications director.

There were to have been five athletic contests involving East Hampton High School teams Tuesday, and three — field hockey, boys soccer, and boys volleyball — went off as scheduled. A boys cross-country meet with Islip that was to have been held at Belmont Lake State Park in West Babylon that afternoon was canceled.

The Peconic Hockey Foundation hopes to build a covered ice rink in the Riverhead area, perhaps at Calverton, that would provide youngsters on the North and South Forks with a place to play.

Eleven teams — teams that normally would play in the fall — began practicing Monday, namely football, boys and girls volleyball, boys and girls soccer, boys and girls cross-country, girls tennis, golf, girls swimming, and field hockey.

On Saturday, the 200-yard freestyle relay team of Jack Duryea, Daniel Piver, Aidan McCormac, and Colin Harrison placed third in 1 minute and 34.03 seconds, as all four swam personal-best 50-yard legs, Duryea in 22.90 seconds, Piver in 22.88, McCormac in 25.91, and Harrison in 22.34.

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.

East Hampton High School on Monday will spring into the fall season insofar as its athletic offerings are concerned. Eleven teams are to begin practice that day, teams that in normal times would have played in the fall, namely football, boys and girls soccer, boys and girls volleyball, boys and girls cross-country, golf, girls tennis, girls swimming, and field hockey.

In winter track, whose meets have been contested outdoors rather than at Suffolk Community College-Brentwood's field house, as has been customary, East Hampton's girls were outnumbered and overpowered by Sayville here Sunday, though there were a number of personal bests.

East Hampton High School's boys basketball team was 2-1 in league play as of Tuesday, and 2-3 over all.

Having followed his coach's advice, Kal Lewis, the University of Iowa freshman from Shelter Island, trailed a Big Ten pack for most of the indoor mile race at Iowa's field house Friday before kicking his way to fourth place in a lifetime-best 4 minutes and 7.14 seconds, "a second out of second, and a step out of third," according to Cliff Clark, Shelter Island's running guru.

Councilman David Lys hopes to include $250,000 toward the renovation and expansion of the Montauk skate park in East Hampton Town's capital budget.

For the third year in a row East Hampton High's boys swimming team won the League II meet, this one contested Saturday at Hauppauge High School, topping four teams — Hauppauge, West Islip, Sayville-Bayport-Blue Point, and Northport — that had defeated the 3-4 Bonackers in dual meet competition.

During the pandemic, physical education teachers here have jumped through some hoops in order to keep students safe while at the same time active.

It was pretty much good news all around for East Hampton High's active winter teams this past week. The swimmers, in their final home meet of the foreshortened season, defeated Lindenhurst 71-59, "exhibitioning" in the final two events so as not to run up a score; the boys track team here on Saturday defeated Rocky Point 50-45, and the girls, whose coach, Yani Cuesta, was still awaiting Rocky Point's long jump results as of Sunday, were leading 43-39.

Sag Harbor's Board of Education, faced with a student petition to overturn a recent decision by the district superintendent, Jeff Nichols, not to let Pierson High student-athletes compete this winter in "high-risk" sports, once again seconded the superintendent at a meeting Monday night.

Following the county's okay of certain "high-risk" school sports, East Hampton High's boys and girls basketball teams and Bridgehampton's boys team are set to play games, but East Hampton's wrestling team will work out only intramurally this year and will not compete with against other teams.

"Montauk's skate park could become a destination," said John Britton, the father of an 11-year-old skateboarder who is working with Councilman David Lys to advocate for a renovation and expansion. 

Following the big new this week that "high-risk" sports, namely boys and girls basketball, wrestling, and competitive cheerleading, could begin a foreshortened season on Monday, South Fork school districts grappled with whether that was in their students' best interests.

A plan is in the works to renovate and expand the Montauk skate park, designed in 1999 by the late skateboarding legend Andy Kessler. To fund the project, East Hampton Town has $50,000 in hand from one donor and is applying for a $25,000 grant from the Skatepark Project in California.

High-risk high school sports including wrestling, basketball, and competitive cheerleading can resume again in Suffolk, County Executive Steve Bellone announced Monday. The season will run from Feb. 1 through Feb. 27.

East Hampton High's winter sports seasons were still on hold as of this week, the second week in a row that the school's students were learning remotely. "It hurts — they were just getting into a routine, and then were cut off."

Depending on the weather, East Hampton's Little League organization could begin outdoor clinics for 8 through 12-year-old boys and girls at the Pantigo fields in East Hampton this weekend.

East Hampton High's bowling team was to have had a match under its belt, and the boys swimming team was to have made its debut (though with no spectators) today at the Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter, but the coronavirus pandemic put the kibosh on that.

Few small businesses in East Hampton Town have been more adversely affected by the Covid-19 pandemic than fitness centers, which were shut down from mid-March through the end of August. During that span, several closed their doors for good and more may soon follow.

The curtain that rang down with a thud on high school sports last March may soon be raised, at least insofar as the low-to-moderate-risk sports of boys and girls winter track, boys swimming, and bowling are concerned.

There will be no organized fund-raising New Year's Day plunges here this year, an unfortunate result of the coronavirus pandemic that hit our shores the better part of a year ago.