Sports

Planning for the U.S. Open played this past week at the Shinnecock Hills Golf Club in Southampton began at least two years ago in order to assure that the 30,000 fans who passed through the entrance gates each day, and those who were lucky enough to play in the field, had the best time possible.

Local Sports Schedule

The publicists for the Shelter Island 10K, which is to be contested Saturday afternoon, said in an email earlier this week that “we are looking at another great field of athletes from the United States, Kenya, and Ethiopia.”

Tim Steiskal, the winner of Saturday’s Robert J. Aaron memorial Olympic-distance triathlon in Montauk, said he began to worry when, as he was running uphill “from the bottom of a canyon” on the run, he saw the defending champion, Matthew Connelly, on his way down.

The 118th U.S. Open tees off today at the Shinnecock Hills Golf Club in Southampton. By Sunday evening, the iconic course will have held the prestigious event five times in three centuries — in 1896, 1986, 1995, 2004, and 2018.

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Claude Beudert, whose good 31-year walk, as it were, with East Hampton High School’s golf team was decidedly not spoiled — during his tenure his teams went a collective 285-68, won 17 league championships, 14 of them between 2001 and 2015, and won county and Long Island championships in 2011 — is now utterly retired.

East Hampton High School’s Hall of Fame committee has named three athletes, Zach Brenneman (2007), Justin Winter (1982), and Michael Sarlo (1988), as well as the school’s longtime trainer, Randi Cherill, as an honorary member, to its class of 2018.

Local Sports Notes

Thursday, June 7

ATHLETIC AWARDS, senior banquet, East Hampton High School, 7 p.m.

MEN’S SLOW-PITCH, Sag Harbor Fire Department vs. East Hampton Fire Department, 7 p.m., and Corner Bar vs. Thirsty Bubs, 8:15, Terry King ball field, Abraham’s Path, Amagansett.

Friday, June 8

MEN’S SLOW-PITCH, Uihlein’s vs. Corner Bar, 7 p.m., and Montauk Rugby vs. Marcello Masonry, 8:15, Terry King ball field, Abraham’s Path, Amagansett.

Saturday, June 9

MONTAUK TRIATHLON, intersection West Lake Drive and Star Island Causeway, 7:30 a.m.

East Hampton High’s boys tennis team, which shared the league championship with Westhampton Beach, made it to the semifinals of the county team tournament this past week, defeating Sachem, the 12th seed, and Half Hollow Hills West, the fourth, before being “smoked,” in its coach Kevin McConville’s words, by top-seeded Half Hollow Hills East.

Neal Feinberg, who’s leasing the four Har-Tru tennis courts on the Napeague stretch that Doug De Groot owns, said at 27Tennis the other day that he got into the real estate business “at the worst time in the history of humanity.”

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Ben Turnbull, who coaches East Hampton High School’s boys track team, said earlier this week that he expected that Ryan Fowkes, in the 800 and 1,600-meter races, Robert Weiss, in the 100 and 200, and Matt Maya, in the pentathlon, should earn berths in the state qualifier meet that is to take place at Comsewogue High School tomorrow and Saturday.

Doug Milano, an East Hampton Middle School math teacher who recently ran his first marathon, “dying” after having moved up to fifth place in the Newsday race by the 18-mile mark, had a much easier time of it in the Bonac on Board to Wellness 5K on May 23, crossing the Main Beach finish line ahead of 637 fellow participants, a number of them students or former students of his, in 17 minutes and 51 seconds.

Noah Avallone, a young snowboarder from Montauk who turned 11 on May 16, continues shredding in Shaun White’s gnarly wake, the latest feather in his cap being a runner-up finish at the United States of America Snowboard and Freeski Association’s national championships in Colorado in April.

Despite the rain, about 30 long-distance runners turned out for Saturday’s Hither Hills Half-Marathon, a double-looped trail run in the environs of Ed Ecker County Park at the end of Montauk’s Navy Road.

Men’s slow-pitch, in the form of a 10-team league divided into two divisions, has returned to the Terry King ball field in Amagansett following an absence of five years.

Jon Diat took advantage of a golden opportunity Monday to pose with the U.S. Open’s silver cup.

The East Hampton High School boys tennis and boys and girls track seasons continue, though it’s all over for baseball, softball, and boys and girls lacrosse, none of these teams having finished with playoff-caliber records.

The Old Montauk Athletic Club’s Montauk Mile cup, which was introduced to that revived race from the train station to Lions Field last year, is hereafter to be known as the Montauk Mile John F. Conner Cup in honor of the 83-year-old former mile and half-mile world record-holder, who, because of a stroke, walks with difficulty now.

Local School Notes

Thursday, May 17

BOYS TENNIS, county team tournament, second round, (12) Sachem at (5) East Hampton, 4 p.m.

Friday, May 18

BOYS TENNIS, county team tournament, quarterfinal round, tentative, (5) East Hampton at (4) Half Hollow Hills West, 4 p.m.

Saturday, May 19

TRAIL RUNNING, Hither Hills Half-Marathon, Ed Ecker County Park, Navy Road, Montauk, 8 a.m.

YOUTH RUGBY, tentative, Bishop Loughlin vs. Section XI Rugby Academy, Mattituck High School, 2 p.m.

Sunday, May 20

Local Sports History

Ryan Fowkes ran the fastest mile that’s been run here in 30 years at the St. Anthony’s invitational track meet Saturday, and on Monday the baseball team snapped what its coach, Vinny Alversa, said was a 51-game losing streak at Amityville, a school whose program has also been struggling in the past few years.

Jonny De Groot, who plays number-one on East Hampton High’s boys tennis team, was to have played Center Moriches’s Mike Koscinski, the top seed, Monday afternoon, for third place in Division IV’s singles draw, while two East Hampton doubles teams, Alex Weseley and Jamie Fairchild and Matthew McGovern and Miles Clark, were to have fought it out for third place among the division’s doubles teams. The top four in each draw advance to the county individual tournament that is to begin tomorrow.

While its playoff chances seem to be dim — presumably because of recent losses at the hands of Class-A Islip, Southampton, and Kings Park — East Hampton High’s softball team has nevertheless been competitive this season, as it showed in Saturday’s game here with Kings Park, which prevailed 3-1.

Local Sports Notes

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Local Sports History