Sports

Vanessa Rizzo, 14, and Matteo Somma, 17, won races here over the weekend. Somma, who lives in Malverne, topped a field of 443 in the Montauk Lighthouse sprint triathlon, and Rizzo of Sagaponack won the Hampton Lifeguard Association’s Run-Swim-Run at Amagansett’s Atlantic Avenue Beach.

We are in full-scale summer mode as August approaches. In Montauk stripers are still running, and the same is true for fluke and a plethora of undersize sea bass.

Some 80 young basketball players spent Monday afternoon at the Ross School in Bridgehampton drilling their footwork, practicing dribbling and ball-handling skills, shooting hoops, and simulating offensive and defensive tactics under the expert eye of a celebrity coach: John Wallace, a former Knicks player visiting for a junior basketball clinic.

The Kraken pitched well, fielded well, and hit well in Sunday’s Hamptons Adult Hardball League’s championship series opener against the East End Ospreys at the Bridgehampton School.

Sag Harbor United tightened the East Hampton 7-on-7 men’s soccer league race by defeating last fall’s champion, Maidstone Market, 4-3 at Herrick Park on July 9.

It’s appropriate that Michael Potts will be honored on Sunday afternoon as the Montauk Fishing Legend of the Year at the Montauk Grand Slam fishing tournament that Henry Uihlein has hosted at his marina for nearly three decades.

Every July for over two decades, Montauk has come together in the spirit of Rell Sunn, the surfing champion, to raise money for those in need. This year’s proceeds from the contest will benefit the Montauk Food Pantry and Concerned Citizens of Montauk.

I trapped 15 lobsters on July 8. That was the good news. The bad was that the Yanmar diesel engine on my Rock Water encountered problems on the return trip to Sag Harbor.

An estimated 150 I-Tri girls, members of Theresa Roden’s widely praised empowerment program that is in middle schools spanning Mastic to Montauk, participated Sunday in a youth triathlon at Noyac’s Long Beach.

The East Hampton Little League’s U-12 all-star baseball team suffered “a tough loss,” in its manager Chris Carney’s words, in the District 36 championship game versus the North Shore Nationals at Rocky Point on July 10.

John Kernell’s golfing efforts at Montauk Downs were immortalized in a Jack Graves column in 1999, plus a celebration of the late John Villaplana, Eastern Long Island Soccer League all-star.

With three East Hamptoners in the lineup, the Sag Harbor Whalers sailed to a 6-0 win over the South Shore Clippers in a Hamptons Collegiate Baseball League game at Sag Harbor’s Mashashimuet Park Sunday afternoon. The Whalers were in third place as of that day.

My good friend Robert Cugini, who hails from Seattle, has served as a valued deckhand for many years when bay scallop season opens in early November. But lobsters are a different ballgame.

The 26th annual Rell Sunn Surf Contest benefit will happen Sunday at Ditch Plain Beach in Montauk, this time with sponsorship by Concerned Citizens of Montauk. 

East Hampton fire trucks and police cars greeted the Little League 10-and-under all-star softball team at around 9:30 p.m. on July 3 as the joyful players returned here after defeating their Riverhead peers 5-3 in the District 36 championship game played at Stotzky Memorial Park.

James Wood, son of the Bonac basketball legend Kenny Wood, has been billed as “the next face of the Washington Nationals’ franchise.” He lived up that billing in his debut last week.

The late Roy Lee Mabery, a gifted athlete of high character who drowned 52 years ago at Little Albert’s Beach in Amagansett, was remembered reverently at East Hampton Village’s Herrick Park Saturday morning as two new village-built basketball courts were dedicated to him. 

Colin Ruddy, coming off his sophomore year pitching for Monmouth University in New Jersey, reflects on the solid foundation he got pitching for Bonac, and what’s next for him on the mound.

Tim Garvin and the South Fork Country Club in Amagansett played host last Thursday to 66 young golfers and 22 pros from all over the Island in the Met PGA Long Island Pro Junior championship, a best-ball competition contested by foursomes.

I know that the East End is a well-known hot spot. I realize that nothing stays the same, but I miss the more simple days when courtesy, respect, and kindness ruled the road and water. Is it too much to ask for today?

As the school year comes to a close, accolades and achievements continue to roll in for student-athletes here, including college signings and Dellecave Award announcements.

Family members and friends of Roy Lee Mabery will be on hand Saturday to rededicate the newly renovated and relocated basketball courts at East Hampton’s Herrick Park in his memory.

F.C. Tuxpan, the runner-up to Maidstone Market in last fall’s 7-on-7 men’s soccer league’s championship game, has taken the early lead in the summer standings. The hourlong games are played at East Hampton’s Herrick Park on Tuesday evenings.

The recent heat wave zapped my energy for getting on the Rock Water and wetting a fishing line. But I sucked it up and checked on my lobster traps anyway.

With the arrival of summer comes the return of junior lifeguard programs for kids 9 to 15 run by East Hampton Town and East Hampton Village, both happening on Saturdays and Sundays from 9 to 11 a.m.

Yoga Shanti in Sag Harbor celebrated its 25th anniversary last week with a block party of sorts behind the Bridge Street studio.

Ryan Fowkes, who is racing royalty when it comes to the East End running community, capped his 2024 competitive season with a third-place overall finish in the Shelter Island 10K on Saturday. The top women's division finisher was Angie Rafter of Vernon, Conn., whose photo finish was called "really exciting" by the race director.

Benefiting from an over-the-pitch-limit ruling that had resulted in Smile Navy Beach having to forfeit a seeming semifinal playoff win, the Amagansett Fire Department’s 11-and-12-year-old Little League team nevertheless acquitted itself well in a 7-5 loss to Race Lane in the Major League championship game played at Stephen Hand’s Path on June 10.

Hours before the start of the Shelter Island 10K on Saturday, the Beacon of Hope 5K run/walk in Montauk kicked off as another successful fund-raiser for the Coalition for Women’s Cancers, drawing runners from all over Long Island, New York, and New Jersey to a race boasting some of the best views around.

After a good catch of bluefish, I steered back to port in Sag Harbor, but my engine stalled out a few minutes later. Not good.