Sports

   On his return from selling pretzels in Montauk Sunday as part of a fund-raiser to help underwrite the East Hampton High School softball team’s trip next week to Disney World in Orlando, Fla., Lou Reale said this season will be a challenge.

   March is when winter concludes and spring begins; the month when baseball is back and football is gone. Pro basketball and hockey are moving toward the playoffs, but are not quite there yet. So, in essence, March is the waiting period for sports — with the exception of one oh-so-important thing: March Madness.

    It’s the culmination of every college basketball season, when 68 teams are chosen by a committee because of their impressive records or because they’ve won their conference tournaments, which gives them an automatic bid into the “Big Dance.”

   The rain predicted for Saturday — snow, as it turned out — didn’t arrive until the afternoon, which allowed East Hampton High School’s baseball team to scrimmage Mattituck here.

    The initial outing gave Ed Bahns and Will Collins — and their volunteer assistant, Kevin Brophy — a chance to give their 17-player roster a look in a game situation, and afterward there was agreement that while there was much to work on, if the young team continued to work hard and made steady improvement, that would be fine.

   There was no paddle in Brazil, Fabio Minozi, who directs East Hampton Indoor Tennis’s platform tennis program, said during a conversation Sunday morning in the warm-up hut that lies between E.H.I.T.’s two raised wire-enclosed courts.

    “It’s too hot,” the Sao Paulo native and former A.T.P. tour player said by way of explanation. “Paddle’s a winter game, even though they’re trying to come up with a less bouncy ball to play with in hot weather.”

Thursday, March 21

BASEBALL, Southampton at East Hampton, scrimmage, 4 p.m.        

GIRLS TRACK, Miller Place at East Hampton, 4:30 p.m.

BOYS TRACK, East Hampton at Miller Place, 4:30 p.m.

Friday, March 22

BOYS TENNIS, William Floyd at East Hampton, 4:30 p.m.

SOFTBALL, East Hampton at Hampton Bays, scrimmage, 4 p.m.

BASEBALL, East Hampton at Mattituck, scrimmage, 4 p.m.

BOYS LACROSSE, East Hampton at North Babylon, nonleague, 4:30 p.m.

GIRLS LACROSSE, East Hampton at Comsewogue, nonleague, 6:30 p.m.

   Rich Schneider, who’s been the spokesman of the East Hampton Town men’s slow-pitch softball league for quite a while, phoned the other day to say that the league, which has been in existence since the late 1960s, might have to fold if some more teams — there are only four at the moment — did not come forward.

    In past years the town league, which replaced a fast-pitch one whose last champion was Schenck Fuels, has had as many as 14 teams in two divisions, but that was a while ago.

   Joe Vas, the East Hampton School District’s athletic director, was sanguine regarding spring during a preseason talk at his office Monday.

    “Sunny days from here on in,” he said. “It’s supposed to be in the 40s all this week. Let’s hope we’ve seen the last of the storms.”

    There was still snow on East Hampton’s turf field when the boys and girls lacrosse teams practiced there Saturday morning, and when Rich King and Don McGovern conducted a soccer clinic there for kindergartners through eighth graders on Sunday.

   Bridgehampton High School’s boys basketball team, which had only one senior starter and a thin bench, took its coaches and fans on a playoff joy ride that hit the wall in the last half-second of the Class D regional final Friday in the form of a desperation 3-point shot from the top of the key that knifed through the nets and put a dagger in the hard-playing Killer Bees’ hearts.

   Coaches of youth sports programs at a special meeting of East Hampton’s school board Monday night convened to consider various fees attending the use of the district’s fields and gyms here on weekends claimed that added costs would effectively lessen participation, and would in time erode the competitiveness of Bonac’s teams.

    Ashley West, a runner who comes from a talented soccer family, winced when asked if she’d ever played the game.

    “Just once,” she said. “I scored . . . but it was the wrong goal.”

    And so began a running career whose latest goal is to compete in the national Division III championships.

    Whitney Reidlinger, a special education teacher at the Springs School, reported that the following East Hampton youngsters were gold medalists at a Special Olympics bowling tournament at the East Hampton Bowl Sunday:

    Paula Retana, of East Hampton, and Kerri Schleider, of Montauk, in the female ramp divisions; Isaiah Brodie, of East Hampton, in a male ramp division; Jennifer Brito, of East Hampton, in a female division, and Joshua Guaman, Oswald Duarte, Paul Anderson, and Bryan Chacon, all of East Hampton, in male divisions.

Max Cure Spin

    Fly Wheel Sports at 85 Montauk Highway, East Hampton, is participating in a nationwide fund-raiser for the Max Cure Foundation this Saturday, beginning at 2 p.m.

    Richard Plotkin, the foundation’s founder, who is a part-time Amagansett resident, said in an e-mail that Fly Wheel has allocated 55 spinning bikes to the foundation, whose “mission is to fund pediatric cancer cures, to develop less toxic treatments for children with the disease, and to support low-income families whose children have been struck by cancer.”

Thursday, March 14

BOYS LACROSSE, East Hampton at William Floyd, scrimmage, 4:30 p.m.

GIRLS LACROSSE, East Hampton at Hauppauge, scrimmage, 4:30 p.m.

Friday, March 15

BASEBALL, East Hampton at Southampton, scrimmage, 4 p.m.

Saturday, March 16

GIRLS LACROSSE, East Hampton at multi-team scrimmage, Connetquot High School, 9 a.m.

BASEBALL, Mattituck at East Hampton, scrimmage, 10 a.m.

SPINNING, benefit Max Cure Foundation, Fly Wheel Sports, 85 Montauk Highway, East Hampton, 2 p.m.

February 4, 1988

    The Bridgehampton High School boys basketball team would have to “win one more game to make the playoffs,” its coach, John Niles, said following the Killer Bees’ 89-84 victory Monday over Pierson, a Class D and League Seven rival.

    The Sag Harbor team, 3-6 as of Tuesday, proved to be a worthy opponent. After almost giving up the ghost last week, at 1-5, the Whalers came back to upend Hampton Bays twice, and seemed to be coming on just as the Bees, who played poorly in Friday’s 72-62 loss at Center Moriches, were faltering.

   Now is the time for all worthy nominees to come the attention of East Hampton High School’s Hall of Fame committee, its chairman, Jim Nicoletti, said in so many words during a conversation Friday.

    “We want to keep the momentum going,” said Nicoletti, who oversaw the induction of the Hall’s first class at homecoming weekend last September, a day he aptly described at the time as “one of the greatest days in Bonac sports history.”

   Hayden Ward, a Montauker, whose basketball talent was called into question by his peers when he first arrived at East Hampton High School, has been named as the State University of New York Athletic Conference’s player of the year.

   The Hampton Lifeguard Association will begin its junior lifeguard training program for boys and girls age 9 through 14 at the Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter pool Sunday at 1:30 p.m.

   The program, which is free, is to benefit from a fund-raising dinner at East by Northeast restaurant in Montauk tomorrow from 7 to 11 p.m. The tickets cost $40 per person ($75 for a couple) in advance, or $45 and $85 at the door. The party committee members are Kathy Piacentine, John Ryan Sr., Mary Lownes, Stephanie Bogetti, Lynne Calabrese, and Marigrace Ryan.

   Scorpion, a team led by Antonio Padilla, Mario Olaya, and Danny Bedoya, defeated the very competitive Virgen del Milagro entry, whose lineup included Missael Piadranarte and the league’s leading goal scorer, Marco Bautista, 3-1 in a hotly contested men’s open futsal final at the Sportime arena in Amagansett Saturday night.

    Thomas Brierley and Trevor Mott, the first members of East Hampton High School’s boys swimming team ever to qualify for state meet competition, did well at this past weekend’s open meet at Webster-Schroeder High School outside Rochester.

Friday, March 8

BOYS BASKETBALL, state Class D regional final, Bridgehampton-John A. Coleman winner vs. Section IX winner, New Rochelle High School, 4:30 p.m.

LIFEGUARDING, fund-raising dinner for junior lifeguard training program, ENE restaurant, Montauk, 7-11 p.m.

Sunday, March 10

FIGURE SKATING, exhibition, Buckskill Winter Club, 1 p.m.

LIFEGUARDING, first session of free junior lifeguard training program for boys and girls aged 9 through 14, Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter pool, 1:30-2:30, registration from 1:15.

    A sportswriter in search of something to write about Sunday morning, this being the depths of winter, stopped off first at the Buckskill Winter Club where Joanne Doran, the manager and figure skating director, told him of a number of new offerings there, after which he swung by Sportime’s Arena in Amagansett for a talk with its manager, Mike Ritsi, Tyler Jarvis, and Bob Nicholson, whose 9-year-old son, Brett, plays on four traveling roller hockey teams, including a 17-and-under squad.

    Tom Cohill, the Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter aquatics director, who coaches the Y’s youth swim team, the Hurricanes, took two of his long-distance competitors, Trevor Mott and Georgie Bogetti, to the Senior Metropolitan championships at Lehman College in the Bronx this past weekend, and was duly impressed by their performances.

Friday, March 1

BOYS SWIMMING, state meet, Webster Schroeder High School near Rochester, also Saturday.

FUTSAL, men’s league semifinals, La Calle vs. Virgen del Milagro, 7 p.m., and Scorpion vs. Liga del Milagro, 8, Sportime Arena, Abraham’s Path, Amagansett.

Saturday, March 2

FUTSAL, playoff finals in women’s and men’s leagues, 5-11 p.m., Sportime Arena, Abraham’s Path, Amagansett.

Monday, March 4

SPRING SPORTS, practices begin at South Fork schools, 3 p.m.

Wednesday, March 6

   Carl Johnson, who coaches the Bridgehampton High School boys basketball team, said before Saturday’s county B-C-D playoff game at Longwood that while he knew he probably shouldn’t, he was viewing the encounter with Babylon as “a glorified scrimmage.”

    The Bees, after all, had already won what was for them the main event, the county Class D title, and weren’t scheduled to play again in the state tourney until March 6.

    “Babylon’s two divisions above them,” a Bees partisan said at halftime, by which point the Panthers held a commanding 28-18 lead.

   Shelter Island had a chance last Thursday to hail the first county-championship boys basketball team the tiny school district has ever had.

    When told of the possibility after Bridgehampton’s 53-40 win in the county Class D final at Westhampton Beach High School, Carl Johnson, the Killer Bees’ coach, who has played on and coached state-championship teams, said, “I’m glad they didn’t do it against me!”

   East Hampton High School’s boys and girls basketball teams went one-and-done in the county playoffs last week, though the boys, as has been their custom all season, fought to the end, and Kaelyn Ward, as also has been the case all season, played valiantly in her career finale.

   The day of the league boys swimming meet, Craig Brierley and his son Thomas met with Sinead FitzGibbon, a well-respected physical therapist and endurance athlete here, concerning a sore shoulder.

    “An M.R.I. showed a minor stress fracture,” the elder Brierley said, “but Sinead said he was good to go. If she hadn’t given us the green light, I was prepared to shut him down. Strengthening exercises with her and stroke correction with me — as a coach your form is never good enough — should do it.”

   For Steve Redlus, who played for the team that was on its way to a county championship in 1995 when a controversial downfield-blocking call on its tight end, Troy LaMonda, stifled a probable victory drive, realized a dream this week when he was named as East Hampton High’s varsity football coach, replacing Bill Barbour Jr., who recently resigned.

    When five years ago Barbour replaced David MacGarva, it was thought that the program, whose numbers were far outweighed by those of the schools up west, might turn around, but that has not been the case.

   East Hampton High School’s boys and girls basketball teams are to begin the playoffs this week, with the sixth-seeded boys playing at third-seeded Islip at 5 p.m. today, and with the fifth-seeded girls playing at fourth-seeded Islip tomorrow at the same time.

   Mike Ritsi was almost in Delaware in December on his way to Florida, where he hoped he would find work, when a call came in from Sportime’s general manager, Sue de Lara, whose help wanted ad in The Star he’d answered.

    He turned right around, the 28-year-old Montauk resident said during a conversation Friday, was interviewed, and was hired as the director of Sportime’s well-appointed multisport arena in Amagansett.