Sports

Playing aggressively, and with everybody getting into the scoring act, the East Hampton High School boys basketball team took it to the Mount Sinai Mustangs in the early going of their clash here on Jan. 10, but ended up losing to the visitors by 5 points. Two days later, they redeemed themselves with a 60-57 win at Bayport-Blue Point.

On Saturday, teams of birders spread out across New York State to count freshwater ducks, saltwater ducks, and geese for the annual New York State Ornithological Association waterfowl count. Locally, from Shinnecock Inlet to Montauk Point, seven groups of birders faced winds and temperatures that were stubbornly in the mid-30s to peer into our ponds, bays, and coves. They located 31 species of waterfowl for a total of 10,451 birds. More than half that number, 5,303, were the familiar Canada goose.

“It was an extraordinarily competitive meet, and our athletes performed at a very high level. We’re looking strong as we head for the states and nationals,” Tom Cohill, head coach of the Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter’s youth swim team, the Hurricanes, said on returning from a large regional Winterfest meet at the University of Maryland last weekend.

Two school relay records were set over the weekend by runners on Yani Cuesta’s East Hampton High School girls winter track team.

Sag Harbor may have a towering front line, while Bridgehampton rarely fields a player over 6 feet, but with these two teams it’s always a barnburner, and so it was Friday for three quarters.

Three years ago at this time, East Hampton High’s wrestling team, then coached by Jim Stewart with Ethan Mitchell as his assistant, won its first match in five years, edging West Babylon 46-41 thanks to Alex Vanegas’s win by pin at 145 pounds in the penultimate bout, marking the beginning of a resurgence in the sport’s fortunes here. 

Doug De Groot first had the idea of building a padel court accessible to the public here about eight years ago. Though it has taken a while — a puzzling permit denial prevented him from finishing one last year at the Buckskill Tennis Club, which he owns with his wife, Kathryn — he now, with Southampton Village’s blessing, has one up at the Triangle Tennis Club on Hampton Road. 

Registration opened last week for East Hampton Little League, including tee ball, baseball, and softball programs for kids as young as 5 and up to seventh grade.

The 10-and-under Peconic Wildcat ice hockey team, coached by Jason Craig, played Saturday and Sunday at the Buckskill Winter Club here and won both games, improving to 9-0 in league play. Although, “because we can’t play as many games as the teams up the Island do, we’ll need to win most of our remaining league games to make the playoffs,” Chris Minardi, the scorekeeper, said. 

On their return this week from the holiday break, the East Hampton, Pierson, and Bridgehampton High School boys basketball teams seem to have the playoffs in their sights.

Year-round tennis in Amagansett: That’s the goal of the plan pitched by Claude Okin, who owns the Sportime facility and camp off Town Lane and Abraham’s Path, to the East Hampton Town Trustees in December.

While the handsome high-ceilinged 6,000-square-foot building behind the popular Round Swamp Farm in East Hampton could have feathered a nest egg, Shelly Snyder Schaffer, its owner, preferred instead that it become a year-round hub for young ballplayers, boys and girls looking to up their baseball, softball, or lacrosse games.