East Hampton Boys Basketball Is Runner Up in Host Kendall Madison Tip-Off Classic, Which Returned After a Three-Year Layoff

The Kendall Madison Tip-Off Classic finally made its much anticipated return this weekend at East Hampton High School after a prolonged three-year absence due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Three of the four teams featured in this weekend’s two-night tournament hailed from the East End, with host East Hampton, Bridgehampton and Southampton all competing along with East Islip.

Open to the participating schools’ junior varsity and varsity boys teams, the early-season tourney is named after East Hampton graduate Kendall Madison, who would now be close to 50 years old if he hadn’t been stabbed to death in the parking lot of the former Kristie’s nightclub in East Hampton in January 1995 at age 21.

Madison was a standout three-sport athlete in basketball, football and spring track. He was a member of East Hampton’s New York State Class B Championship basketball team in 1990 and was an All-County, All-League and MVP football player who went on to play football at the University of Connecticut on a full scholarship.

The Kendall Madison Foundation and Kendall Madison Scholarship Fund were established in Madison’s memory to assist others to achieve their dreams, by Madison’s mother, Sharon Bacon, the foundation’s chairwoman, who could be seen taking entry fees and donations at the high school on Saturday evening.

Somewhat expected, East Hampton and Southampton won their opening night games over Bridgehampton and East Islip, respectively, creating a showdown of two longstanding rivalries that don’t get to play each other all that much these days with the county being separated by school size. But on Saturday night, the talented Bonackers, coming in relatively healthy, had their sights set on keeping the championship trophy at their school, having won it back in 2019. But they knew the Mariners were up for the challenge, and the two teams did not disappoint in the first half.

A three-pointer by senior standout Luke Reese gave East Hampton a 12-11 lead with 54 seconds remaining in the first quarter, then he came back and drove down the middle of the paint and scored easily to give Bonac an early 14-11 lead heading into the second quarter. A three-pointer by junior Liam Fowkes gave East Hampton another three-point lead late in the first half, but a layup by Southampton sophomore Naevon Williams, who was named tournament MVP, as time expired, made it a one-point game, 30-29, heading into what was expected to be another competitive second half.

But things didn’t go East Hampton’s way at the onset of the third quarter. Senior Jack Dickinson was called for his fourth foul less than three minutes in and had to come out of the game with a risk of committing his fifth foul and fouling out. In the midst of Southampton building up a sizable lead, another starting senior, Finn Byrnes, had to come out because of foul trouble — at one point East Hampton had been called for 10 fouls to Southampton’s two — and the game got away from Bonac. Southampton outscored the home team, 27-9, by the time all was said and done in the third quarter, leading, 56-39.

With much of his team in foul trouble, with it trailing by more than 15 points, and the league season starting this week, head coach Dan White made what was an unpopular decision of pulling all of his starters very early in the fourth quarter, somewhat conceding the game to Southampton, which went on to win, 79-44.

White explained his reasoning the day after on Sunday, saying that he understands the rivalry between the two teams, the importance of the tournament and everything that goes with all of that. But his decision was made out of the love of his players. He didn’t want to risk one of them being hurt ahead of his team’s league opener at Sayville, which was Tuesday, putting them in yet another hole similarly to what they were in last season when Reese injured his knee and missed more than three-quarters of the season. To that end, Dickinson had been nursing a knee injury of his own coming into the weekend and was only supposed to play sparingly, but he played much more than that.

White said his players, a competitive group, begged to come back into the game, but he held steady, with the hope that it would pay off in the long run, with playoff aspirations in mind.

“We got everything we needed on film,” he said. “The last thing we needed was to go through another season without another player. I 100 percent love my team, Southampton is better than us right now. They’re more athletic and their best playmakers didn’t get into foul trouble. But I loved the fact that we held them to 11 points in the first quarter. Against their high-powered offense that’s really tough to do. I thought we could have been up by 10 at halftime, instead it was one.”

The foul situation was tough to deal with, White said, but noting that was another thing he wouldn’t necessarily say was the difference in the game. In the end, his team simply didn’t finish possessions.

“We didn’t rebound all that great. They were simply better at reacting to how the ball came off the rim,” he explained. “You can complain all you want about the fouls, but, we played great defense for 30 seconds, then to not finish by getting a rebound, you have to look yourself in the mirror. They basically scored largely off of second-chance points.”

Liam Fowkes, who scored a game-high 17 points in the loss to Southampton, was Bonac’s representative on the All-Tournament Team, joining Southampton’s Derek Reed, Bridgehampton’s Dylan Fitzgerald and East Islip’s James Mendoza.

East Hampton could avenge the loss to Southampton this weekend when it plays in the Mariners Athletic Club Holiday Classic, starting this Friday night when Bonac opens the tournament against Archbishop Molloy at 5 p.m. in Southampton. The consolation finals will be held the following night at 4 p.m., with the finals to follow shortly after.

The Bonackers then host their first league game of the season this Monday, December 19, at 6:15 p.m. against Rocky Point, before playing at Westhampton Beach on December 22 at 4 p.m. in the final game before the holiday.