East Hampton High School’s girls cross-country team, thanks to a 26-29 win over Miller Place at Sunken Meadow on Oct. 15, finished the season at 3-3, “the best we’ve done in quite a while,” according to the team’s coach, Diane O’Donnell.
More good news arrived Monday when the New York State Sportswriters Association announced that O’Donnell’s girls were its top-ranked Class B team in Suffolk County, and 20th statewide. Kevin Barry, the boys’ coach, who vouchsafed the news in an email, said, “The girls keep improving . . . who knows where it will take them . . . to [the state meet in] Plattsburgh?”
O’Donnell’s team placed fourth among 16 teams at the New York City Cross-Country Carnival at Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx Saturday. Ava Engstrom, its number-one runner, placed fifth over all, covering the tough 2.5-mile course in 16 minutes and 38 seconds; Dylan Cashin was 13th, in 16:59; Bella Tarbet was 19th, in 17:33; Ryleigh O’Donnell was 24th, in 17:48, and Emma Hren was 33rd, in 18:12. Summer Klarman (23:07) and Mimi Fowkes (24:42) also ran for Bonac.
The boys also won a league meet on Oct. 15, defeating Shoreham-Wading River 20-37, finishing the season at 2-4.
Westhampton Beach, at 6-0, finished as the league champion, followed by Miller Place at 5-1, Sayville at 4-2, Mount Sinai at 3-3, East Hampton at 2-4, Shoreham-Wading River at 1-5, and Amityville at 0-6.
Evan Masi, a sophomore, won the race, in 15:18, besting Shoreham’s Adam Zeldin, who had beaten him last year in the state qualifier, by 11 seconds. Amari Gordon was Bonac’s second runner, in 15:58, good for third place over all. Colin Schaefer was fifth, in 16:30, Isaiah Robins was seventh, in 17:00, and Frank Bellucci, the team’s captain, was eighth, in 17:06.
Masi again led the way at Saturday’s cross-country carnival, placing fifth in 13:33; Gordon was 38th in 14:30; Aidan Klarman was 61st in 15:18; Emilio Flores was 64th in 15:24, and Bellucci was 71st in 15:41. The team, one of a handful of public schools there, according to Barry, finished eighth among the 17 schools entered.
Barry said further that the East Hampton and Springs junior high cross-country teams — Nick Finazzo coaches the middle school’s team and Monique Sullivan coaches the Springs team — “did amazingly well at the countywide junior high meet at Sunken Meadow last Thursday.”
“There were more than 1,300 kids running in five races,” added Barry, who presumably can’t wait until these middle schoolers come up to the varsity.
Brayan Rivera of Springs won the boys junior modified A race, a race contested by 297 entrants, in 8:40.32, with Liam Fowkes of East Hampton second, in 8:47.20, Michael Gilbert of East Hampton third, in 8:49.68, and Henry Cardona, also of East Hampton, fifth, in 8:50.43.
Zion Osei of East Hampton placed 15th in the girls junior modified A race, in 10:47.79. Addison Barletta of Springs was 16th, in 10:48:00, with Taylor Atwell of Springs 24th, in 10:57.48, Emma Tepan of Springs 28th, in 11:01.25, and Lily Griffin, also of Springs, 37th, in 11:20.63.
In other cross-country news, Barry reported that two Bonac alums, Erik Engstrom, the senior captain of the University of Massachusetts’s men’s team, and Ryan Fowkes, a freshman at George Washington University, met up for the first time this fall at a 26-team invitational at Princeton University over the weekend.
Engstrom, Barry said, led the Minutemen over the 5-mile course in 24:28, good for 17th place. Fowkes, he said, was George Washington’s second runner, in 25:32.
UMass’s team placed eighth, George Washington’s 18th. “Ryan and Erik should meet up again at the Atlantic 10 championships in Virginia on Nov. 2,” Barry added.