Big Wins Recorded
East Hampton High’s girls swimming and boys soccer teams enjoyed big wins this past week. The swimmers swamped Huntington in a meet at the Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter, evening its record at 1-1, and the soccer team, playing away, bested Elwood-John Glenn 3-1 to gain a share of the league lead.
In other action, the golf team remained undefeated, bageling Ross 9-0 at the East Hampton Golf Club, Ross’s home course, and the girls cross-country team’s top two, Ashley West and Dana Cebulski, were winners at an invitational meet at Indian Island County Park in Riverhead.
Girls volleyball, which was the runner-up to undefeated Elwood-John Glenn as of Friday with a 5-2 record, was to have played a nonleaguer here with Harborfields, a possible playoff opponent, Monday afternoon, and the 2-3 girls soccer team was looking that day to even its record in a game with last-place Amityville. Also on Monday, third-place Sayville and second-place East Hampton, which last Thursday easily defeated Westhampton Beach here, were to have vied in a boys volleyball match.
Although the golf team remained atop League VIII with a 7-0 record as the result of its shutout of Ross, a big match loomed Tuesday at 6-1 Southampton. The Mariners were the last team to defeat the Bonackers, two years ago. East Hampton has not lost at home, which is to say on the South Fork Country Club’s course, since Oct. 15, 2003, according to the team’s coach, Claude Beudert.
Rich King, the boys soccer coach, said after the boys soccer win at Glenn, the defending league champion and a county finalist in 2010, that “we were a little flat at first. Glenn scored first, as the result of a breakdown at midfield. It was a great shot that bounced down off the crossbar and was kicked in by another kid.”
Mario Olaya, Bonac’s top scorer — and, as of last week, the third leading scorer in Suffolk County — converted a penalty kick to tie the score before halftime, and in the second half, playing “possession soccer,” East Hampton put the game away as Milton Farez, with an assist from Jean Carlos Barrientos, and Olaya scored goals.
Olaya’s, which came with three or four minutes left in the contest, was a blast into the upper corner from about 25 yards out, a goal that King described as “unbelievable.” It was his 12th goal of the season, putting him two behind Suffolk’s leader.
“We’ve got six games to play — the season’s halfway over — and we control our own destiny,” said King. “We’ve got games with Westhampton, Shoreham, and John Glenn left, all at home.”
Six wins (East Hampton as of earlier this week had four, with one loss and one tie) will get the team into the playoffs.
On Saturday, Bonac’s varsity will play host to middle school teams from Montauk, Springs, and East Hampton, in a clinic that is to begin at noon. The varsity is to play a big game with Shoreham-Wading River at 3 p.m. The junior varsity is also to play on a grass field adjacent to the turf one versus its Shoreham peers.
If the Bonackers defeat 0-4-1 Bayport-Blue Point today, a win Saturday over Shoreham — a team that played to a scoreless tie with East Hampton the last time out — would clinch a playoff spot.
As for girls swimming, East Hampton, whose ranks have been augmented by some strong eighth graders, namely Carly Drew, Lilah Minetree, and Mia Karlin-Cappello, placed first in eight of the 11 events and “exhibitioned” in the final three.
Among East Hampton’s winners were the 200 medley relay team of Lindsey Stevens, Lydia Florio, Drew, and Morgan German; Marina Preiss in the 200 freestyle; Mikayla Mott in the 200 individual medley; Maddie Minetree in the 50 and 100 free; Drew in the 100 butterfly; Laura Gundersen in the 500 free, and the 200 freestyle relay team of Maddie Minetree, Mott, Drew, and Preiss.
Of note were Maddie Minetree’s time of 25.97 seconds in the 50 free, just off her career best of 25.6; Lilah Minetree’s personal-best 1:03.6 in the 100 free (good for second place, behind her older sister); Shannon Ryan’s personal-best 30.90 in the 50 free, and Kyra Daniels’s personal-best 7:57.62 in the 500.
The team’s seniors are Maddie Minetree, Mott, and Haley Ryan. Gundersen is a junior. Daniels, German, Lily Goldman, Serrana Mattiauda Vazquez, Preiss, Shannon Ryan, Caley Serin, and Stevens are sophomores, and Drew, Lilah Minetree, and Mia Karlin-Cappello, as aforementioned, are eighth graders.
Concerning cross-country, Diane O’Donnell, the girls coach, said before competing in the Serpent’s Back Duathlon in Montauk Sunday that in last Thursday’s invitational at Indian Island, Cebulski, a ninth grader, won the freshman race, in 12:26 over a 1.8-mile course, and that West, a senior, won the varsity race, a 5K, in 20:03.
“Ashley was up against some good competition, including the Hampton Bays girl, the Eastport-South Manor girl, and the Rocky Point girl. . . . It was a very good race for her. She went out hard and finished strong, though she knows now you can’t rely on your kick. Everybody has a kick. You have to make your move earlier and push the others over the edge before you start your kick.”
East Hampton’s revived team, moreover, finished third among 13 teams, O’Donnell said. “Though the teams ahead of us, Mount Sinai and Westhampton, are in our league.”
It was a day, O’Donnell continued, in which East Hampton’s pack — Jennie DiSunno, Emma Newburger, Brittany Rivkind, and Kerry Kaestner — enjoyed a breakthrough. “They all ran two to three minutes faster than they had on the same course two days before. Every single girl, when she saw her time, said, ‘I’m amazing!’ They just had to want it. Now they’re pumped up!”
Getting back to boys volleyball, Dan Weaver, East Hampton’s coach, said after the win in four here over the Hurricanes, a win that improved the team’s record to 5-1 in league play, that he was “happy with the win, but dissatisfied with the effort.”
Weaver subbed freely in the third game, which went Westhampton’s way.
A.J. Bennett, the senior setter, finished with 17 assists; Thomas King had 12 kills and three aces; Patrick McGuirk had five kills and three aces, and Ryan Fitzgerald had four kills and five blocks.
If East Hampton defeated Sayville here Monday, Weaver thought the Bonackers would get the second seed “and a home game” in the Division II tournament. “We got the third seed last year and had to go to Shoreham-Wading River, where we got beat.”
There are no captains this season, the coach said in answer to a question, because “there are a lot of seniors, a lot of leaders.” Though senior-heavy, the starting lineup includes three juniors — King, L.B. Lownes Jr., and Evan Larsen.
Three Results
As it turned out, all three Bonac teams that played Monday — girls soccer, girls volleyball, and boys volleyball — won.
Raffi Franey’s goal in the second half treated the soccer team, which had absorbed some losses recently, to a 1-0 win over Amityville. The girls volleyball team downed its playoff nemesis, Harborfields, in five, coming back after losing the first two sets, and the boys assured themselves of a second seed in the playoffs by defeating Sayville in four.