Foster Second at County, Boys XC Ninth at States
In recent postseason action, the East Hampton High School boys cross-country team, the county Class B champion, followed form by placing ninth last weekend at the state meet.
The meet was held near Rochester on a 23-degree day, and the 5K course, at Wayne Central High School, was said to be icy and muddy. Ryan Fowkes was East Hampton’s first runner to be scored, placing 63rd in the 127-runner Class B field in 18 minutes and 12.20 seconds.
Fowkes was followed by Omar Leon (100th in 19:07.50), Ethan McCormac (103rd in 19:15.80), Gio Espinoza (105th in 19:29.80), Nicolas Villante (116th in 20:24.20), and Frank Bellucci (125th in 21:00.20).
Kal Lewis, of Shelter Island, won the Class D race, in 16:44.60, and his team placed fourth. East Hampton’s Ava Engstrom, a ninth grader, placed 87th among 187 entries in the state’s girls Class B race.
Pierson (Sag Harbor) High School’s girls volleyball team is to make its first-ever appearance in a state Final Four this weekend, at the Glens Falls Civic Center. The Whalers, coached by Donna Fischer, bested Stony Brook 3-1 in the county Class C final and then knocked off East Rockaway, also by 3-1, to advance to the Final Four.
Pierson’s boys soccer team, coached by Peter Solow, also advanced to the state Final Four in Middletown this past weekend — also a “first” in Pierson annals — where it lost 2-0 to Lansing.
In golf, East Hampton’s Turner Foster, the defending county champion, placed second this time around to Port Jefferson’s Shane DeVincenzo. Foster defeated DeVincenzo in a one-hole playoff last year. This time, DeVincenzo topped the field by 6 strokes.
Double bogeys on the par-4 ninth and 10th holes did him in. He had been one stroke back after the first eight holes on the second day.
“Still, Turner didn’t do badly,” said East Hampton’s coach, Claude Beudert. “He had rounds of 72 and 74 — he had a 148 last year. Shane shot a two-under 140, so both of them improved. There were 25 golfers hoping to make the states. Turner will be one of the nine going. The state tournament will be at Cornell from June 1 through 4. Turner finished fifth last year. This is Turner’s second year at the states. He could be one of a handful from Suffolk to play in the states three years in a row. Ian Lynch did — in 2010, 2011, and 2012.”
East Hampton’s team placed 10th in the county tournament among the 56 schools that vied in it. Westhampton Beach was fourth, and Pierson was tied for eighth. “We lost to Pierson by two shots at our place [the South Fork Country Club in Amagansett],” said Beudert. “Otherwise we would have had a share of the league title. . . . We haven’t won in the last two years. Before that we won 14 in a row.”
At the athletic awards ceremony at the high school on Nov. 6, Beudert named Foster as the team’s most valuable player, Nate Wright, the team’s number-two, as its most-improved player, and Hunter Medler as the recipient of the coach’s award.
Foster was named to the all-county team, for the second year in a row, and Wright was named to the all-conference team, as was Jackson Murphy, East Hampton’s number-three.
Other m.v.p., most-improved, and coach’s award recipients this fall were: Fowkes, Bellucci, and Espinoza in boys cross-country; Liana Paradiso, Ava Engstrom, and Isabella Tarbet in girls cross-country; Elizabeth Bistrian, Rianna Helier, and Julia Short in field hockey, and Wilmer Guzman, Marco Gutama, and Noah Gualtieri in boys soccer.
Lucy Short, Yeymi Chavez, and Alden Powers in girls soccer; Sophia Swanson, Patricia Figueroa, and Angela Dolan Jeffrey in girls swimming; Rebecca Kuperschmid, Olivia Baris, and Pamela Pillco in girls tennis; Logan Gurney, James Foster, and Eamon Spencer in boys volleyball, and Mikela Junemann, Madison Smullen, and Olivia Brauer in girls volleyball. Dance did not give out a most-improved award. Claire Belhumeur was its m.v.p. and Valeria Luna Mendez was its coach’s award recipient.