Lifeguards Sixth in Nationals

Amanda Calabrese won the U-19 beach flags competition for the fourth year in a row.

Lynne Calabrese

“We engage in these competitions so that we can become better lifeguards.”

Aug. 16, 2018

Jack Graves

The Hampton Lifeguard Association took 100 junior and senior guards to the United States Lifesaving Association’s national tournament in Virginia Beach, Va., this past week, with the 47-member senior guard team finishing sixth among 33 teams vying for the championship trophy.

“The point is not winning,” John Ryan Jr., who heads East Hampton Town’s guards, has said in the past. “We engage in these competitions so that we can become better lifeguards.”

East Hampton finished third in 2016 and fifth last year.

This year, Chasen Dubs, who now lives in Sarasota, Fla., but continues to compete for the H.L.A., won the U-19 distance swim, and placed second in the board race and Ironguard; Amanda Calabrese won the lifeguards’ beach flags event for the fourth year in a row and anchored the fifth-place 4-by-100 relay team; Ryan Paroz won the lifeguards’ board race, placed second in surf ski, and fifth in Ironguard, and Luke Castillo, competing in the juniors’ 9-10-11 division, won the distance run, won the board race, placed third, with Liam Knight, in the rescue race, and, with Knight, Cloe Ceva, Olivia Walsh, and Lylah Metz, placed third in the swim relay.

Other local first-place winners were Lila Ferraro and Val Ferraro, in U-19 beach flags; Lizzie Neville and William Schlegel, in the 14-15 A division’s beach flags; Joey Badilla and Kevin Pineda, in that division’s rescue race; Rodin McKenna and Nicky Badilla in the 12-13 B group’s rescue race, and Evan Schaefer, in the 9-10-11 division’s beach flags.

Runners-up included Patricia Haggerty and Ryan Fowkes, in the U-19 distance run; Olivia Duca, in the 14-15 A division’s distance run; Sophia Swanson, in the 14-15s’ run-swim-run, and Lyla Wilson in 12-13 B beach flags.

Among the third-place finishers were: Gio Espinoza, in the U-19 distance run; Oona Rae, Olivia Brabant, Katarina Dombrowski, and Amanda Nasti in the U-19 rescue race; Swanson and Owen McCormac, in 14-15 A beach flags; Badilla, in the 12-13 B distance swim, and McKenna, in that group’s Ironguard competition.

Swanson was fourth in the 14-15 A division’s Ironguard competition; Patricia Haggerty was fourth and Fowkes was sixth in the lifeguards’ 2K beach runs.