Swim Team, 5-0 in League Meets, Wins Its First Title

Churning the water at the Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter’s pool, East Hampton High School’s girls swimming team left Harborfields in its wake on Oct. 18 to win the League III championship at 5-0.

The Bonackers won 92-76 despite having to forfeit 8 first-place points in the 200 medley relay — the meet’s opening event — having been disqualified because the swimmer of the third leg left too soon. 

“It was the first time we’ve ever won a league championship; it’s a testament to all the hard work they’ve put in,” Craig Brierley, the team’s coach, said afterward, adding, concerning the DQ, that the fault actually lay in a delayed touch of the wall by the swimmer finishing her leg.

As a result of the disqualification, the home team trailed 32-30 after four events, but was unheaded thereafter.

East Hampton won eight of the 12 races and picked up a number of second and third-place finishes as well. 

The winners were Madison Jones, in the 200 freestyle, Isabella Swanson, in the 200 individual medley and 100 butterfly, Olivia Brabant, in the 500, the 200 free relay team of Catalina Badilla, Jones, Sophia Swanson, and Julia Brierley, Darcy McFarland, in the 100 backstroke, Brierley, in the 100 breaststroke, and the 400 free relay team of Jones, Emma Wiltshire, Oona Foulser, and Brabant, which was “exhibitioned,” i.e., its 8 points weren’t added to the tally.

Runners-up that day included East Hampton’s B 200 medley relay team of Brabant, Vanessa Betancur, Isabella Swanson, and Foulser, Kiara Bailey-Williams, in the 200 I.M., Brierley, in the 50 free, McFarland, in the 100 fly, Sophia Swanson, in the 100 free, Foulser, in the 500, Betancur, in the 100 breast, and (though they were exhibitioned) the 400 free relay team of Bailey-Williams, Angie Jeffrey, Lucy Emptage, and Isabella Swanson.

Angie Jeffrey, one of the team’s seven seniors, was named swimmer of the meet by the captains for having volunteered to fill in in the 200 individual medley, an event she’d not competed in before. It was the first of four events she swam that day.

Jeffrey, Emptage, Betancur, Jones, Isabella Swanson, Patricia Figueroa, and Jade Maldonado, the latter two Bridgehampton students, were honored before the meet began. 

Jeffrey has applied to the University of New Hampshire, where she plans to major in journalism; Emptage has won a lacrosse scholarship to LaSalle University, where she plans to major in elementary education, and Betancur, in her fifth year on the varsity, is to attend Eckerd College, where she will major in biology.

Jones, a four-year varsity swimmer, is to attend the University of Southern California, where she plans to major in global business; Isabella Swanson, in her fifth year on the varsity, has applied to Clemson University, where she hopes to major in secondary education; Figueroa, a four-year team member, will attend the State University at Buffalo, where she will major in English and musical theater, and Maldonado, a first-year swimmer, is to attend Stony Brook University, where she will major in child psychology.

The team was to have competed in the League III meet at Hauppauge High School yesterday. The county meet will be at Suffolk Community College-Brentwood on Nov. 4.

The following, said Brierley, had qualified for the county meet as of earlier this week: all three A relay teams; Jones and Sophia Swanson in the 200 freestyle; Isabella and Sophia Swanson in the 200 individual medley; Brierley, Jones, and Sophia Swanson in the 50 freestyle; Badilla, Isabella Swanson, and Sophia Swanson in the 100 butterfly; Badilla, Brabant, Jones, and Sophia Swanson in the 100 freestyle; Brabant and Foulser in the 500 freestyle; McFarland in the 100 backstroke, and Betancur and Brierley in the 100 breaststroke.