Swimmers Dunk Hauppauge, Fowkes Wins in Florida
Exhibitioning in some events, which is to say forgoing points that had been won, the East Hampton High School girls swimming team dunked Hauppauge 102-63 at the Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter Monday.
It was the third straight league win for Craig Brierley’s crew, which, as of Tuesday, led League III with a 3-0 record. In other meets this past week, the Bonackers defeated West Babylon 83-73 last Thursday, and on Sept. 26 lost 92-76 to Ward Melville, a nonleague opponent, a team that Brierley thinks may wind up being tops in the county.
Sophia Swanson, in the 200 freestyle, Isabelle Swanson, in the 200 individual medley, Catalina Badilla, in the 100 butterfly, Madison Jones, in the 100 freestyle, and Vanessa Betancur, in the 100 breaststroke, swam county-meet-qualifying times in the Ward Melville meet.
Sophia Swanson, in the 200 free, and Julia Brierley, in the 100 breaststroke, were winners that day, and their teammates, the coach said, swam well as well, but Ward Melville, he said, simply had too much depth.
In other East Hampton High sports, Ryan Fowkes, the boys cross-country team’s top runner, won the small schools race in the FLrunners.com invitational in Lakeland, Fla., this past weekend, topping a field of 200. Geo Espinoza, the team’s number-two, who finished seventh, held the early lead, running the first mile in 5 minutes and 7 seconds. Seeded seventh, Kevin Barry’s team finished third.
Boys soccer had a four-game winning streak snapped at Shoreham-Wading River Monday. The Wildcats won it 2-1. Earlier in the week, on Sept. 27, East Hampton defeated Bayport-Blue Point 2-1 here.
The visitor’s goal, which came late in the game, went in off an East Hampton defender. Gustavo Gutama saved the day, however, when he banged in the rebound of a shot he’d taken with two and a half minutes left to play. Wilmur Guzman, who appears to have the team’s hardest shot — the rebound of his rocketed kick off the crossbar landed at Gutama’s feet — treated East Hampton to a 1-0 lead 15 minutes into the fray.
Don McGovern, East Hampton’s coach, said his team, which was 3-5 in League VI play as of Tuesday, would continue fighting for a playoff spot. Amityville as of that day led the league with a 7-0 record, followed by Shoreham-Wading River (6-2), Sayville (5-2), Bayport-Blue Point (3-4), East Hampton, Mount Sinai (2-5-1), and Miller Place (0-8).
Girls Volleyball continued its winning ways this past week, bageling Miller Place 3-0 last Thursday. Kathy McGeehan’s team was 6-2 in League V as of Tuesday, behind Sayville (8-0) and Westhampton Beach (7-1). The Miller Place win was the team’s fifth in a row, Mount Sinai, Islip, and Shoreham-Wading River being among the victims, all by 3-0 scores. The team’s last loss came at the hands of Westhampton on Sept. 8.
Field hockey, which had lost twice recently, to Pierson and Bayport-Blue Point, rebounded with a 2-0 win over Greenport-Southold Monday, improving its record to 5-3, the league’s fourth best, though because of the power point system, which takes the relative strengths of teams and their opponents into account, East Hampton was in ninth place on Tuesday among Division II’s 15 entries.
Golf, the league champion in 14 of the past 17 years, will be hard put to win the title again, though its coach, Claude Beudert, said during a telephone conversation Tuesday that it could if it runs the table in its final six matches, the last of which, at the end of the month, is to be played with Pierson on its home course, the Noyac Golf and Country Club.
Pierson defeated East Hampton 6-3 at the South Fork Country Club in Amagansett last Thursday, winning the 3 points awarded to the team with the low aggregate score by two shots. East Hampton’s top three, Turner Foster, Nate Wright, and Jackson Murphy, all won, though Pierson’s number-four, Gary Baum, was the difference-maker, shooting a 41, five strokes better than he normally does, according to East Hampton’s coach.
East Hampton’s record was 2-2 as of Tuesday, trailing Pierson (5-0) and Westhampton Beach (3-2). The team was to have played at Southampton, which was also 2-2, on Tuesday.