Swimmers Knock Off the Defending League Champions

“It’s definitely a balanced team — we’ve got depth,” Craig Brierley, the East Hampton High School girls swimming team’s coach, said after sinking Sayville-Bayport, the defending league champion (and the county champion two years ago), in an away meet on Sept. 13.

“And we did it even though we had to give up [13] diving points,” he added.

There are 25 on the squad, which practices daily, from 3 to 5 p.m. at the Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter (and from 6 to 7 a.m. Saturdays), comprising seven seniors, two juniors, eight sophomores, and eight ninth graders.

Vanessa Betancur, Lucy Emptage, Madison Jones, and Isabella Swanson, all seniors, are the captains. 

Brierley reported that until the penultimate event, the 100-yard breaststroke, East Hampton had held the lead at Sayville. “But going into the final event, the 400 free relay, we were trailing 85-84. We had to win it.”

And indeed East Hampton did, with Catalina Badilla  (ninth grader), Emma Wiltshire (junior), Oona Foulser (junior), and Olivia Brabant (sophomore) finishing first in 4 minutes and 4.86 seconds, with Bonac’s B team of Caroline Brown (ninth grader), Angie Jeffrey (senior), Darcy McFarland (sophomore), and Kiara Bailey-Williams (ninth grader) finishing third. The final score was East Hampton 94, Sayville 89.

Badilla and Bailey-Williams are Pierson students, as is Eva Doyle, a sophomore. Bridgehampton has two, Patricia Figueroa, a senior, and Jade Maldonado, also a senior, on Brierley’s team.

East Hampton won the other two relays at Sayville too — the 200 medley relay, which led the meet off, with McFarland, Julia Brierley, Sophia Swanson, and Jones, and the 200 free relay, with Sophia Swanson, Badilla, Jones, and Brierley. 

Other winners were Sophia Swanson, in the 200 individual medley and the 100 free, and Brierley, in the 50 free. Bonac runners-up were Badilla, in the 200 free, Jones, in the 50 free, Badilla, in the 100 butterfly, Foulser, in the 500 free, McFarland, in the 100 backstroke, and Brierley, in the 100 breaststroke.

Third-place finishers were Caroline Brown, Betancur, Isabella Swanson, and Brabant in the 200 medley relay; Bailey-Williams in the 200 individual medley; Isabella Swanson in the 100 butterfly; Brabant in the 100 free; Bailey-Williams in the 500 free; Brabant in the 100 backstroke and the 400 relay team (Caroline Brown, Jeffrey, McFarland, and Bailey-Williams).

Craig Brierley reported further that Jane O’Dwyer, a sophomore, had been named by the captains as the swimmer of the meet for having out-touched the anchor of Sayville’s C team, with whom she’d entered the water side by side, to capture fifth place among the six teams competing in the 200 medley relay.

The coach added that Sophia Swanson, in the 200 individual medley, Julia Brierley and Jones, in the 50 free, Isabella Swanson and Sophia Swanson, in the 100 butterfly, Brabant and Sophia Swanson, in the 100 free, and Brierley, in the 100 breaststroke, had all swum county-qualifying times. 

Moreover, the elder Brierley said the following had done personal bests: Brown, in the 50 backstroke; Brabant in the 50 free, the 100 free, and 100 back; Stephanie Palchisaca, in the 50 back; Tiana Treadwell, in the 50 breast; Jeffrey, in the 100 and 200 free; Sophia Swanson, in the 200 i.m.; Jones, in the 100 fly; Betancur, in the 50 free, and Anna Carman, in the 50 free.

East Hampton opened its season on Sept. 8 with a nonleaguer at Connetquot, losing 100-88, though Brierley noted that absent its 13 diving points (East Hampton has no divers) the home team would have lost to the Bonackers by 1 point.

Winners that day included Brown, Betancur, Isabella Swanson, and Bailey-Williams in the 200 medley relay; Sophia Swanson in the 200 individual medley and in the 100 butterfly; Brabant in the 500 freestyle, and Julia Brierley in the 100 breaststroke.

The runners-up were Bailey-Williams, in the 200 individual medley; the 200 freestyle relay team of Sophia Swanson, Isabella Swanson, Brierley, and Jones; Caroline Brown in the 100 backstroke, and the 400 free relay team of McFarland, Jeffrey, Brown, and Foulser.

The team’s first home meet is to be on Tuesday, with Ward Melville.