Y Swim Team Eyeing a Busy January

The recent days have been eventful for East Hampton’s swimming program, with the boys varsity upping its record to 3-0 with wins over Lindenhurst and Central Islip, and with the Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter’s youth swim team, the Hurricanes — who were treated to clinics by an Olympian Saturday — faring well at an 18-team metropolitan-area meet at Eisenhower Park in Nassau County.

Tom Cohill, the Hurricanes’ coach, whose assistants are Andrey Trigubovich, Craig Brierley, Angelika Cruz, Sean Crowley, Sean Knight, and Eugene DiPasquale, took 80 of his charges, ages 7 through 17, to the Metro Cross Island Y and Flushing Flyers Y holiday invitational meet at the Nassau Aquatics Center over the Dec. 8-9 weekend, with pleasing results, the most pleasing being the fact that the Hurricanes’ boys 200 freestyle relay team of Ryan Duryea, Aidan Forst, Ethan McCormac, and Owen McCormac qualified for the Y nationals that are to be held in Greensboro, N.C., in April.

“We’ve never had a boys relay team qualify for nationals before,” said the coach, adding that “we had a girls team” of Maddie Minetree, Skye Marigold, Maria Preiss, and Mikayla Mott “do it in 2008-09.”

As for the boys, who finished third in the event, “they were more than a second under the cutoff time, which was pretty significant.”

(As of the moment, Cohill will take two relay teams to the nationals, for Julia Brierley, Jane Brierley, Sophia Swanson, and Oona Foulser, all of them Hurricanes, swam a qualifying time as members of the high school’s girls varsity team this fall.)

Moreover, Cohill said, one of the youngest Hurricanes, Aidan Menu, who’s 7, and who swam in six events, “placed third in total points among all the 8-and-under boys.”

It was the Hurricanes’ sixth meet of the season, which has now reached the midway point. “We’ve got a very well-rounded team with a lot of solid swimmers,” said Cohill. “We’ll be in a very strong position come January, which is our busiest month. . . . We’re hoping to qualify a boys medley relay team for nationals and a girls freestyle relay team, as well as competitors in several individual events.” 

Among the Hurricanes’ other top point-getters at Eisenhower Park in the relays were the 13-to-14-year-old girls 200 medley team of Camryn Hatch, Jane Brierley, Summer Jones, and Emily Dyner; the 8-and-under girls 100 free team of Allison Farez, Zoe McDonald, Graysen Gregory, and Wesley Bull; the open boys 200 medley team of Joey Badilla, Ryan Duryea, Ethan McCormac, and Fernando Menjura; the open girls 200 free team of Bella Tarbet, Oona Foulser, Julia Brierley, and Sophia Swanson, and the open girls 200 medley team of Catalina Badilla, Julia Brierley, Swanson, and Foulser.

Aside from Aidan Menu, the Hurricanes’ top individual performers included Colin Harrison in the 100 butterfly; Lily Griffin in the 50 breaststroke; Ethan McCormac in the 50 and 100 freestyle races; Dylan Cashin in the 50 breaststroke; Wesley Bull in 50 free and 25 backstroke; Jasiu Gredysa in the 50 backstroke; Allison Farez in the 25 freestyle; Jane Brierley in the 200 breaststroke and 200 individual medley; Lucy Knight in the 25 backstroke; Zoe McDonald in the 50 breaststroke, and Nicholas Badilla in the 100 butterfly.

“Ryan Duryea had an amazing meet,” Cohill continued, “Sophia Swanson too. Julia Brierley and Ethan McCormac were solid, and so were Summer Jones and Kiara Bailey-Williams. . . . They were very good, very strong.”

The team is looking forward especially to the regional Winterfest meet at the University of Maryland over the Jan. 18-20 weekend — a Y.M.C.A. meet that draws teams from the New York metro region, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland.

The aforementioned Olympian, Lea Loveless Maurer, a friend of Angelika Cruz’s, who won a gold and a bronze medal in the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, Spain, oversaw two-hour clinics for the Hurricanes’ younger and older swimmers at East Hampton’s Y Saturday.

“She talked about being smooth in the water so you can go faster longer,” said Cohill. “She emphasized things that we have been teaching the kids, concerning form and technique, and the importance of focusing on doing things well, but it was great for them to hear it from an Olympian. The kids” — there were 30 in the 11-and-under clinic, and 15 in the 12-and-over group — “were very attentive. Having her come here now was good too, for the kids will have January, February, and March to work on what they learned from her, and, hopefully, we’ll see improvements.”

Maurer, who has been a college and prep school coach in her career, spoke to the older clinic-takers about being realistic when it comes to swimming in college. There was, she said, a level for everyone. 

In that regard, Cohill said several former Hurricanes, Isabella Swanson at the University of Miami, Marikate Ryan at Clemson, and Caroline Oakland at Syracuse, were happily engaged in club swimming at those Division 1 schools.