As balls rocketed back and forth at East Hampton High School’s tennis courts during Friday’s practice, the coach, Kevin McConville, said this year’s team is the best he’s had since Johnny De Groot’s group in 2019.
Perhaps even better. Time will tell. At any rate, everyone from last spring’s team is back, and, judging from Friday’s practice, stronger.
“Nobody graduated,” said McConville, who will field an extremely tough top four, and expects to be particularly strong, as well, in second and third doubles. He ranks his team right up there with Ward Melville, Half Hollow Hills East, and Commack. The team only lost two matches last spring, both to Ward Melville, which apparently is still the team to beat in Suffolk County, and it was to have begun the campaign Tuesday with a mandatory nonleaguer at Ward Melville. As of Friday it wasn’t clear what the starting lineup would be, presumably a problem McConville didn’t mind having.
Max Astilean, a senior, was East Hampton’s number-one last season; Kiefer Mitchell, then a freshman, played at two, Jagger Cohen, then an eighth grader, played three, and Armando Rangel, who was a junior, played four. Among last season’s doubles players were the Cooper brothers, Nick, a junior then, and Henry, who was a freshman; Cameron Mitchell and Miguel Garcia, who were sophomores, and Dane Schwalbe and Carlos Quintana, who were freshmen. In practice sessions last week, Cohen enjoyed wins over Astilean and Kiefer Mitchell.
Henry Cooper was “a solid fifth player — head and shoulders better than he was last year,” said his coach. “And Alen Mattiauba, a senior from Uruguay, is another one to watch — raw, but a great athlete.”
Astilean won the division singles championship last season, the first Bonacker to do so since Matt Rubenstein in 2004. Moreover, eight players on last year’s team made all-county, almost on par with the Brian Rubenstein-led team of 2005 that had nine all-county players on it.
“We knew,” McConville said at the end of last season, “that we were a year away, and all of us knew it.” The 2022 team finished at 17-2, with losses to Ward Melville once in league play, by a score of 4-3, and the second time in the semifinal round of the county team tournament, by a score of 5-2.
“We’re really solid, really deep,” said McConville, who is keeping 12 on the squad. Fausto Hinojosa’s junior varsity was, he added, “the best I’ve seen . . . assuming the kids who didn’t make the varsity stick with it.”
Ward Melville “lost its number-one singles player, Aaron Burstyn, but they’re still the team to beat,” the coach said. “Hills East is coming to us on May 1. Their coach thinks it’s their year. . . .”
The Bonackers are to play at home today, in a mandatory nonleaguer with Bayport-Blue Point. The schedule has Southampton here on March 28, and Westhampton Beach here on March 30. Next month East Hampton will be at Eastport-South Manor on April 4, at Hampton Bays on April 5, at Shoreham-Wading River on April 17, at Southold on April 18, home against Mattituck here on April 20, and here against Ross on April 27. In May, the team will face Hills East in a nonleaguer here on the 1st, Riverhead away on May 2, William Floyd here on May 4, and Center Moriches on its home courts on May 9. There will be 14 matches in all.
The county team tournament is to begin May 11, with the division individual tournament to be played from May 12 through 15. The county individual tourney is to be contested from May 19 through 22.
