Kathy Masterson, the East Hampton School District’s athletic director, busy as usual, nevertheless had time to talk to a reporter by phone the other morning about the coming winter sports season, which is fast approaching, and looks promising given the turnouts for the high school’s half-dozen teams.
One need look no further than Samone Johnson’s cheerleading squad, which has attracted 22 hopefuls, to get the idea.
Boys basketball, Masterson said, is in good hands given the recent hiring of Dave Conlon, a former D-I player at the University of Vermont and D-II assistant coach at a school that is now part of St. Joseph’s in Philadelphia. His players, who, besides the three chief returnees, Colin Kelly, Toby Foster, and Mason Jefferson, all juniors, include Carter Dickinson, a solid 6-foot-2-inch senior, and Miles Menu, a 6-foot-4-inch sophomore, both out for the first time, segued smoothly from drill to drill during a recent practice session, scoring in transition and knocking down 3s, signs perhaps of good things to come.
In an interview on these pages last week, Conlon, whose assistants are Thomas Nelson and Greg Condon, said that “starting out we’ll want them to know that there’s lot of work to be done and that the schedule ahead isn’t easy. All we can do is practice one day and one week at a time so that we can get better, start to trust each other, and develop chemistry. Do those things and you’ll have a successful team. That’s what it takes, that’s what it’s all about.”
The Bonackers were to have scrimmaged at Pierson (Sag Harbor) High School on Monday. From Dec. 10 through 20, they will play seven games, beginning with the league-opener at Amityville. Tournaments at East Hampton — the Kendall Madison tourney on Dec. 13 and 14, with Bridgehampton, Shelter Island, and the Ross School — and at Southampton are to be contested in that span.
As for wrestling, the A.D. said Ethan Mitchell, the varsity’s coach, “has done an amazing job in recruiting and developing young men. I think there will be even more of our kids going to the counties this season, and, hopefully, to the state championships.”
The large wrestling room in the school’s basement is full these afternoons with paired-up wrestlers working on takedowns and pin holds. Mitchell said following a recent practice that he expects every weight class to be filled, and just about all of them with experienced competitors.
“We’re very excited,” he said when asked what his hopes for the season were. “The team’s coming together, everyone’s working hard.”
Two of his charges, Juan Roque, the team’s most outstanding wrestler last year, and Bronco Campsey, competed in a national tournament in Fargo, N.D., this past summer — Roque, at 124 pounds in a Greco-Roman bracket, and Campsey, at 114, in a freestyle division. It was, said Mitchell, “the first time in the history of this school that we had entries at the national level.”
On Saturday, Dec. 7, East Hampton will play host to the Frank (Sprig) Gardner tournament to which Ward Melville, Sachem North, Bayport-Blue Point, Hampton Bays, Mount Sinai, and Southampton have been invited. As for regular-season competition, the team has been moved up a notch, to Division III, Mitchell said, along with North Babylon, “the defending county champion,” Smithtown East, Copiague, Newfield, Northport, and Huntington. “It’s not so much a case of us becoming bigger as it is of other schools getting smaller,” he said when asked why East Hampton had been bumped up.
The boys swimming team, which is perennially strong chiefly because the Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter’s youth swim team, the Hurricanes, feeds into it, is to open the season at Half Hollow Hills West High School Tuesday versus Half Hollow Hills-Kings Park, a mandatory nonleague opponent. Also that day, the bowling team, coached by Mike Vitulli and Anthony Roza, and whose roster numbers 22, is to go up against Sachem at the All Star lanes in Riverhead.
Thirty-five came out for winter girls track and 30 for boys track, said Masterson. Yani Cuesta and Kevin Barry continue to coach these indoor teams, which compete in meets throughout the winter at Suffolk Community College-Brentwood.
Samantha James, the girls varsity basketball coach, and Krista Brooks, who is overseeing the junior varsity, were pleased to see 34 hopefuls turn out for the first day of official practice on Nov. 18. The varsity is to remain in a developmental league for one more season, which means forgoing the playoffs. Two seniors, Susie DiSunno and Julia Kuneth, and four juniors, K.K. Moore, Anna McCormack, Brynley Lys, and Lydia Rowan, are the varsity returnees.
The varsity opens its season at Hampton Bays, a nonleague opponent, Wednesday.
