East Hampton High’s wrestling team, in a match that wasn’t decided until the final bout, earned a first-ever win over Huntington, and Bridgehampton’s Killer Bees avenged themselves on Smithtown Christian, their chief rival for the Class D crown, this past week.
It’s been a long while since a Bonac wrestling team has triumphed in the fashion it did at East Hampton High School on Jan. 10. Going into the last bout, at 131 pounds, East Hampton had 30 points and Huntington 28 as Eduardo Calle, who wrestles behind the injured Anthony Petersohn and Josue Elias at that weight, stepped forth, all eyes on him and his Blue Devil opponent, who got the first takedown, though Calle gamely fought off the pin attempt, and, with everyone on both teams standing and shouting, took a 3-2 lead into the third period.
The place was in an uproar when, in the final seconds, Calle, urged on by his screaming coaches and teammates, turned his foe’s back to the mat, earning him, it seemed, an all-important 2 points and a 5-2 win, though amid the din the visitors’ coaches began running back and forth, protesting, as the referee explained to the scorekeeper that he had waved off his initial call, to wit, that Calle had used an illegal “clasp” to take his opponent down.
“The video shows that what Eduardo did wasn’t illegal — the ref made the right call,” Ethan Mitchell, East Hampton’s coach, said during a phone call Sunday during which this writer said he didn’t remember an East Hampton wrestling team winning in such exciting fashion since the days when George Morris, Bonac’s heavyweight at the time, would cap matches with a resounding pin.
“It was a really, really good win — the first time in our program’s history that we’ve beaten Huntington,” said Mitchell, who had run the question by Jim Stewart, East Hampton’s former longtime coach now living upstate.
Calle, he added, had “demonstrated great character” in the way he had risen to the occasion, enabling the team to win 33-28.
In earlier matches that night, Elias at 138, Bronco Campsey at 101, and Juan Roque at 124 won by technical fall; Luke Castillo won by a score of 7-1 at 145; Francesco Palombino at 215 and Juan Espinoza at 285 pinned their men, and Val Pipino at 108, Caleb Mott at 116, Adam Beckwith at 170, Justin Prince at 152, David Armijos at 160, and Aman Chugh at 190 — the latter three having successfully fought off pins — lost. Beckwith, who fell behind 5-0 early in the second period, almost turned it around, ultimately losing 7-5 “to the best kid at that weight in the county, as was their 152-pounder,” said Mitchell.
Mitchell took nine wrestlers to the Cipriano invitational tournament at Copiague High School Saturday. Twenty-two others went to a junior varsity tournament that day at Kings Park.
“Beckwith and Castillo won their classes, with four pins each, at the Cipriano tournament,” Mitchell said, adding that “Palombino was third at 215 and Espinoza was fourth at 285.”
There will be a “senior night” tri-meet with William Floyd and Comsewogue here Tuesday, beginning at 5. East Hampton Middle School wrestlers and KID wrestlers are to run around the mats before it begins.
Revenge of the Bees
Alex Davis’s 28 points and six steals led the way in the Killer Bees’ 69-61 win at Smithtown Christian, a win that ought to boost the Bees’ confidence — Smithtown Christian won the first meeting, on Dec. 18, by a score of 76-56.
