As the heavens continued opening up outside, within the confines of East Hampton High School’s gym on Dec. 11 the final score of that evening’s league-opening wrestling match with Northport was nothing less than heavenly were you a Bonac fan.
Ethan Mitchell’s team is particularly strong when it comes to the heavier weights: Franco Palombino, at 215 pounds, and Juan Espinoza, wrestling up at 285, began the riveting match with pins, and Adam Beckwith, at 190, the last to go, dramatically ended it with one, thus overcoming a 1-point deficit and sending East Hampton home a 36-31 winner.
“Northport is always a tough team, but we made up for that with our toughness and effort,” Mitchell said afterward. “Winning some of the toss-up middleweight matches put us over the top.”
Palombino got it going with a second-period pin of Will Cleary, who, at the time of the pin, trailed the determined Bonacker 10-0.
Espinoza, who had defeated Palombino in the 215-pound Sprig Gardner final here, drew a much-heavier foe in Jalen Morris, but Espinoza was by far the more aggressive of the two.
A single-leg takedown — takedowns are worth 3 points now, near-falls 4 — enabled Espinoza to go up 7-3 in the first period. He chose the “down” position when the second frame began, and quickly escaped. A subsequent takedown put him up 11-3, and, with about 30 seconds left in the period, and with Morris on his stomach, Espinoza, who had been frustrated in doing so before, turned Morris to his back and flattened him.
East Hampton forfeited at 101, and Jason Harvey’s subsequent second-period pin of East Hampton’s Valen Pipino at 108 tied the score at 12-12.
Bronco Campsey, who, at 116 pounds, major-decisioned Mount Sinai’s Antonio Faldetta, last year’s county 101 champion, to win a Gardner tourney championship, worked over his Northport opponent, River Donoghue, to such an extent that he was declared a winner by a 17-0 technical fall (worth 5 points to the team) before the second period ended.
Juan Roque, who followed suit at 124, was up 19-2 when, still in the first period, the match was called. Campsey and Roque’s technical fall wins increased East Hampton’s lead to 22-12, and Anthony Petersohn added 4 more points by virtue of his 16-5 win over Blake Johnson at 131.
Caleb Mott, East Hampton’s young 138 entrant, went the distance against Tyler Naughton, losing 8-2, but Esteban Velez quickly got Bonac back on the winning track with a 23-11 decision of Tommy Jimenez at 145.
And then the Tigers came back: At 152 Frank Barrientos was pinned, at 160 Justin Prince lost by a major decision, and Chris Amay lost by a major decision at 170, Amay’s loss in the penultimate bout resulting in a 31-30 Northport lead that put the outcome on Adam Beckwith’s broad shoulders.
Mitchell and his assistants, Cory Strain and Bo Campsey, had thought the match would go down to the wire. The blond 190-pounder did not leave anyone guessing — his second takedown led to a resounding pin of Cinar Erken a minute into the first period, thus capping the nail-biter in explosive fashion and sending the team and Bonac partisans home happy in the gloomy deluge.
More Matches
On Dec. 13, the team put up 24 points at North Babylon, the reigning county champion, which won the match 38-24.
Campsey, by forfeit at 116, Roque, by pin at 124, Beckwith, by a 7-2 decision “over a ranked opponent,” Espinoza, by decision at 215, and Palombino, by pin at 285, were East Hampton’s winners that day.
“We were extremely proud of the way our kids wrestled,” said Mitchell, “especially considering that we’ve got three kids wrestling up and that one of our guys was out sick.”
The next day, Mitchell took a pared-down group — four starters were out sick, he said — to the Doc Fallot dual meet invitational at Hampton Bays High School. East Hampton, which, Mitchell said, had to forfeit at 101, 116, and 131, went 1-4 in its dual matches that day, losing to Islip, St. John the Baptist, Oceanside, and Ward Melville, and defeating Hampton Bays.
Roque and Espinoza each went 5-0 on the day, Beckwith went 4-1, “losing 14-6 to the number-one guy in Nassau County, a state qualifier,” and Palombino and Justin Prince, a second-year senior at 160, each went 3-2. Mitchell added that Pipino, at 108, “had his first win of the year in the match with Hampton Bays.”
Copiague was to have wrestled here on Dec. 18, East Hampton is to go up against Smithtown East on Friday, Dec. 20, and the team is to wrestle in a dual meet at Connetquot on Saturday, Dec. 21.
