As the result of league meet finishes this past week, five East Hampton High School wrestlers — Juan Espinoza, Bronco Campsey, Juan Roque, Adam Beckwith, and Luke Castillo — qualified to compete in the county meet at Stony Brook University this weekend. It’s the largest number of Bonac qualifiers since 2015, according to the team’s coach, Ethan Mitchell, who added that his team won 18 dual matches this season vis-a-vis two last year. The Bonackers placed fourth among seven teams in the League IV tournament.
East Hampton’s boys swimming team, coached by Craig Brierley, also did well in its league meet at Ward Melville High School last Thursday, finishing third among the seven schools with 24 personal best times and runner-up finishes by Nick Chavez in the 200 individual medley, Liam Knight in the 100 butterfly, and the 400 freestyle relay team (Emmet McCormac, Wyatt Smith, Owen Robins, and Knight).
East Hampton’s list of county meet qualifiers includes Knight in the 200 free and 100 butterfly, Chavez in the 200 individual medley and in the 100 breaststroke, McCormac in the 50 and 100 freestyle races, Ben Kriegsman in the 100 backstroke, and the teams of Kriegsman, Abe Stillman, Chavez, and Jack O’Sullivan in the 200 medley relay; Jack O’Sullivan, Chavez, Knight, and McCormac in the 200 free relay, and McCormac, Wyatt Smith, Owen Brobins, and Knight in the 400 free relay.
Team-wise, West Islip, with 296 points, bested the meet’s host school — and defending champion — Ward Melville by 1 point. East Hampton was third, with 248, followed by Deer Park-North Babylon with 164, Sayville-Bayport-Blue Point with 153, Central Islip with 65, and Lindenhurst with one.
Bonac’s third-place finishers were the 200 medley team of Kriegsman, Stillman, Chavez, and O’Sullivan; Knight in the 200 freestyle; McCormac in the 50 and 100 freestyle races, and the 200 freestyle relay team of O’Sullivan, Chavez, Knight, and McCormac.
Smith, a junior who scored in all three of his events, was named by the captains as East Hampton’s swimmer of the meet. “He went a best time in the 100 free, and despite the fact that he wasn’t feeling well, helped the 400 relay team to a second-place finish in a season-best time,” Brierley said in an emailed report.
Kriegsman, a freshman, joined East Hampton’s county meet qualifiers by swimming the 100 backstroke in one minute and 2.88 seconds, which was good for fifth place, and another fifth-place finisher, Chavez, qualified for the county’s with the 1:10.66 he swam in the 100 breaststroke.
Back to wrestling, Espinoza, at 215 pounds, pinned all three of his league opponents on the way to that class’s championship. The impressive sophomore, who flattened Bellport’s Justin Ealero midway through the final, is 24-8 on the year.
Campsey was a finalist at 101, losing 2-0 in the final to the county’s top-ranked competitor at that weight, Smithtown West’s Tyler Conzo. Mitchell said Campsey was taken down in the first period, and came close to taking Conzo down in the second. In the third, “he started off on the bottom, and came really, really, really close to either reversing Conzo, which would have given him 2 points, or escaping, which would have given him one,” Mitchell said.
Roque, likewise, was a finalist, at 124 pounds. Smithtown West’s Colton Board decisioned him 8-3 in the final. “Juan got a takedown in the third period . . . he wrestled well.”
Beckwith too was a finalist, at 170. “The top kid in the county, Nick Zins of Smithtown West, pinned him in the first period. Adam has won 30 matches this season, but this kid is at another level.”
Castillo, who came back to finish third at 145, was pinned by Smithtown West’s Peter Graham in a semifinal matchup. “Luke is rarely ever pinned — he got caught in an unfamiliar position,” Mitchell said of Castillo’s loss in the semis. West Islip’s Joseph Delgado, who had bested Castillo earlier in the season, but who was injured, forfeited to Castillo in the match for third. “It was too bad — Luke was looking forward to a rematch,” said Mitchell, who added that Espinoza, as has been his wont this winter, enabled East Hampton to jump from fifth to fourth place in the tournament by virtue of his pin.
In the boys large-schools indoor track meet at Suffolk Community College-Brentwood over the weekend, the 4-by-800 relay team of Brayan Rivera, Edmar Gonzalez-Nateras, Griffin Beckmann, and Benson Edman, who had been seeded 15th, placed ninth in that event in a season-best time of 8:55.3.
In the large-schools girls meet, East Hampton’s Ryleigh O’Donnell placed fourth in the 600-meter race; O’Donnell, Dylan Cashin, Greylynn Guyer, and Sara O’Brien placed fourth in the 4-by-800 relay, and Melina Sarlo placed fifth in the shot-put.
East Hampton’s team placed 15th among the 21 schools. Next year, the boys and girls, who were bumped up to large school competition this season because of Pierson and Bridgehampton’s added enrollment figures, are to return to small school competition.