The Whalers, a first-year entry in the Suffolk County High School Hockey League’s freshman division, made their second appearance of the season at the Buckskill Winter Club here Sunday night, routing Patchogue-Medford 11-1 in a nonleague game that delighted the Whalers’ partisans.
Just about everyone on the 18-player roster, which includes seventh, eighth, and ninth graders from East Hampton, Sag Harbor, and Southampton, got in on the action, while the goalies, Tre Armusewicz and Terry Teryazos, were called upon to make only a handful of saves.
Bryan Wish, who, with Brendan Goldstein, coaches the Whalers, said that the team has been coming on in divisional play now that it is able to practice more often at the Southampton Ice Rink that Wish manages, and at Buckskill. “Our record is 4-7 at the moment, but we’ve won three of our last four,” said Wish. Max Goldstein led Sunday’s scorers with three goals. Cam Minardi and Luca Pisano each had two, and Keegan Reilly, Hunter Harrington, Enzo Magnotta, and Aiden D’Angelo each had one.
Winter Track Update
Kevin Barry, who coaches the boys winter track team, said following Sunday’s Stanner Games at New York City’s 168th Street Armory that Abe Stillman, a senior who has been coached by Erick Malecki, set a school pole vault record, reaching a height of 11 feet 3 inches. Edmar Gonzalez-Nateras, who had smashed Kevin Ahearn’s 21-year-old school record in the 800 at Staten Island’s Ocean Breeze meet over the Christmas break, just missed breaking Thomas Paradiso’s eight-year-old 600 record at the Stanner Games by a half-second. The 1,600-meter relay team of Gonzalez-Nateras, Nelvin Suchite, Bradley Rodriguez, and Benson Edman, in placing second in its heat, had run the school’s fastest time in 14 years, Barry said. The 800-meter relay team of Suchite, Eduardo Calle, Alex Cabrera, and Thomas Cardenas “came within one-and-a-half seconds of matching a 28-year-old record set by Sean Knight, Brandon Hayes, Ryan Borowsky, and Ryan Barr. This team will have three more opportunities to set a record this winter.”
As for the girls winter track team, coached by Yani Cuesta, six of her charges medaled at Saturday’s Art Mitchell invitational at Suffolk Community College-Brentwood. “The gym was beyond packed,” Cuesta said in an emailed report, “because this year they decided to combine the large and small schools.”
East Hampton’s medalists were Laura Martinez, who placed second in the sophomore 1,000-meter race; C.J. Echavarria, who placed third in the sophomore 55-meter high hurdles, and the open 4-by-800 relay team of Sara O’Brien, Danett Gonzalez-Alcala, Heidi Jimenez-Bustos, and Greylynn Guyer, which placed third.
At a crossover meet on Jan. 4, Echavarria won the 55-meter hurdles; East Hampton, with Bennett Greene, O’Brien, and Briana Torres, swept the 1,500-meter racewalk; Sophia Figueroa was second and Sierra Stumpf fourth in the 55 hurdles; Gonzalez-Alcala was fourth in the 1,500 and sixth in the 600; Vicky Chen was fourth in the 55-meter dash, and the 4-by-200 relay team of Echavarria, Angie Castillo, Shirley Jang, and Chen placed fifth.
Hoops Report
In still other East Hampton High sporting news, the boys basketball team lost 78-70 to Half Hollow Hills West here on Jan. 8. The Bonackers led 38-32 at the half, but the visitors came back to take a double-digit lead in the third quarter thanks largely to full-court pressure, hasty shots on Bonac’s part, and the fact that East Hampton’s Miles Menu, a strong inside player, got into foul trouble.
Five Hills West players wound up in double figures. Toby Foster led East Hampton with 26 points. Menu had 17.
“They sped us up,” Dave Conlon, East Hampton’s coach, said afterward, “and we didn’t react well to that — we were shooting too quickly — but having said that, I’m happy with the fact that we didn’t give up.”
As of Monday, the team’s record was 3-4 in league play and 5-6 over all.
