East Hampton High School’s third-place boys swimming team finished the league season at 4-2, and at 4-4 over all, by virtue of an 85-76 win over Sayville-Bayport on Jan. 21.
Liam Knight led the way, winning the 200 freestyle and the 100 butterfly, as well as swimming the anchor leg on the winning 200 free relay team, whose other members were Dylan Knapik, Jasper Samuelson, and Nick Chavez, and leading off the winning 400 free relay, which was “exhibitioned,” i.e., forwent the customary 8 points.
Cristian Sigua won the 100 backstroke and was second in the 200 individual medley. Chavez won the 100 breaststroke. Knapik and Zeb Ryan tied for second in the 50 free. Knapik was the runner-up to Knight in the 100 fly. Luca Speranza and Jack Zeimer were second and third in the 500 free. Ryan was third in the 100 free. Watts Comly-Bolick was third in the 100 backstroke and in the 200 individual medley, and Oskar Merseburg was the 100 backstroke’s runner-up.
Luca Borghi, a Pierson junior, was named swimmer of the meet by the captains, who cited his debut fourth-place performance in the 500 free and his personal-record time in the 50 free.
The Suffolk County meet is to be held on Feb. 8 at Stony Brook University.
Track Report
Turning to winter track, East Hampton’s 3,200-meter relay team of Edmar Gonzalez-Nateras, Max Bellenoue, Sean Perez, and Benson Edman placed third in that event at the Coaches Classic meet Sunday at Suffolk Community College-Brentwood. Kevin Barry, the team’s coach, said in an emailed report that the team’s time of 8 minutes and 46.4 seconds was “the third-fastest an East Hampton 4-by-8 team has run in nine years.”
He added that “the 800-meter relay team of Nelvin Suchite, Eduardo Calle, Alex Cabrera, and Thomas Cardenas is very close to breaking the school record of 1:38.2 that was set back in 1997. That foursome ran a 1:39.3 at the league championships on Jan. 17.
Bonac’s 1,600-meter relay team — Gonzalez-Nateras, Bradley Rodriguez, Suchite, and Edman — “is also on fire this winter. At the Stanner Games on Jan. 5, they ran a 3:43.5 in that event, the fastest Bonac time since 2003.”
“Speaking of broken records,” Barry continued, Abe Stillman, a senior, set an indoor pole vault record of 11 feet 6 inches at the Connetquot High School pole vault meet on Jan. 20, and Gonzalez-Nateras earlier this season set a school record in the 800-meter race, “his 2:01.64 bettering the 2:07.5 Kevin Ahearn ran in 2003.”
As for the girls, their coach, Yani Cuesta, said that the sprint medley relay team of Sara O’Brien, Sofia Pantosin, Sam Ruano, and Greylynn Guyer and the 4-by-400 relay team of O’Brien, Danett Gonzalez-Alcala, Heidi Jimenez-Bustos, and Guyer were third-place finishers at the Zeitler Relays on Saturday. Also at the meet Ruano placed fifth in the triple jump; Pantosin was seventh in the shot-put; Sophia Figueroa was seventh in the triple jump, and C.J. Echavarria was eighth in the 55-meter high hurdles.
Basketball
The boys basketball team, as expected, lost at Wyandanch Friday, though Dave Conlon, East Hampton’s first-year coach, said he was “proud of our effort . . . we lost by 22, but led by two at halftime. We had everybody back, including Colin Kelley, who was cleared to play after being out for some time with a foot stress fracture. We’re trying to get him up to speed — he’s a very good shooter.” Toby Foster had 26 points, Miles Menu had 13, and Mason Jefferson had 13.
Friday’s was the seventh straight loss for the 5-10 Bonackers, who were looking forward to playing Harborfields here Monday. Harborfields was the last team East Hampton defeated, by a score of 45-43 on Jan. 6.
It looked as if East Hampton’s last home game, played here with Eastport-South Manor on Jan. 21, was on its way to becoming a ho-hummer at the half, by which point the Bonackers led by 12 points, but things began to go south insofar as the home team was concerned thanks to the hot hand of one of the Sharks’ guards, Brady McGowan, who, beginning midway through the third quarter, went on a 21-point tear that was to eat the Bonackers’ dreams.

“I talked with their coach,” Conlon said afterward, “and he said he’d been waiting for him to have a breakout game, that he’d been struggling. He sure heated it up . . . like a microwave. We just couldn’t keep him in front, he was always getting a little bit loose so he could get a shot off.”
Thus Eastport-South Manor, which East Hampton had defeated 58-48 earlier in the season, and which trailed the Bonackers 36-24 at the half, wound up a 63-56 winner, McGowan leading the way with a game-high 34 points.
Conlon said that even so “we still could have won, but we missed shots and had some untimely turnovers toward the end of the game. If we’d had a little more composure. . . . There was that, and we haven’t been great in third quarters, which starts with me. We had our foot on their neck. It was unfortunate, we were in control. . . .”
East Hampton was up 46-33 with about three minutes to go in the third when McGowan began to come on. By the end of the frame, East Hampton led 48-45, McGowan having accounted for 10 of the 12 points the Sharks scored in that span.
A basket by him tied the score at 49-49 with six and a half minutes remaining to play. East Hampton held on — a 3-pointer by Dylan Pitts tied the score again, at 56-56, with 2:40 on the clock. But the Bonackers were not to score again, coming up empty twice from underneath the basket and twice from beyond the arc as McGowan capped his streak with a fall-down 3 and as one of his teammates made a free throw.
East Hampton’s girls team won its second game of the season here last Thursday, besting Greenport-Southold 33-27. A 19-5 third quarter turned the tide. Lydia Rowan led the way with 10 points, Anna McCormack and K.K. Moore each had 8, and Brynley Lys 7.