A Great Fall Hailed by Vas
(11/24/2009) On the day before his departure for the state girls soccer championships as Suffolk’s representative in the sport, Joe Vas, East Hampton’s athletic director, agreed that it had been a great fall —
 Jack Graves
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perhaps, a visitor said, the greatest ever in Bonac annals.
Nine of the school’s 11 teams made it to the postseason, all but boys cross-country and girls soccer, though the numbers in those sports were high, the A.D. said, adding that “we’ve been encouraging participation — the only sport that cut this fall was girls volleyball. We had 38 on jayvee girls soccer and 27 on the varsity, the numbers in boys and girls cross-country were the highest ever. . . . By having these bigger squads, we’re encouraging competition within the teams, and it gives everybody an opportunity to play.”
“Winning isn’t everything,” he continued, “although it’s emphasized more at the varsity level. But you want to win the right way, with character, as a good representative of your community. If you do that, then, regardless of the win-loss record, you’re a winner.”
This fall was notable too for the fact that the boys soccer team and the girls volleyball team played for county championships on the same day. The boys lost 2-0 to Comsewogue, after which the volleyball team swept Eastport-South Manor. Two days later, the girls won the school’s first Long Island championship in the sport, coming back from 0-2 to defeat Wantagh, the Nassau champion, in five.
Thus, Kathy McGeehan’s team, following in the footsteps of boys basketball earlier this year, and softball, in 2008 and ’07, advanced to a Final Four upstate.
“I thought our boys played really well in the county championship soccer game — they carried themselves with class,” Vas said. “Jimmy [Stewart] and Richie [King] have done a great job.”
Stewart and members of his family, the A.D. added, are to receive the Alex Fyfe courage award from the Suffolk County Soccer Coaches Association at the county’s soccer dinner Dec. 7. The 14-2-3 soccer team had dedicated its season — the winningest one in the history of the sport here — to the Stewarts’ 10-year-old daughter Katy, who was diagnosed earlier in the year with a rare form of liver cancer and has been undergoing postoperative treatments at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center recently.
As for East Hampton’s fans, who turn out in numbers to see their teams play UpIsland, Vas said, “You couldn’t ask for anything more from a community. They get in their cars and drive an hour to an hour and a half away, and then tack onto that another half-hour if they’re coming from Montauk. That’s a huge commitment for those kids to make and for their families. I’m impressed by how well we travel. If the fans keep supporting our teams as they’ve been doing, it will be great.”
Though not entirely through with the fall season — an eighth grader on the girls swimming team, Marina Preiss, was also slated for statewide competition, in Rochester, this past weekend — winter, insofar as sports go, began the day Vas was interviewed, Nov. 18.
Ed Petrie, Bill McKee, and Joey McKee (junior varsity) will oversee boys basketball. Howard Wood with Robyn Mott, and Matt Maloney as a volunteer assistant, are to coach the varsity and jayvee girls basketball teams. Jim Stewart and Steve Tseperkas, with Joe Russo as a volunteer assistant, are the wrestling coaches. Bill Herzog is to coach boys winter track again, and Shani Cuesta returns as the girls winter track coach. Bowling’s coaches are Pat Hand and Pam Anderson. And Jeff Thompson, a John M. Marshall Elementary School teacher, is to coach East Hampton’s first boys swimming team, for which, Vas said, he had to buy more uniforms on learning that “15 to 17, more than we had thought, signed up.”
Asked how he thought the boys basketball team, a state finalist last March, would do, the A.D. said, “I don’t know, but we have one of the best coaches in New York State and good kids. What I know is that that’s a good place to be.”
Originally, the fall’s athletic awards ceremony was set for Nov. 5, but was put off until Nov. 16 because of all the teams in postseason competition.
East Hampton, Vas said in reply to a question, would continue in the winter to play Class A schools far up the Island, but, provided Section XI approves a Conference III proposal — which is expected — the beginnings of a realignment shift designed to shorten travel time should be evident in the spring, with a full changeover scheduled for the fall.