Buoying Results in Pool, on Mats
East Hampton High School’s boys swimming team was atop the League II heap as of Tuesday, with a 2-0 record in league meets — the latest a 92-72 win at Deer Park last Thursday — and a 3-1 mark over all.
Meanwhile, the wrestling team showed signs of life in its season-opener here with East Islip. While they lost 54-28, Anthony Piscitello, the second-year coach, said afterward that he was proud of them.
The team finished last season with a skeleton crew, leading to talk about possibly combining in the sport with Southampton, but if Piscitello can keep this edition intact, East Hampton wrestling, given the active KID and middle school programs, may indeed be on the way back.
Of those he put out on the mats, Andreas Koutsogiannis, who pinned East Islip’s Chris Molinari in 33 seconds at 195 pounds, Anthony Franzone, who won by a second-period pin at 160, and Conor Brady, who won 12-4 at 106, were particularly impressive, though Piscitello had good things to say about all of his charges, especially Ben Barris, a freshman who, while he lost 3-1 to Anthony DiSanto, “wrestled great.”
Piscitello, who teaches wellness classes at the Ross School, has a Russian, Albert Darchiev, as his heavyweight at the moment, though he is expected to drop down to 220. Darchiev won by a second-period pin, taking his opponent, Kieran Stanton, to the mat twice with trip moves.
“They don’t wrestle folkstyle in Russia, just Greco-Roman and freestyle,” Piscitello said. “Greco-Roman’s all upper body, you can’t use your legs. In freestyle you can clasp your hands, but there are no moves from the bottom, so he’s got to learn bottom defense.” East Hampton forfeited that day at 113, 120, and 138, but had entries in all the other weights.
Santi Maya won by forfeit at 99, Cole Shaw, at 132, was pinned midway through the second period by Nick Picece, Charlie DiTullio was pinned with 27 seconds to go in the first period by Mark Shayhew, and Brahian Usma, at 152, lost 8-3 to Peter Carino.
Marco Rabanal, at 170, was pinned in the third period by Stephen Donohue, who, until he caught Rabanal, was leading 7-6, Martin Soto, at 180, was pinned in the final 10 seconds as he trailed Nick Agresta 3-1 — a result that prompted Craig Macnaughton, The Star’s photographer, and a former high school wrestler, to say, “Never reach up — that’s one of the first things they tell you” — and Carlos Schiappacasse fell victim to a first-period headlock at 220.
Four junior varsity matches were contested as well. East Hampton won one of them.
Back to swimming, the East Hampton-Deer Park meet was originally to have been held at the Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter but was moved to Deer Park given the fact that the Y’s pool was undergoing maintenance.
Craig Brierley’s crew won easily, going one-two in the opening event, the 200-yard medley relay, one-two in the 200 freestyle, one-three in the 200 individual medley, one-two-three in the 50, one-three in the 100 butterfly, one-two in the 100 free, one-three in the 500, one-two in the 200 free relay, one-three in the 100 backstroke, one-three in the 100 breaststroke, and one-two in the final event, the 400 freestyle relay.
“Despite a week’s layoff,” Brierley said in a report, “the boys won easily. We told them to take advantage of the rest . . . they continued to post many best times.”
Most noteworthy was the fact that Ethan McCormac swam a state-qualifying time in winning the 100 freestyle in 48.46 seconds. He also swam a county-qualifying time (1:02.42) in winning the 100 back.
Other county-qualifiers that day were Aidan Forst, in the 500, which he won in 5:24.74, Owen McCormac, in the 50 free, and Ryan Duryea, in the 100 free.
The team was to have swum at Hauppauge, the defending league champion, Tuesday.