Playing intense defense, especially in the first half, the East Hampton High School boys basketball team cruised to a 64-45 win here over Rocky Point Monday, a result that could augur well league-wise, Dan White, Bonac’s coach, said, inasmuch as Rocky Point had beaten Harborfields and Hauppauge.
It was the first league win for the Bonackers vis-à-vis two losses, to Half Hollow Hills West and, on Friday, to Islip, by a score of 55-44. “We were up 19-10 after the first quarter, but you can’t win when you shoot 4-for-26 from 3-point range, as we did,” White said.
Jeremy Vizcaino, the senior point guard, who had suffered a deep gash under his left eye when banged under the boards early on in the game with Half Hollow Hills West — a gash that was stitched up at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital — apparently was more comfortable playing Monday without the mask he’d worn at Islip. He led both teams with 20 points.
His fellow guard, Luke Reese, a freshman, finished with 15; Liam Leach and Charlie Condon, the 6-6 center, who seems to be moving better with each game, each had 10, Logan Gurney, who plays with a lot of energy, had 7, and Frank Bellucci, who comes off the bench, had 2.
In other action this week, the swimming team last Thursday sank Lindenhurst 60-37, in a pool, Lindenhurst’s, that had only four lanes and no blocks, the deep end being too shallow for diving starts. “The boys were definitely out of their comfort zone, but they rose to the occasion, had fun, and even were able to post a few best times,” Craig Brierley, the coach, said in an emailed account.
East Hampton’s winners in individual events were Callum Menelaws in the 200 freestyle, Daniel Piver in the 200 individual medley, Will Midson in the 50 free, Edward Hoff in the 100 butterfly, Aidan Forst in the 100 free and in the 100 backstroke, Aidan McCormac in the 500, and Joey Badilla in the 100 breaststroke.
The win evened East Hampton’s overall record at 1-1-1. It is, along with West Islip, Sayville-Bayport, and Hauppauge, 1-0 in the league competition.
Aidan McCormac was named swimmer of the meet by the captains, who, according to Brierley, “were impressed with his effort in the 500 freestyle. It was his first attempt at the event, and he went on to win it by over 10 seconds!”
Brierley also congratulated Joey Badilla, a Pierson student, for having earned a county-qualifying time in the 100 breaststroke.
Brierley’s boys are to swim at Deer Park today at 4:30 p.m.
In related news, Brierley announced Tuesday that Caroline Brown, who swims with the girls team he coaches in the fall and is a lifeguard here, has been cited by the United States Lifesaving Association as one of two regional junior lifeguards of the year.
In yet other high school sports news, the wrestling team lost 82-6 at Comsewogue on Friday, Santi Maya being the sole winner, but the good news was that East Hampton, for the first time in a long time, had all the weights covered.
The boys and girls track teams competed in crossover meets at Suffolk Community College-Brentwood over the weekend. Reporting on the boys, their coach, Ben Turnbull, said Luc Campbell placed third in the 55-meter high hurdles in a personal-best time of 8.68 seconds; that Ben McErlean placed third in the 1,000-meter race, in 2:47.90, a personal record for him; that Amari Gordon placed sixth in the 1,000; that David Polkowski P.R.’d with a heave of 32 feet in the shot-put; that Marcus Krotman, a freshman, P.R.’d in the 600-meter race in 1:44.7, and that the 4-by-400 relay team placed fifth among 15 schools in a time of 3:58.34.
As for the girls, Shani Cuesta, their coach, said, also in an email, that she was “not happy with [Saturday’s] meet at all. There was a lot of confusion, everything was rushed, and there wasn’t sufficient warm-up time. . . . Girls need to be able to safely have some recovery time between events. I am quite proud of what our girls did considering all the disorder.”
Cuesta said Penelope Greene ran a personal-best 5:02.02 in the 1,500-meter race, an event in which Ava Engstrom ran 5:20.68. Lillie Minskoff, she said, ran an 8.26 in the 55-meter dash and a season-best 45.58 in the 300. Maddie Gaibor ran a personal-best 2:21.51 in the 600, and Hanna Medler, in her first try, ran the 55-meter high hurdles in 10.62 seconds.
The coach recorded Mimi Fowkes’s 1,500-meter racewalk time as 8.39, “but we can’t use it because ‘two bent knee and one loss of contact’ calls resulted in her being disqualified.”