While the holiday news for East Hampton High’s wrestling team was cheery, and for the swimming team as well, it was dreary insofar as the boys basketball team went.
“Our defense was good enough for us to win,” Dan White, East Hampton’s coach, said after a disappointing 45-30 loss to Eastport-South Manor here on Dec. 21, but when it came to offense there wasn’t much to write home about.
The Bonackers shot 1-for-11 from the field in the first quarter, during which they went 0-for-7 from 3-point range — Luke Reese (two), Logan Gurney, Frank Bellucci, Jeremy Vizcaino (two), and Topher Cullen all missing from beyond the arc. And so it went.
Thanks to back-to-back 3-pointers by Cullen, one of the players whom White periodically rotated in off the bench, and to a bucket by Travis Wallace, another frequent sub, the Bonackers led 18-17 going into the halftime break, but they could not overcome the visitors’ defensive pressure or their own faulty shooting in the third, after which the Sharks led 31-26.
A floater in the lane by Reese, East Hampton’s freshman guard, pulled East Hampton to within 5 points at about the midway point of the final quarter, but Eastport-South Manor closed it out with a flurry of fast-break layups, the final one resulting in a 3-point play.
Lucas Podstupka, an agile guard, led the winners with a game-high 21 points. Cullen and Reese led East Hampton, each with 6.
On to the good news: East Hampton’s boys swimming team, its coach, Craig Brierley, reported, won 89-78 at Deer Park on Dec. 19. As a result, East Hampton went into the Christmas break with a 2-0 record in League II, and was 2-1-1 over all.
The Bonackers won most of the events, and “exhibitioned,” i.e., forwent points, in the last two, the 100-meter breaststroke and the 400-meter freestyle relay.
East Hampton went one-three in the first event, the 200-meter medley relay, with Joey Badilla, Conor Flanagan, Fernando Menjura, and Benjamin Berkhofer comprising its A team and with the B team made up of Colin Tyrrell, Sebastian Gomez, Luke Tarbet, and Daniel Sarlo.
Curran O’Donnell won the 200 freestyle in a personal-best 2 minutes and 3.68 seconds; Tenzin Tamang was the runner-up and Owen McCormac the third-place finisher in the 200 individual medley, and East Hampton swept the 50 free with Colin Harrison, Joey Badilla, and Nicky Badilla.
Menjura and Aidan Forst placed third and fourth in the 100 butterfly; Jack Duryea won and Will Midson was second in the 100 free, and East Hampton, with Daniel Piver, Kai Esposito, and Sarlo, placed second, third, and fourth in the 500 freestyle.
Nicky Badilla won the 100 backstroke, with O’Donnell the runner-up, after which East Hampton exhibitioned, as aforesaid, in the 100 breaststroke and 400 free relay.
Brierley’s charges turned in 18 personal-record performances that day, O’Donnell leading the way with three — in the 200 free, the 100 back, and, as part of the 400 relay team, in the 100.
Others to turn in personal bests were Berkhofer and Joey Badilla, in two events, and Christian Gaines, Nicky Badilla, Gabe Ramundo, Midson, Esposito, Harrison, Tyrrell, Gomez, Tamang, and Miles Coppola in one.
Gaines, an East Hampton junior, was named swimmer of the meet by the captains, impressed as they were “by his ability to take on multiple events,” his coach said. “He’s usually asked to compete in one, and sometimes in two, but in this meet Christian was asked to take on three events, one of them being the challenging 200-meter free, where he had a massive time drop for a new ‘world record.’ ”