East Hampton High School’s winter sports teams, namely boys and girls basketball, boys and girls indoor track, boys swimming, bowling, and wrestling — which was scratched last season because of the coronavirus pandemic — began practicing here Monday.
The turnouts were good, Joe Vas, East Hampton’s athletic director, said Friday. “There are strong numbers in boys and girls basketball; wrestling will be solid, all the weights should be covered; there are 20 out for boys swimming, which is always strong, and Ben [Turnbull] and Yani [Cuesta] each have 20 on their winter track teams. Bowling has a dozen, and cheerleading too. So, we’re in good shape.”
All participants in indoor sports, swimming aside, will be required to wear masks, he added, as will spectators.
Hauppauge is to swim here, at the Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter, next Thursday at 5 p.m., and the all-day Frank (Sprig) Gardner invitational wrestling tournament is to be held on Dec. 4 at the high school beginning at 9 a.m.
Ward Melville, Westhampton Beach, Bayport-Blue Point, Hampton Bays, and Southampton are sending teams. The A.D. said two spectators per athlete will be allowed.
Gardner, the late innovative wrestling coach, who is in wrestling’s national Hall of Fame, was a recent inductee in the Hall of Fame here.
Jim Stewart said of him at the homecoming induction ceremony: “After graduating from Franklin & Marshall College, ‘the father of New York State wrestling’ coached football, wrestling, boxing, and the town’s basketball team from 1930 to ‘35 in East Hampton. . . . Though he didn’t wrestle in high school or college, his success story as an innovator in that sport is unparalleled — in two decades at Mepham High School, from 1937 to 1958, he sent his teams to the mats 304 times, and they failed to finish first only 10 times, with two of those matches ending in ties. Coaches still teach wrestling using his revolutionary drill system. . . .”
Samatha James, who assisted Dana Dragone with the varsity field hockey team, is coaching girls basketball, having taken over from Krista Brooks. The winter coaching roster is otherwise unchanged. Dan White is coaching boys basketball, Ethan Mitchell wrestling, Ben Turnbull boys winter track, Yani Cuesta girls winter track, Craig Brierley boys swimming, and Mike Vitulli bowling.
Evan Masi, a senior who is expected to run middle and long distances for Turnbull’s indoor track team this winter, recently capped the fall cross-country season with a 48th-place finish in the state Class B meet near Binghamton. There were 137 from the state’s 11 sections in the field.
“He went out a little too fast,” his coach, Kevin Barry, said. “He was in the top 12 when I saw him three-quarters of a mile out, but the 17:40 he ran was a good performance, and he had a great year.”
Masi made second-team all-county, and he and Amari Gordon, East Hampton’s number-two runner, were all-academic all-county. Dylan Cashin, who narrowly missed qualifying for the girls state cross-country meet, made first-team all-county.
Masi and Cashin were among those cited in the fall athletic awards ceremony at the high school last week — he as the boys cross-country team’s M.V.P., and she as the girls team’s M.V.P.
Chloe Coleman was the M.V.P. in field hockey; Sandrine Becht in girls tennis; Manuel Ruiz in boys soccer; Cami Hatch in girls swimming; Jocelyn Prieto in girls soccer; James Bradley in golf; Alex Lombardo in boys volleyball; Charlie Corwin in football, and Brooke Wittmer in girls volleyball.
The most improved players were: Ally Schaefer in field hockey, Audrey Monaco in girls tennis, Neyser Dutan in boys soccer, Zion Osei in girls cross-country, Skye Tanzmann in girls soccer, Caleb Peralta in boys cross-country, Juan Palacios in golf, Mark Daniels in boys volleyball, Aryan Chugh in football, and Caroline DiSunno in girls volleyball.
Coaches’ awards went to Arabella Kuplins in field hockey, Riley Roesel in girls tennis, Eric Barahona in boys soccer, Emma Hren in girls cross-country, Emily Dyner and Corrina Castillo in girls swimming, Nicole Velez in girls soccer, Colin Schaefer in boys cross-country, Nico Horan-Puglia in golf, David Caprio Llivipuma in boys volleyball, John Marin in football, and Madeline Brown in girls volleyball.