East Hampton High’s boys cross-country team placed second to Westhampton Beach in the recent divisional meet at Sunken Meadow State Park in Kings Park, and the girls team placed third, behind Sayville and Westhampton.
The big news for the girls lay in the fact that Dylan Cashin, one of the team’s sophomores, placed 10th over all in the championship race for league champion teams and runners-up, a field that her coach, Diane O’Donnell, said numbered 389.
Kevin Barry, the boys’ coach, said Friday that his charges’ showing at Sunken Meadow might result in the team moving into the top 20 in the state’s Class B rankings. The Bonackers were ranked 23rd statewide going into the divisions; Westhampton was the second-ranked Class B team in the state.
While it was the Class B runner-up in the championship race, East Hampton finished eighth over all. Northport was the top team, followed by Bay Shore, Ward Melville, and Westhampton Beach, which, said Barry, was missing its number-four runner.
Class B’s top four were Westhampton Beach, East Hampton, Harborfields, and Mount Sinai.
“It was one of the best division meets we’ve ever had,” Barry said. “All the kids ran season-best times.”
Evan Masi, a senior, led his teammates over the tough 5K course, finishing 19th in 17 minutes and 49 seconds. Amari Gordon, also a senior, was East Hampton’s second finisher, in 18:39, and then — a surprise — came Isaiah Robins, a junior, who has been East Hampton’s sixth or seventh runner this fall, in 18:51.
Robins was followed over the line by Brayan Rivera, a sophomore, in 18:52; Caleb Peralta, a senior, in 19:11; Diego Rojas, a sophomore; Liam Fowkes, a sophomore, and Mikey Gilbert, also a sophomore.
Robins, Peralta — who bettered his previous best at Sunken Meadow by 70 seconds — Colin Schaefer, a senior, Rojas, Fowkes, and Gilbert were second-pack runners by and large this season, but have during the course of it greatly improved, said Barry, who thought his sophomores — Rivera, Rojas, Fowkes, and Gilbert among them — would do very well in the county freshman-sophomore race at Sunken Meadow on Tuesday.
The state qualifier meet is to be held at Sunken Meadow tomorrow, with the boys to go at 1 p.m. and the girls at 4.
Barry said the top team and next five who are not on the winning team will go to the state championship meet. “We’ve got a chance to place some kids,” he said.
As for East Hampton’s girls, O’Donnell, when told by this writer that they seemed to be in a good mood when he ran out of The Star office Friday afternoon to take their photo, said, “They should have been — they did well in the divisions.”
Cashin’s time was 20:34 in finishing 10th over all. “She has run 10 seconds faster there, and if she wants to go to the states again, as she did two years ago, she’ll have to find those 10 seconds on Friday. . . . She’s motivated, she wants to go, though to do so she’ll have to run a perfect race.”
O’Donnell said Cashin was “a good uphill runner,” though not quite as fleet as some of the others in going downhill. “She’ll have to duke it out, get to the top of Cardiac sooner than the quick downhill runners.”
Following Cashin over the line were Briana Chavez, Zion Osei, Emma Hren, Ryleigh O’Donnell, Emma Tepan, and Riley Miles.
Cashin, O’Donnell, Tepan, and Miles are sophomores; Chavez and Osei are ninth graders, and Hren is a senior, the sole senior on the team. So, clearly, the near future looks bright for O’Donnell’s charges.
“Kevin is losing half of his top seven to graduation, but they’ll still be solid,” O’Donnell said in parting.