The East Hampton High School boys basketball team won a season-opening tournament at Mattituck High School over the weekend, and the boys swimming team, while it lost its season-opener by 3 points at Hauppauge last Thursday, would have won if diving had not been one of the events. East Hampton has no divers.
To basketball first. Luke Reese scored 34 points in Saturday’s 71-58 win in Saturday’s championship game with the host school; Finn Byrnes had 15 rebounds; Jack Dickinson had a double-double, with 14 points and 10 rebounds, and Liam Fowkes, who finished with 19 points, drained five 3-pointers, two of which, with four minutes remaining, assured the Bonackers the victory.
“The game was tied at 50 at the end of the third quarter,” Dan White, East Hampton’s coach, said. “Their high-scorer was Luke Woods. Our defense shut him down in the first quarter.”
On Friday, East Hampton easily defeated Greenport, 77-37. “We pressed early and they couldn’t handle it,” White said.
Hampton Bays, the tournament’s other team, beat the Porters in Saturday’s consolation game.
Hector Montanaldo, the point guard, runs the offense, “though, essentially, we’ve got a four-guard offense. Luke, Liam, and Jack play outside and inside.”
Earlier in the week, the team scrimmaged at Center Moriches with the Red Devils and Copiague, both “very athletic teams,” said White, who added that “it was a good scrimmage — we played them even.”
White’s hard-charging squad is to open the league season here with Kings Park today at 6:15 p.m.
The boys swimming team lost 89-86 at Hauppauge in its first outing of the winter season. Arguably, the meet would have gone the other way had Bonac’s top 200 medley relay team (Nicky Badilla, Tenzin Tamang, Luke Tarbet, and Aidan McCormac) not been disqualified in the opening event because one of its competitors left the blocks too soon. It also hurt that Dan Piver, who co-captains the team with Aidan McCormac, was absent inasmuch as he probably would have garnered points in the 500 freestyle race.
Though it got off on the wrong foot, East Hampton came right back with one-two finishes in the 200-yard freestyle (Owen Robins and Emmet McCormac), the 200 individual medley (Tamang and Cristian Sigua), and the 50 free (Aidan McCormac and Tarbet).
Badilla and Tarbet went one-three in the 100 butterfly; Tamang, Aidan McCormac, and Charlie Weimar were second, third, and fourth in the 100 free; Owen won the 500 free; Tamang, Weimar, Badilla, and Aidan McCormac won the 200 free relay with Noah Berkhofer, Vinnie Franzone, Ottavio Pettrocino, and Jack O’Sullivan third, and Sigua, Emmet McCormac, and Colin Tyrrell placed second, fourth, and fifth in the 100 backstroke.
The Eagles rallied however, in the 100 breaststroke, outscoring East Hampton 12-1 in that event, the meet’s penultimate one.
“It came down to the final event, the 400 free relay,” Craig Brierley, East Hampton’s coach, said. Hauppauge’s win in the finale put it over the top.
“It was a great effort by all,” Brierley said of his charges. “The Bonac boys put up many best times and showed a lot of grit. They competed in every race. It was a fun start to the dual meet season.”
Aidan McCormac, in Piver’s absence, picked Robins, who won the 200 and 500, and Franzone as swimmers-of-the-meet, Franzone because he “swam the medley relay’s 50 fly leg admirably and legally,” and for the fact that it was the sophomore’s first meet.
East Hampton was to have swum at Deer Park Tuesday, and is to swim at the Stony Brook School, a nonleague opponent, today.