East Hampton High School on Monday will spring into the fall season insofar as its athletic offerings are concerned. Eleven teams are to begin practice that day, teams that in normal times would have played in the fall, namely football, boys and girls soccer, boys and girls volleyball, boys and girls cross-country, golf, girls tennis, girls swimming, and field hockey.
The boys and girls cross-country teams, coached by Kevin Barry and Diane O'Donnell, are each to have four league meets — all of them at the high school in the girls' case — before the divisionals at Sunken Meadow State Park, which, O'Donnell said, will be closed to cross-country running until then.
Football is to play six games between March 13 and April 10; the boys and girls soccer teams are to play 12 games each between the first week in March and the first week in April; boys and girls volleyball are each to vie in 16 games within five weeks; field hockey has 13 games lined up between March 9 and April 13; seven girls swimming meets are slated within a month; girls tennis has 10 matches on its schedule spanning March 15 and April 12, and golf is to play 10 matches from March 26 through April 15.
"We expect to have between 25 and 30 kids, a good number," Joe McKee, East Hampton's varsity football coach, said during a telephone conversation Monday.
That East Hampton is fielding a varsity is of note because it will be the first time in four-plus years that McKee, who has energetically been rebuilding the program, has had one. "We've got a very good senior class," he said, adding that "we hope to be competitive."
East Hampton's opponents are to be Babylon, Elwood-John Glenn, Wyandanch, Center Moriches, Port Jefferson, and Hampton Bays. McKee's assistants are again to be his brother Kelly and Lorenzo Rodriguez. The junior varsity will be coached by Andrew Daige and Alex Greenridge, who is new to the district.
O'Donnell will have her top five -- Ava Engstrom, Bella Tarbet, Dylan Cashin, Ryleigh O'Donnell, and Emma Hren -- back from the 2019 team that wound up that season as the top-ranked Class B team in the county and 20th-ranked in the state.
Running all their meets on the track that was laid out behind the high school in 2019 ought to be an advantage, said O'Donnell, "though everyone likes it because it's flat and fast."
Barry ought to have a good team too, with Evan Masi and Amari Gordon leading the way.
"It'll be rough," Josh Brussell, the boys volleyball team's coach, said concerning the number of matches packed into such a brief period. Given the high school's hybrid system, with students alternating in-person and remote learning, he wasn't sure how many would turn out, he said Monday, though he's assuming Luc Campbell, Travis Wallace, and John Rutkowski, all seniors, will return.
East Hampton is one of six small schools vying for the playoffs, the others being Shoreham-Wading River, Center Moriches, Sayville, East Islip, and Westhampton Beach.