A pity that East Hampton High’s football team didn’t play at home last weekend, for the Bonackers, in “their best game of the season,” according to Joe McKee, their coach, won 41-20 at Eastport-South Manor Friday night, capping their return to Division III with a 2-6 record.
Picked to finish last among the power-rated division’s 14 teams at the beginning of the season, East Hampton wound up 11th, ahead of Comsewogue, Eastport-South Manor, and Wyandanch, a team it trounced 50-8 in the season-opener.
“Though we’re not happy to have finished at 2-6,” McKee said, “it was our first year back in Division III, and we were competitive in all our games except the ones with Hills West and Westhampton.”
Other Teams, Other Action
In other postseason action this past week, the golf team shut out Eastport-South Manor at the South Fork Country Club in Amagansett in the first round of the county team tournament on Oct. 25, setting up a second-round match that Rich King’s 12th-seeded charges were to have played at fifth-seeded Commack yesterday, and the boys volleyball team, seeded third in the Division II tournament, lost in three at second-seeded Hauppauge Saturday. The scores were 25-19, 25-21, 30-28. “We played hard — I’m proud of them,” East Hampton’s coach, Josh Brussell, said.
Moreover, the girls swimming team placed second to Sayville-Bayport in the League III championship meet at West Islip High School Friday. “The girls swam their hearts out,” Craig Brierley, East Hampton’s coach, said, adding that “there were many personal-best times . . . Lizzie Daniels dropped 6.7 seconds in the 200 individual medley and 17.3 seconds in the 500 freestyle, an event in which Lily Caplin dropped 8.9 seconds.”
East Hampton’s 200 medley relay team of Cami Hatch, Jane Brierley, Ava Castillo, and Lily Griffin won the league meet’s opener in 1 minute and 51.11 seconds, qualifying the team for the state meet. Brierley, who had a while ago qualified for the state meet in the 100-yard breaststroke, easily bested the state cutoff in winning the 100 butterfly Friday.
Other league meet winners were Hatch, in the 50 freestyle and 100 backstroke, Griffin, in the 100 free, and Brierley — by six seconds — in the 100 breaststroke.
All three relay teams have qualified to swim in the county meet Sunday at Stony Brook University, as have Griffin in the 200 free, Castillo and Hatch in the 200 I.M., Brierley, Griffin, and Hatch in the 50 free, Brierley, Castillo, and Hatch in the 100 fly, Castillo, Griffin, and Hatch in the 100 free, Brierley and Hatch in the 100 back, and Brierley, Daniels, and Griffin in the 100 breaststroke.
XC Divisional Meet
East Hampton’s boys and girls cross-country teams ran in division meets at Sunken Meadow State Park in Kings Park on Oct. 25, but neither team ran all that well on a “very hot and humid day,” Kevin Barry, the boys’ coach, reported, adding that “six runners, none from our school, were carted off in ambulances . . . a Bayport girl collapsed 600 yards from the finish line.”
His and O’Donnell’s charges, he said, had had “a good week of practice” and were “ready for the county meets” tomorrow.
Barry’s entrants in the county’s freshman/sophomore 2.5-mile races at Sunken Meadow Friday did well. His freshmen finished third among 17 teams, with Liam Knight, fourth over all, leading the way in 14:11, followed by Juan Perez, who was 11th in 14:44. The sophomores, with Wyatt Smith 15th in 14:36 and with Benson Edman 20th in 14:50, placed sixth among 15 schools.
Back to the football team, Charlie Corwin, East Hampton’s junior quarterback, who was moved up from safety to outside linebacker on defense, was among Newsday’s “Gridiron Greats” this week, given that he had, in rushing for 126 yards and in throwing for 102, accounted for four of Bonac’s six touchdowns, his most dramatic plays being a 55-yard touchdown pass to Danny Lester and a 42-yard TD pick of his own.
“The first half was hard-fought,” McKee said. “They were leading 15-12 near the end of the second quarter” when Corwin hit Lester with the long bomb and Finn Byrnes made the 2-point conversion.
“The second half we pretty much dominated,” McKee continued. “We had two long scoring drives in the third quarter to put us up 34-15. Charlie’s 42-yard interception return came in the fourth. . . . Charlie’s performance was off the charts, and Finn did very well too with his 160 yards gained and 10 tackles.”
While McKee will lose 10 seniors to graduation, Byrnes, Will Darrell, Richie Maio, and Lester among them, he’ll have Corwin back next fall, as well as Eddie Cobb, Mikhail Feaster, Jason Lester, Will McGuire, Adam Beckwith, and players up from East Hampton’s 5-1-1 jayvee, which defeated Eastport-South Manor’s jayvee 33-12 here Saturday morning.