For the first time in two decades, East Hampton High’s wrestling team was a runner-up Saturday in its Frank (Sprig) Gardner invitational tournament, close behind the favorite, Ward Melville, which finished with 287 points to East Hampton’s 275.5. After that came Bayport-Blue Point (271.5), Westhampton Beach (256), Hampton Bays (205.5), Southampton (106), and Center Moriches (81.5).
Ethan Mitchell, Bonac’s coach, said afterward that even more than the placements — East Hampton had two champions, two runners-up, four third-place and two sixth-place finishers — he was impressed by his competitors’ grit. A number of them, he said, had come off their backs to win matches.
Boys Swimming
The news was good too for the boys swimming team, which had three meets under its belt as of Monday, having won two, over East Islip and Deer Park-North Babylon, both nonleague opponents, and lost one, to Ward Melville, its first league opponent, by a score of 89-80. That meet, contested at Ward Melville last Thursday, was close all the way, East Hampton’s coach, Craig Brierley, reported, going down to the final event, the 400 freestyle relay.
“It was a great effort by all,” he said. “The boys put up many best times and showed a lot of grit as they competed in every race.”
Tenzin Tamang was a double-winner at Ward Melville, in the 200 individual medley and 100 freestyle races. Versus Deer Park-North Babylon, the 200 medley relay team (Nicky Badilla, Cristian Sigua, Tamang, and Jack O’Sullivan), Liam Knight in the 200 free, Tamang in the 200 I.M., Tamang in the 100 butterfly, Badilla in the 100 free, Daniel Rossano in the 500 free, the 200 free relay team (Tamang, O’Sullivan, Luke Tarbet, and Badilla), Knight in the 100 backstroke, and the 400 free relay team (Tarbet, Sigua, Emmet McCormac, and Knight) were winners.
Winter Track
Yani Cuesta, who coaches the young winter girls track team, which numbers 12 or so but which has a lot of talent, was likewise pleased with her charges’ showings in the first crossover meet of the season Sunday at Suffolk Community College-Brentwood.
Ryleigh O’Donnell, a captain of the team along with Melina Sarlo, won the 1,500-meter race, outsprinting Eastport-South Manor’s Sarah Cluff at the end, and was ninth in the 55-meter high hurdles; Meredith Spolarich won the high jump at 5 feet and placed fourth in the long jump; Leslie Samuel was the long jump runner-up at 16 feet, 6 inches, and was third in the 55-meter dash; Sarlo was fourth in the 300 and fifth in the long jump, and Sara O’Brien was ninth in the 3,000.
Only two of the 12 competitors she took to Suffolk-Brentwood had participated in winter track last year, Cuesta said in an emailed account. “Captains O’Donnell and Sarlo helped guide the younger girls at every turn, from showing them where to go to clerk-in to advising them how to break up the 300-meter race. As a coach, it was really great to witness their leadership. Our little team of young athletes started off so well. . . . Here’s hoping the weather cooperates so we can work more on the field events.”
Wresting Place-Winners
Back to wrestling, East Hampton’s place-winners included: Juan Roque, a sophomore, a champion at 118 pounds; J.P. Amaden, a senior, a champion at 138 pounds; Anthony Petersohn, a sophomore, runner-up at 110; Jose Calderon, a senior, a runner-up at 172; Cooper Ceva, third at 145; Adam Beckwith, a sophomore, third at 160; Aman Chugh, a sophomore, third at 189; Richie Maio, third at 215; Josue Elias, a sophomore, sixth at 126, and Matias Gonzalez, a freshman, sixth at 152. East Hampton did not have any entries at 102, 132, or 285, but will have, Mitchell said, during the regular season.
Apparently the last Bonac wrestling team to do as well in this annual preseason tourney was Jim Stewart’s 2002 squad, which included Jarrel Walker, Keith Steckowski, Rick Wyche, Kellen Jackson, and Connor Miller, then an eighth grader, who now is one of Westhampton Beach’s coaches. Shaun McGowin, an assistant of Stewart’s that year, was one of Saturday’s referees. Mitchell said the last Sprig champion East Hampton had was Andreas Koutsogiannis in 2018.
The day got off to a good start. Five East Hamptoners — Petersohn, Isaiah Robins, Chugh, Roque, and Kevin Sumba — won first-round matches before there were some losses. Sumba and Maio, two of the team’s 11 first-time seniors, were making their varsity debuts Saturday. Roque pinned all four of his 118-pound opponents, and Amaden won twice by pin and came back to win two matches that he’d been losing.
Mitchell said that he hadn’t predicted a second-place finish, “but I knew if everybody wrestled as well as they could, we’d do well.” He couldn’t have asked for anything more from the 18 competitors he’d sent out onto the gym’s three mats, he added.
Next for the team, which has 50 wrestlers on its roster, is the Doc Fallot tournament Saturday at Hampton Bays High School.