In the past half-dozen years it has been a rarity to witness an East Hampton High School wrestling team win at home, but it happened last Thursday as Ethan Mitchell’s young crew defeated Babylon, a nonleague opponent, 41-24. Moreover, it was a two-win week given Friday’s 36-30 win over Riverhead at Bayport-Blue Point.
The home win came at an opportune time inasmuch as it was “senior night,” during which four of the resurgent team’s competitors — Caleb Peralta, Santi Maya, Colin Schaefer, and Tristam Sisson, who was absent — were honored. Peralta, Maya, and Schaefer all won that evening, and rather resoundingly too.
Wrestling at 126 pounds, Peralta jumped out to a 6-1 lead in the first period and upped the margin to 14-1 in the second on the way to a technical fall. Schaefer, at 132, was winning 6-3 when he pinned Michael Bender near the end of the second period, and Maya, at 145, prevailed 8-4 over Jack DeVoe.
Juan Roque, at 118, and Jack Cooper, at 160, also won matches, as did Jhojairo Contreras (by a first-period pin) at 189. Roque’s match was stopped in the second period with the wiry Bonacker leading 18-2. Cooper took a 10-0 lead into the third period and was leading 16-4 when his match was stopped.
East Hampton forfeited at 102, 152, 172, and 285; Babylon forfeited at 102, 110, and 138.
The second-year coach, who, because of the coronavirus pandemic is in his first competitive season, honored his seniors after the match, rather than before, as used to be the case, lest his team lose track of the task at hand. “Frankly, I thought it would be closer than it was. We did awesome.”
Peralta and Maya began their varsity careers as eighth graders in the 2017-18 season. The program was down to a skeleton crew in 2017, and Mitchell credited them with keeping it alive. It has since been revived, thanks largely to Steve Redlus, John Ryan Jr., and Whitney Reidlinger at the middle school level, not to mention Jim Stewart, who coached perennial league champions here from the mid-1980s into the ’90s.
Last Thursday’s win was the team’s fifth of the season, vis-á-vis 13 losses.
Indeed the second half of the season had gone better than the first, as he predicted, Mitchell said, though there had been no fall-off in the strength of the competition. He had, he said, scheduled some of the best schools in the county, schools like Patchogue-Medford, Sayville, Comsewogue, Kings Park, and Westhampton Beach, precisely to sharpen his competitors’ skills.
In a match at William Floyd High School on Jan. 19, Cooper Ceva, at 145; Roque, at 118, Peralta, at 126; J.P. Amaden, at 132, and Maya, at 138, had been impressive. Cooper, who was pinned with 22 seconds to go, “wrestled up, and faced a tough kid.” Roque, who lost by a technical fall, “went up against a probable all-county wrestler. Caleb enjoyed a great win” — by pin at 5:32 — “over the fourth-ranked kid in the county, J.P. won by pin, and Santi won too,” by major decision.
In a tri-meet with Southampton and Centereach at Southampton on Jan. 22, East Hampton lost 50-18 to the Mariners, but, minus East Hampton’s four forfeits “it would have been a lot closer. . . . Caleb and J.P. went 2-0 on the day.”
Peralta pinned Southampton’s Andrew Sourada in one minute at 126, and Amaden, at 132, pinned Keith Acken III in 1:10. Amaden also pinned his Centereach opponent, Andrew DiMondo, in 5:00. Peralta decisioned his, Frank Thristino, 10-3. Roque, at 118, pinned his Centereach peer, Jack Collins, in 2:45.
On Friday — in a meet moved up from Saturday because of the blizzard — East Hampton defeated Riverhead 36-30 but lost to the host team, Bayport-Blue Point, 61-12.
“The Riverhead match came down to the last one,” said Mitchell. “The scoreboard showed us being up 30-24 going into Jose Calderon’s match at 189, but, given our forfeit at 285, it was actually 30-30.” Calderon’s win by pin won the day.
Versus Bayport-Blue Point, Peralta ran into Max Gallagher, a Division II state finalist, losing by a technical fall.
The many matches East Hampton has contested — “Fortunately, Covid forced us to cancel only one competition” — ought to stand his charges in good stead come the league meet at East Islip Saturday, Mitchell said. “I can take two per class, so we we’ll have wrestle-offs this week. In some weights, 125, 132, and 138, for instance, I’ve got three or four in each of them. On the other hand, we’ve got no one at 102, 285, or 172. . . . I’m happy with how far we’ve come. Our growth should show at the leagues.”