The East Hampton High School girls track team scored 56 points, its highest total ever, at the Suffolk County meet on May 20. The boys, a small team that Sean Knight is rebuilding, fared well too, though the girls, led by two of its seniors, Ryleigh O’Donnell, who set a school record in the 800-meter race, and Dylan Cashin, who won the county’s triple-A 1,500-meter racewalk, made the most noise.
As was the case last year, the girls, who are coached by Yani Cuesta and Nick Deluca, with Eric Malecki volunteering in the field events, finished fifth among the 14 teams, behind Sayville, East Islip, Hauppauge, and Westhampton Beach (by one point). They were ahead of Islip, Comsewogue, Half Hollow Hills West, Rocky Point, Eastport-South Manor, Kings Park, Wyandanch, Harborfields, and Amityville.
Seeding meetings for the two-day state qualifier meet that is to be held at Comsewogue High School today and tomorrow, were to have been held Tuesday night. Cuesta said Monday morning that she would bring a long list of possible qualifiers to the meeting, a list that was to include O’Donnell, who now has 10 school indoor and outdoor records to her credit, Cashin, Vicky Chen, Fio Duran, Greylynn Guyer, Maggie Greenwald, Alex Kolhoff, KK Moore, Josie Mott, Ali Munoz, and Sara O’Brien. Two other possible qualifiers, Leah McCarron, who placed fourth in the county’s discus throw, and Sierra Stumpf, an eighth grader, who placed fifth in the pentathlon, decided to end their season with the county meet, Cuesta said.
As for the boys, Knight said he was pretty certain his third-place 4-by-800 relay team of Edmar Gonzalez-Nateras, Liam Knight, Benson Edman, and Brayan Rivera would make it, and that possibly Gonzalez-Nateras would in the 800. All of the boys, he added, had turned in personal best performances.
Gonzalez-Nateras placed eighth in the 800 in two minutes and 3.9 seconds. Isaac Rodriguez placed sixth in the pole vault, at 10 feet. Knight was eighth in the 400 in 54.07. Rivera was 10th in the 800 in 2:07.73. Max Bellouve was eighth in the 3,200 in 11:25.12, and the 4-by-100 relay team of Eduardo Calle, Thomas Cardenas, Nelvin Suchite, and Rodriguez placed 10th.
Cuesta took 21 entrants with her to the county meet, an all-time high as far as participation went, she said.
Cashin won the racewalk in 7:30.57. The 4-by-800 relay team of O’Donnell, Laura Martinez, O’Brien, and Guyer was a runner-up; Kolhoff was third in the long jump at 16 feet, 6 inches; Moore was third in the shot-put with a heave of 31-1/4, and third in the discus with a throw of 94-11, and O’Brien was third in the 400 intermediate hurdles. O’Donnell placed fifth in the 800 in 2:20.16, besting the 2:21.34 that Dana Cebulski ran in 2013.
In other events, the 4-by-400 relay team of Greenwald, Munoz, Lucia Mugavero, and Josie Mott placed fourth. McCarron was fourth in the discus. Guyer was sixth and O’Brien seventh in the 2,000-meter steeplechase. Guyer also placed sixth in the 800. Martinez was seventh in the 3,000. O’Donnell was seventh in the 400 intermediate hurdles. And the 4-by-100 relay team of Duran, McCarron, Sam Ruano, and Chen placed eighth.
McCarron was eighth in the shot-put, Bennett Greene was eighth in the steeplechase, Mugavero was ninth in the triple jump, and Sophia Figueroa was 10th in the 100 high hurdles.
There are 10 seniors on East Hampton’s team, O’Donnell, Cashin, and Rebecca Trowbridge among them, though, said Cuesta, “we should, nevertheless, have a strong group next year.” To that end, she is to take Chen, Figueroa, Kolhoff, McCarron, Mugavero, Munoz, and Ruano, along with Duran, who is graduating early, and the boys team’s Abe Stillman with her to the highly rated Vertical Adventure camp in Mount Laurel, N.J., on July 20 and 21.
The camp, which had been recommended to her by Malecki, “began as a high jump and pole vault camp, but has since expanded to include pretty much everything. It has some terrific coaches. A lot of them have been in the Olympics or in the Olympic trials. There’s so much to take in that it’s hard to get everything down that they give you. I wanted to take Ryleigh there when she was a freshman, but that was the year of Covid.”
