East Hampton High School's Hall of Fame committee has named the following as this year's inductees: Cole Brauer, who recently sailed solo around the world, taking second place in the 27,759-mile Global Solo Challenge; Ashley West Harvey, an all-state and all-county cross-country and track star when a student here, who went on to a similarly successful collegiate running career at Susquehanna University, and the 1995 county-championship baseball team coached by Jim Nicoletti. Brauer and West Harvey, who were teammates on the girls spring track team, graduated in 2012.
At the end of her circumnavigation of the world's three great capes in March, the 29-year-old Brauer, who developed as a sailor at the University of Hawaii, was thanked by her myriad Instagram followers for not only having inspired a generation of young women who might not otherwise have taken up a historically male-dominated sport, but also for having inspired everyone -- young and old, male and female.
One commenter went so far as to say that the former East Hamptoner, who now lives in Maine, "should be the International Person of the World."
The 1995 baseball team, which finished with a 22-4 record, had on its roster Tom McGintee, R.J. Etzel, Steve Puglia, Jake Katz, Guy Ficeto, Troy LaMonda, Matt Fromm, Henry Meyer, Vinny Alversa, Robbie Peters, Brendan Fennell, Denis Dunn, Keith Corso, and Alex Walter Jr. Alversa, with Meyer as his assistant, coaches Bonac's baseball team these days.
The '94 team, on which a future Major Leaguer, Ross Gload, played, and the '95 one won county small schools championships back to back, a singular feat.
West Harvey was trained in her teenage years by John Conner, Bill Herzog, Diane O'Donnell, and Yani Cuesta. On winning the 2011 Giant Steps 5K in Amagansett in the summer of her 16th year, she said a prerace talk with Conner had enabled her to run a personal-best time of 21 minutes and 22 seconds. "Bill has me run at knee height in the bay, and sometimes on the track he'll have me pull a 30-pound sled," she said after crossing the finish line.
The honoree ran the 200-meter and 400-meter distances primarily in spring track, and the 300 and 600 primarily in winter track, setting school records in the 400 and 600. She was a Paul Yuska Award winner in 2012, an award that goes to the senior class's best male and female athletes.
West Harvey was a four-time all-conference cross-country, winter, and spring track runner at Susquehanna, where she was an all-American in the 800 and garnered conference rookie-of-the-year awards in all three seasons. She set Susquehanna records in the 800, the mile, and in the 4-by-400 relay, and a Landmark Conference record in the mile. She was the Mideast Region's track athlete of the year in 2016.
Rich Schneider, who chairs the Hall of Fame committee, said he wasn't sure yet as to the induction date. Generally, the ceremony takes place on the day of East Hampton's homecoming football game, which this year will be played on Oct. 19.
