East Hampton’s varsity football team hadn’t beaten Westhampton Beach since 2009. That all changed on Saturday with its 27-7 win at home over the Hurricanes — a final score that taken alone doesn’t quite capture just how tough the game was.
“That’s an excellent football team that we beat, and we’re very excited about how we played,” Joe McKee, the head coach, said of his combined East Hampton-Bridgehampton team. “It was a total team effort. You don’t beat a team like Westhampton with just a couple of guys.”
Theo Ball, Bonac’s senior quarterback, returned from a hamstring injury and connected with Livs Kuplins, a senior wide receiver, for some critical plays. Kuplins caught two touchdown passes, one of 41 yards and another for 12 yards, and finished with 75 rushing yards. On defense, he had 11 tackles. “He played quite the game,” McKee said.
East Hampton got a few breaks in the first quarter, the coach said, which allowed his team to build up a 20-0 lead. A key play started when Orson O’Brien, a sophomore lineman, broke through the line of scrimmage and blocked a Westhampton punt. Kieran (Tiger) Brew, a junior, then caught the ball and ran it all the way to the 6-yard line. Two quick plays later, Jai Feaster, a senior wide receiver who’s having a heck of a season, ran it in for the touchdown.
McKee said Westhampton made some adjustments in the second half and “shut down our running game pretty good.” But Bonac’s defensive line was still able to fend off the Hurricane offense. In the last two wins — including the week before against Smithtown West — the East Hampton defense has given up only one touchdown.
Jackson Carney, a junior defensive back, finished with 12 tackles, among them what McKee called a “really big” one at the goal line right before halftime that preserved Bonac’s 20-7 lead.
Next up is West Islip at home on Saturday at 1 p.m. The teams are tied with 4-1 records, but West Islip leads the league in fewest points allowed. “I’ll tell my guys that we’ve set ourselves up pretty well,” McKee said, “but we’ve got to take one game at a time, one play at a time, and continue to play the way we are.”
Boys Volleyball
Josh Brussell’s boys varsity volleyball team is 4-5 after a couple of win-one, lose-one weeks of league play, but something’s starting to sink in for the team, he said — something good.
“The lesson I’m trying to teach them is, whether you’re beating your opponent or getting beat, you have to play,” he said this week. “It’s the mental game that we’re working on.”
It’s a young team that has already been playing together for a while, thanks to a burgeoning club volleyball program for which multiple East Hampton athletes play. The starting lineup features only one senior: Sam Vargas, a middle hitter.
“He has been stepping it up,” Brussell said. “He had some crazy kills and great blocks last week. He said, ‘Coach, let me try playing back row,’ and he did great. His whole aura and attitude of the game has really become ‘let’s do it for the team.’ ”
Marcus Oransky, a junior who played libero last year but switched to setter this season, is also crushing it on the court. “He is the kid you want around you all the time because all he does is work hard,” Brussell said. “He really leads. He’s one of the loudest guys on the court in terms of calling the ball. He definitely motivates people with his play.”
Bonac won in three sets over Central Islip on Oct. 7, but dropped three sets to Bay Shore two days later. On Tuesday the team was to have traveled to face Ward Melville, last year’s county champs, who lost most of the starting lineup to graduation. Today the team plays at Eastport-South Manor.
“They’ve got a lot of talent, and we’re winning the games we should,” Brussell said. “We’ve got to go in with a plan, and we have to be confident in our game, no matter who we play. I think we’re getting there.”
