June 1, 2000
"You've seen 'The Natural'?" asked Kevin Barry, the assistant East Hampton High School boys track coach. "Well, Ben's race was just like that, like when the manager says to Roy Hobbs, 'Go out and knock the cover off the ball, Roy,' and he goes out and knocks the cover off the ball."
Barry was talking about the Suffolk County 3,200-meter race that East Hampton's Ben Turnbull won in exciting fashion, one of a number of buoying performances, as it turned out, that East Hampton competitors turned in at Longwood High School on Wednesday, May 24, and last Thursday.
The team, with Kyle Russell winning both the discus and the shot-put, and with Turnbull winning the 3,200 and placing second in the 1,600, was the Class B schools' runner-up, with 71 points, to Amityville (103 1/3) — the best an East Hampton team has ever done in a county meet, according to Barry and the team's head coach, Bill Herzog.
. . . Russell's wins in the discus and shot-put, with throws of 133 feet 8 inches and 53-3 1/2, were also quite riveting. The strong Bonac senior, despite a nagging finger injury, won the shot with his last throw.
. . . Other notable performances by Bonac competitors in the county meet included Steve Scholl's second-place finish in the high jump, Chris Thomas's third-place finish in the 1,600-meter racewalk, Sean Myhr's third-place finish in the steeplechase, James Keogh's fourth-place finish in the 400, and Alec Overby's sixth-place finish in the long jump.
. . . The 4-by-400 relay team (Casey Heim, David Rattiner, Overby, and Keogh) placed third, "though for some reason it didn't get them all-county," said Herzog. Mike Hand made it to the semifinals in the 110-meter high hurdles. John Schirrippa, while he didn't place, broke 38 feet in the triple jump. Larry Hren was fifth in the steeplechase, and Sean Thorsen (2:06) and Alles Carmona (2:12), although they didn't place, each P.R.'d in the 800.
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No better testimony to the level of play that has been evident in the past few years on East Hampton High's softball field can be had than the recent performances of three alumnae — Melanie Anderson, Mylan Le, and Annemarie Cangiolosi — in college ball.
. . . "The way he coaches is great," Anderson said of East Hampton's coach, Lou Reale, on her return from the Division II tournament in Columbus, Ga., where she hit five home runs and batted over .500 for the Bloomsburg University Huskies. "It's a reality check — you can't take the easy track. That's why I play."
. . . Cangiolosi, Anderson's first cousin, who formed a formidable pitcher-catcher duo with her in high school, and who went 12-7 on the mound this past season with an 0.85 earned run average for SUNY Cortland in State University of New York Athletic Conference games, agreed. "Yeah, he's a good coach," she said with a smile. "He'll tell you if you did wrong . . . it's constructive criticism."
