For the East Hampton and Bridgehampton footballers, Saturday’s 35-10 win over Half Hollow Hills West was everything a coach could want from his players.
“It was a balanced game — it was almost perfect,” said Joe McKee, Bonac’s head coach, on Monday. “We were able to distribute the ball to everybody, and that’s about as good as it gets right there.”
Theo Ball, the senior quarterback, tallied 190 passing yards with successful touchdown throws to Livs Kuplins, Cole Dunchick, and Jackson Ronick. Ronick, a junior running back, also scored two rushing touchdowns and totaled 75 yards on 11 carries.
McKee was particularly impressed with a breakout performance from Charlie Stern, a senior who captains the team along with Ball and Jake Rivera. Stern, an outside linebacker, finished with 115 yards on three receptions and six tackles on defense. He also complimented Jai Feaster, a Bridgehampton senior running back and outside linebacker, who added 11 carries for 74 yards.
The win over Hills West, McKee said, was reaffirming for a team that had dropped its first game this season by a single point. Eastport-South Manor High School pulled off a come-from-behind win, 18-17, in the last 30 seconds of that game, an away contest on Sept. 13.
Next up for East Hampton is Wyandanch Memorial High School in Friday’s homecoming game at the Fred W. Thiele Jr. Recreational Facility on Stephen Hand’s Path. Game time under the lights is 6 p.m. Wyandanch’s teams are now known as the Wolves, thanks to New York State’s ban on Native American mascots, and they are hungry. The new head football coach, Rich Slattery, posted recently on Facebook: “Wolves are apex predators. They lead the pack, move with purpose, and dominate their environment. That is the standard we are setting. We are not just here to participate. We are here to compete.”
And so is McKee’s team, which he called “senior heavy.”
“The advantage we have is experience. We’ve been through a lot,” McKee said. “We were 5-3 last year and made playoffs for first time in 12 years. A lot of those players are back, a lot of them are starting, and we’re looking for a good season this year.”
Wyandanch is 0-2 heading into Friday night’s homecoming matchup. “They’re tough kids, so we’re not going to take them lightly,” McKee said of the Wolves. “We still have to perform in order to achieve that win.”
Girls Tennis
The Bonac tennis team was 8-2 heading into this week, including a 4-3 win at Southampton High School last Thursday. Bella O’Connor and Gila Minkow went to three sets, 3-6, 6-4, 6-1, against the Mariners in a third-doubles match that helped seal the victory. “Their comeback was really strong,” the head coach, Pablo Montesi, said on Sunday. “A lot of games this season have been close, battling to third sets, and that’s always a great experience for the girls.”
East Hampton’s only two losses have come at the hands of the Ross School, a perennial powerhouse currently undefeated in league play, and Westhampton Beach, which was another close match.
Ella Menu, a junior who has played both singles and doubles, is undefeated this season in two singles contests and eight doubles matchups. Against Southampton, in first doubles, Menu and Colleen McKee won 6-1, 6-2.
Earlier in the season, against Sayville on Sept. 15, Molly Stillman clinched Bonac’s 4-3 win with a three-set victory hat decided the match. Stillman lost her first, 3-6, but came back in two intense sets, 7-5 and 10-2 in a tiebreaker. “She is super strong mentally,” Montesi said.
East Hampton’s winning record has already sealed it a spot in the playoffs, but there’s still plenty of tennis left to play. Bonac was to have played William Floyd, another talented team, on Monday at home, before today’s matchup at Hampton Bays.
Girls Swimming
Coach Craig Brierley reported this week that an uptick in training intensity is helping the team “adapt to the stresses of competitions.” The team’s three meets over the past two weeks have “helped the girls to understand the demands of a meet, and the direct specificity of our training prepares them to be at their best,” he wrote in his weekly email update.
In the most recent of those meets, last Thursday, East Hampton defeated Lindenhurst/West Islip, 87-57, in home waters at the Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter. Out of 10 events, Bonac swimmers scored eight first-place finishes and achieved multiple county championship-qualifying times. Among those qualifiers were Lizzy Daniels in the 50 free and 100 back events; Vanessa Rizzo and Avienne O’Shea in the 200 intermediate medley race, and Rizzo in the 100 breaststroke event.
Rae Intonato, a freshman, was named swimmer of the meet against Lindenhurst/West Islip. She took fourth place in the 100 fly with a time of 1 minute, 35.84 seconds. “When one of Rae’s teammates was unable to do her event, Rae was asked to fill in and she readily accepted,” Brierley wrote in an email. “The captains also loved how she is always there to cheer on her teammates in their events. These are amazing, selfless qualities to own and as a first-year member of the team, Rae is showing that she will be a great asset to this season and future seasons’ successes.”
