4 Photos
The East Hampton boys cross country team at the Suffern Invitational on September 18 at Bear Mountain State Park.
Liam Fowkes running at the Suffern Invitational on September 18. KEVIN BARRY
Bonackers Liam Fowkes, left, and Mikey Gilbert running on their home course at East Hampton High School. KEVIN BARRY
East Hampton's Amari Gordon running at the Suffern Invitational on September 18. KEVIN BARRY
The East Hampton boys and girls cross country teams both had their sights set on their respective league titles this week.
The boys hosted Sayville on Tuesday, and while it the match was scheduled to occur after press time, they were expected to win to and secure the League VI title outright. The girls competed against Sayville at Sunken Meadow State Park in Kings Park, also on Tuesday. That meet was expected to be a close one, head coach Diane O’Donnell said on Monday.
Even if either of the teams failed to win the league title, they are both guaranteed a spot in the Division III Championship race on October 26, since they will finish no worse than second in their leagues.
Boys head coach Kevin Barry said he witnessed something for the very first time in his 30-plus years of coaching on Saturday at the Suffolk Officials Invitational at Sunken Meadow. Not only did his varsity team tie Connetquot for first place in its race, but his junior varsity team did as well. The first tie breaker rule at invitationals is that the winner is determined by the sixth fastest runner on either team. Connetquot wound up winning both races. Barry said he has never witnessed ties in multiple races before where they had both been determined by the “sixth-man rule.”
Evan Masi placed eighth overall in the varsity race in 18:25 and Amari Gordon finished 19th in 19:00.15. Diego Rojas won the JV race in 20:32.76, improving his previous best time by six minutes, Barry said.
The Bonac boys are expected to push Division III and Suffolk County Class B favorite Westhampton Beach for both titles. The Division III Championship race is October 26 with the county meet the following week on November 5. Barry said realistically his team has an outside shot at taking down the Hurricanes, but crazier things have happened.
“I’m surprised with how deep we’re getting,” he said. “Our biggest improvement is six through 10, where the second pack is starting to pressure the first pack.
“The county meet is still a one-day thing, and it’s not a COVID year. We don’t have to beat anyone in a best of seven or anything. Westhampton is still super, super strong, but I’ll pull out my best Herb Brooks speech and how we’re sick and tired of hearing how good Westhampton Beach is and how we’d like a couple of seats on the bus to states,” Barry joked.
O’Donnell said she was admittedly nervous about her team’s meet this past Tuesday against Sayville, but was certain her team had a shot to win it and possibly win its league title outright. She said her team has had its share of ups and downs, but recalled to when the team won its first ever county title a few years back and it hadn’t been running well in the weeks prior to that. The same could happen this year, she said.
“We have it in the back of our minds that maybe we can win the county meet,” she said. “Shoreham has a very strong team, but we haven’t raced against them at all, so we don’t know where we stack up against them. As always, Sayville and Bayport are in the mix. We did race against Bayport on Saturday and we beat them by one point. A one-point spread could go either way, so we’re very closely matched.”
O’Donnell said it’s going to come down to her middle-of-the-pack runners, which are all very young, after top runners Dylan Cashin, Emma Hren and Ryleigh O’Donnell. Freshmen Brianna Chavez and Zion Osei and sophomores Emma Teppin and Riley Miles make up that young group of runners.
