East Hampton Boys, Girls Cross Country Teams Should Find a Good Amount of Success This Season

Excitement is brewing for East Hampton’s boys and girls cross country teams as they return the majority of their teams from a year ago, when the girls won, and the boys just missed, a league title.

Dylan Cashin and Ryleigh O’Donnell, now in their senior seasons after multiple seasons on varsity, will continue to lead the girls team, which is made up of 14 runners this season. Juniors Zion Osei and Briana Chavez and seniors Emma Tepen, Leah Fromm, Natalie Reininger, Ivy Zambrano, Taylor Atwell and Riley Miles are all returning as well. A pair of new freshmen in Laura Martinez and Alessa Picco join the team this season, as does junior Fio Duran, who is new to cross country after running track in the spring.

“I think it’s going to be a little bit more competitive for us because everybody gets new runners every year,” girls head coach Diane O’Donnell said. “We’ll be feeling our way as the season goes on.”

The boys, very much like the girls, were expected to have their entire team come back, but three of their starting six from a year ago opted not to come out for cross country for various reasons. With everyone back, coach Kevin Barry said a few running websites like tullyrunners.com and milesplit.ny had his team in the top 20 in the state coming into the season. Barry said without the few who decided not to run, his team is still good — it’s just not as deep as it would have been.

The boys will continue to be lead by Brayan Rivera and Liam Fowkes, along with fellow seniors Chase Siska and Owen Robbins. Liam Knight, who was All-League as a freshman last season, also returns. Benson Edman, who has found success during the track seasons, is running this fall, and another junior, Wyatt Smith, has impressed Barry early on.

“Even though we should have our entire team back, it hasn’t deterred these guys at all so far,” Barry said. “There is such a positive vibe on the team, and we look at ourselves as the underdogs in what is a very tough league this year. Harborfields and Westhampton Beach are two very talented teams, and we get them right off the bat. But we’ll mostly be focusing on peaking in October when it really counts. The enthusiasm overall from the guys couldn’t be any better though.”

The one thing both teams will have to deal with this season is the fact that they’ll both be competing in a tough league that includes both Harborfields and Westhampton Beach, along with Hauppauge, Rocky Point, Amityville and Wyandanch. Both the boys and girls started their season on Tuesday against Harborfields, and both will be at the Bob Pratt Invitational at Sunken Meadow State Park in Kings Park this Friday.