East Hampton Softball Would Like To Return to Postseason Play

After missing out on the playoffs last season, after having ended a decade-long absence the year prior, the East Hampton softball team is looking to return to postseason play this season.

The Bonackers head into the spring with a good mix of veteran players, including seniors Alyssa Brabant, Caroline DiSunno, Ella Eggert and Emma Terry, and a talented incoming freshmen class that is new to varsity, which includes Lydia Rowan, Brynley Lys, Colleen McKee and Mary Jane Vickers. All four should help offset the losses of Maddie Brown, Sophia Yardley and Leah Masi, who have all graduated.

Katie Kuneth, a junior who plays multiple positions, including pitcher, is also returning, along with sophomores Susie DiSunno, Olivia Walsh and Sienna Salamay. DiSunno did well as the team’s starting catcher last season and head coach Annemarie Brown said she’ll continue as such this season and thinks her young backstop will have a great season. Salamay and Walsh each play multiple positions, and that has become an overall quality of this year’s team that Brown said she really appreciates and why the team is smaller this season, in terms of numbers, than in previous years.

“We have a smaller team this year, which I like. Many girls will play multiple positions,” she said. “I do believe that our goal is to make the playoffs. Between our seniors Caroline, Alyssa, Ella and Emma, and our junior Katie, and our sophomore catcher Susie, as well as our new freshmen, I think this can be possible.”

East Hampton played a four-way scrimmage at Hampton Bays on March 25 against the host Baymen, Islip and Ward Melville, and Brown said her team fared well against all teams. Kuneth pitched most of the innings of that scrimmage, but Brabant spent some time in the circle as well. Caroline DiSunno, another pitcher, entered the season with an injured finger, but Brown said she should be able to pitch soon. Rowan, the lefty freshman, can also pitch and will see some time in the circle this season.

Brown also said that Terry is a key player for her team at short and she has a good bat as well. Kuneth hits well also, she said, and Brabant and Eggert will be vital to the team’s infield and outfield this season.

East Hampton will play in League VII this season along with Comsewogue, Eastport-South Manor, Mattituck/Southold/Greenport, Miller Place, Rocky Point, Sayville and Westhampton Beach, and there are also mandatory nonleague crossover games that count toward qualifying for the playoffs. The Bonackers opened the season with arguably the three toughest teams in the league, starting with Sayville, on March 29, then Westhampton Beach this past Friday, before hosting Miller Place on Monday. They lost, 13-0, at Sayville and then suffered another loss, 8-0, at home to Westhampton Beach. East Hampton played at Rocky Point on Tuesday and at Eastport on Wednesday, then had over a week off before hosting Comsewogue on April 14 at 10 a.m.