East Hampton's Evan Masi Qualifies For Cross Country States, Cashin Just Misses

It was nearly two years ago when Evan Masi broke his ankle playing a pickup game of football with friends on Thanksgiving morning, an injury that severely hampered what had already been an impressive cross country career. At that point, he had not only qualified for the New York State Championships as a sophomore, but also earned All-State honors by finishing in the top 24 in the state.

The injury proved to be tough to overcome, as it took patience and time to allow it to heal and finally get back to full strength. But on Friday, at the Section XI Championships, things came full circle for Masi, who once again qualified for the state meet. The East Hampton senior placed seventh overall in the county Class B race in 17:40.3, punching his ticket to Chenango Valley State Park near Binghamton, where the state meet will take place this Saturday, November 13.

“More than thrilled,” Masi said after the race. “It’s been a really tough recovery with me breaking my ankle and everything. It’s been really difficult coming back, and it’s been a lot more mental than physical finding your stride again. I just realized I don’t want my season to end at qualifiers, I want to keep it going as long as I can because of how much I love it and I just let that motivate myself.”

East Hampton boys cross country head coach Kevin Barry said that Masi probably didn’t regain his form from his sophomore year until this past October, or right around the time that Masi won the Tom Knipfing Invitational.

“He had a little more confidence and a bit of a hop in his step,” he said. “That kid is always amazing me. He impresses me in everything that he does. If there was such a thing he would win Comeback Runner of the Year. He had a little bit of a disappointing season in the springtime, but he didn’t want to rush it. And he was always confident that he could come back and he did.”

“It was a slow recovery because I found myself wanting to get back into it and almost rush it, and then rushing it led to me getting another injury and reinjuring it, so I really had to give myself the time,” Masi added.

Barry was hoping that Masi would have a teammate or two join him at states, but that ended up not being the case. Senior Amari Gordon, who battled a stomach bug, Barry said, was the next Bonacker to cross the finish line in 18:21.3, which placed him 16th overall. Sophomore Mikey Gilbert finished 30th in 18:53.5, followed by sophomore Liam Fowkes (33rd/19:04.7), sophomore Brayan Rivera (35th/19:05.6), junior Isaiah Robins (39th/19:22.5) and senior Caleb Peralta (49th/19:48.6).

East Hampton (109 points) finished second in the county to Westhampton Beach (31).

Masi’s goal upstate is to earn All-State honors once again and improve upon his finish from his sophomore year.

“My goal at the state meet is to leave it all out there,” he said. “I want to keep going and see how far it takes me. I just want to make sure I’m not going to leave the sport of cross country being disappointed in myself. I want to make sure I do myself justice and prove everything that I can.”

Although she earned All-County honors, East Hampton sophomore Dylan Cashin missed advancing to the girls state meet by two placements. She finished seventh overall in the county in a personal best 20:28.5, but because of what was an extremely tight race overall, Cashin needed to finish in the top five in order to qualify.

Although they only had one girl in the top 10 between the two, both Sayville and Shoreham-Wading River tied in overall points with 63. Sayville won the county title via the sixth-runner tiebreaker. The top five individual runners with the county championship team’s runners thrown out advance to states.

East Hampton head coach Diane O’Donnell said it was a tough break for her top runner, but that things bode well, not only for Cashin, but her entire team next season, as only one runner, Emma Hren, will graduate this year.

“There are two girls ahead of her [in the county] who are seniors, so they won’t be here next year and she’ll be stronger also next year,” she said of Cashin. “And who knows, maybe our team will be just enough stronger to be in the mix for a county title then. Our freshmen have gotten stronger. Every girl there ran a PR, so I can’t complain about their efforts, everybody did the best they could. It’s sad but we had the best outcome we could have.”

Sophomore Ryleigh O’Donnell finished 19th in 22:23.5, sophomore Emma Tepan (23:16.6), Hren (23:23) and freshman Brianna Chavez (23:28.3) finished 27th, 28th and 29th, respectively. Freshman Zion Osei finished 31st in 23:48.7, and sophomore Riley Miles finished 39th in 25:07.2.