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The East Hampton boys volleyball team. JACK GRAVES
As of earlier this week, three East Hampton teams were vying, or about to vie, in the postseason, namely boys golf, boys cross country and girls swimming, with boys volleyball, which was to have played its last regular-season contest at East Hampton on Tuesday, apparently on the cusp of extending its campaign.
Josh Brussell, the volleyball coach, said following the Bonackers’ home win in five over Smithtown East last Thursday, October 23, that he thought the hard-fought victory would be enough to put his young team in the small school playoffs. “But there are no guarantees,” he added. “We have to see what the other teams have done in our power-point league — it’s not so much the wins and losses, but the power points that count.”
As for last Thursday’s match, which was played with a fervent, bleacher-stomping crowd looking on, the Bonackers won the first two sets, 25-22 and 25-18, a kill by Owen Grisch providing the decisive point in the second one. But then things went south a bit as the locals began losing points in net duels on the way to a 20-25 result in the third, and though they made a go of it in the fourth, a kill by Adrian Bello knotting the count at 19-all, East Hampton wound up yielding 21-25 in crunch time. A rally-scoring tiebreaker ensued, which — happily for Bonac fans — East Hampton won, 15-9.
“It was a really good win for our team,” Brussell said. “We came together. We’ve been trying different things, and the boys are trying really hard. It was definitely a team effort.”
As for the playoffs, seven teams are tentatively to contend in the small school division, with first-round games to be played at the higher seeds on Saturday, November 1, at 4 p.m.
East Hampton’s boys 9-1 golf team, seeded 10th in the county tournament, defeated 23rd-seeded Bellport on Friday in a first-round match at the Amagansett Golf Club, the Bonackers’ home course, 8.5-0.5. Colin Kelley led the way with a 39, followed by Ronan Walters (41), Charlie McMillan (43), Andrew Brown (43) and Pema Edwards (45).
Rich King’s team was to have played a second-round match versus seventh-seeded Babylon on that school’s Bergen Point course Monday afternoon. The semifinal and final rounds are to be played at the Pine Hills Golf and Country Club in Manorville on Monday, November 3, from 8 a.m.
East Hampton’s varsity has been practicing and playing at the Amagansett Golf Club, where Tim Garvin is the director of golf, and has been practicing also at the East Hampton Golf Club, whose head pro is Keith Clawson. The junior varsity has been at the Maidstone Club, where Eden Foster is the head pro.
The 5-1 boys cross-country team was to have contended Monday in the county meet at Sunken Meadow State Park in Kings Park. Kevin Barry, the team’s coach, said that two of his runners, Jasper Samuelson and Sean Perez, have been named to League VI’s first team, and that Watts Comly-Bolick has been named to its second team.
Craig Brierley’s swimmers are to contend in the League II championships on Thursday, October 30, at Sachem East High School. The county championships, for which a number of his swimmers — Heidi Rizzo, Vanessa Rizzo, Lizzie Daniels and Avienne O’Shea among them — have qualified, are to be held at Stony Brook University on Sunday, November 9, at 9 a.m.
