Bonac Swimmers Place Second At League III Championships

East Hampton-Pierson-Bridgehampton girls swimming team head coach Craig Brierley has appreciated the adaptiveness and versatility his team has shown in what has been a different season due to the pandemic. The swimmers needed to continue to be flexible this past Friday, with the League III Championships being done in a somewhat virtual manner.

Typically, Hauppauge High School hosts the League III Championships, and all schools in the league send their swimmers there for the evening. This season, however, due to the pandemic, there were three separate dual meets — East Hampton hosted Lindenhurst, Sayville hosted Harborfields, and West Islip hosted West Babylon — all simultaneously on Friday. The results were tallied, and by Saturday, a league champ was determined.

As Coach Brierley noted, Bonac’s biggest challenge was going to be taking down Sayville, which handed it its only loss during the regular season. And while the two teams may not have been in the same pool on Friday, the results were pretty close.

Ultimately, Sayville took home the league title, defeating East Hampton, 367.5-328.5, with the Golden Flashes’s 28 diving points giving them much of their lead. East Hampton does not have a diving squad.

Some of Bonac’s swimmers had mixed emotions, given the way the league meet was held this season.

“Since our league meet is usually away, it has always felt very special to be at someone else’s pool competing,” East Hampton sophomore Camryn Hatch explained. “Having it home this year made it a bit more difficult, [but] I think it made all of the girls push themselves more than usual. Everybody did amazing on Friday. Almost everybody that swam dropped best times and I think everybody was happy with their performance.”

“Having the league championship meet at our home pool makes it feel more like a dual meet,” East Hampton sophomore Summer Jones said. “However, the amount of motivation and energy the team had was significant. Our team swam extremely well and everyone put in so much energy in and out of the pool.”

East Hampton got off to a great start when Hatch, Jones, and East Hampton sophomores Jane Brierley and Ava Castillo won the 200-yard medley relay in 1:53.97, just beating Sayville’s team by 0.02 of a second. In the second event, the 200-yard freestyle, Jones took second place (2:03.51), finishing only 0.9 of a second behind Sayville senior Brenna Horan. Springs eighth-grader Lily Griffin dropped 7.5 seconds off her season’s best to place fourth (2:08.23) in the same event, and East Hampton sophomore Corinna Castillo shaved 10.3 seconds off her season’s best to place sixth (2:19.13), each garnering key points for the Bonackers. Griffin also earned an entry to the Section XI Swimming Championships with her time. Castillo’s performance was a big part of why team captains chose her as the team’s Swimmer of the Meet.

Jane Brierley (2:17.89), Pierson senior Kiara Bailey-Williams (2:22.51) and Ava Castilla (2:27.62) placed fourth, fifth and sixth, respectively, in the 200-yard individual medley. Then Pierson senior Catalina Badilla tied for second place with Harborfields senior Sophia Knutson in the 50-yard freestyle, both coming in at 27.05 seconds. Coach Brierley noted it would have been exciting to see the two go head-to-head live.

After Badilla’s performance, Bonac held a 119.5-111.5 lead over Sayville, but then the Flashes’ diving points came in, giving them a strong lead.

“The meet was a complete team effort,” Coach Brierley said. “For those competing, every stroke mattered, and for the remainder of the team that was not competing, they were cheering for their teammates, showing good character, selflessness, and support for the teammates.”

East Hampton had a number of strong performances.

Jones won the 500-yard freestyle in 5:21.86, and the 200-yard freestyle relay team of Bailey-Williams, Griffin, Badilla and Brierley edged Sayville by 0.8 of a second to take first place in 1:48.78. Jones, Hatch, Badilla and Ava Castillo placed second in the 400-yard freestyle relay in 3:56.74.

Hatch took second in the 100-yard freestyle in a personal best 57.51 seconds and second in the 100-yard backstroke in 1:02.11. East Hampton junior Emily Dyner placed sixth in the 100-yard butterfly in a personal best and county-qualifying time of 1:06.13, and she also placed fifth in the 100-yard backstroke in a season’s best 1:08.54. Brierley (1:09.65), Bailey-Williams (1:16.12) and Griffin (1:17.13) finished second, third and fourth, respectively, in the 100-yard breaststroke.

“Personally, I am very happy with my times as I am getting back to where I left off when our club season was cut short last year,” Hatch said. “I am very excited to be going to counties this weekend because I think it will really push me to be more competitive, being in a very fast environment and swimming against girls that have put in lots of hard work in such a difficult year. We have been very lucky to have had a season with no major complications.”

Hatch will be joined by what is a large contingent of Bonac swimmers who have qualified for counties, which will be this Saturday and Sunday at Stony Brook University at 10 a.m.