Bridgehampton's Leslie Samuel To Compete for Track and Field Team at the University of Hartford

Leslie Samuel loved basketball and track so equally that she seriously considered being a dual athlete so she could compete in both this winter. But, after giving it more thought, the Bridgehampton senior, who had played for the Pierson/Bridgehampton girls basketball team for years previously, opted to jump all in to indoor track, competing on the East Hampton/Pierson/Bridgehampton girls team.

It was a tough choice, Samuel admitted last week, but one that may have paved the way for her future. Joined by family, friends, teachers and administrators, Samuel announced at her Bridgehampton School on April 26 that she is heading to the University of Hartford this fall on an academic scholarship, where she’ll also have a spot on the women’s indoor and outdoor track and field teams.

“I’m ready,” she said. “I’m ready to move on to more intense workouts, meet new people and take my work that I’ve been doing and progress it even more.”

Samuel is one of 10 students graduating from Bridgehampton next month, yet she is one of two who have announced they are continuing their athletic careers in college — fellow classmate Kris Vinski announced earlier this year that he will play baseball at St. Joseph’s University of Brooklyn. Bridgehampton Athletic Director Mike DeRosa went his first six years without holding any college announcements and has now held two, just months apart.

“Both of them put in so much hard work over the years,” he said. “It just goes to show that hard work pays off.

“Leslie is so talented. She’s self motivated, disciplined and competitive, and I could just tell with her spirit in PE class, you can see it on field when we run,” DeRosa added. “At the same time, she’s humble. She’s not bragging about her accomplishments, and she has a natural passion for it. We’re very excited and very proud of her.”

Samuel said there were a couple of schools interested in taking her on their track teams, namely Hartford and the University of Connecticut. She admitted she had a hard time picking between the two initially, but after visiting Hartford’s campus with her family, and considering that the school had already committed to an academic scholarship on top of a spot on the track team, that ultimately led her there.

“Academics have not always been my strong suit, especially since my freshman year and working through COVID,” she said. “But I’ve worked very hard on it. I’ve been getting better at it.”

Hartford “is very close to home,” she said. “At first, it was an issue about the area, but me and my family checked it out and we loved it so much. We loved the campus and everything about it, and the fact that it was so close to home, I thought, well, let’s do it.”

Samuel said coming from a family of track athletes is ultimately what guided her to jump all in to track this year.

“Almost everybody in my family had done track. I loved basketball, and there was a point and time where I wanted to do both,” she explained. “I knew I was good at basketball, but I also knew that I could be great at track, and that’s what the big difference was. I could do greater things on the track so that was my main reason to stick with that.”

And Samuel proved that this winter. She set a new school record for the indoor long jump at 17 feet 10 ¼ inches and placed fourth in the county in the event, an admirable finish for someone coming from a small school going up against the top athletes in the county — as the indoor season is not divided by school size. A strong sprinter as well, Samuel helped the 4x400-meter and sprint medley relays break school records, competed with that 4x4 team at the Nike Indoor Nationals and she was All-League in the 55- and 300-meter dashes. She was also named the team’s Most Valuable Player in back-to-back seasons last spring and this past winter.

This current spring season has been a bit of a roller coaster in that the weather, among other things, have really affected many of the meets. East Hampton’s dual meet at Comsewogue earlier this season happened so late due to bus issues that Samuel wound up rolling her ankle trying to do the long jump in the dark. She was in a boot for about a week until nearly two weeks ago. Samuel was also supposed to compete in the long jump at the Westhampton Beach Invitational on Saturday, but that ended up being a washout due to the weather.

Still, Samuel and her teammates managed to set a new school record again in the outdoor sprint medley relay at 4:25.06, which qualified them to participate in the Emerging Elite Division at Nike Outdoor Nationals on June 15-18 in Oregon. East Hampton girls track head coach Yani Cuesta lauded Samuel for her abilities in the sport and said it was great for a track athlete to be recognized. Pierson’s Penelope Greene (SUNY Geneseo) and East Hampton’s Ava Engstrom (University of Vermont) were some of the program’s most recent athletes to continue their careers at the college level.

“I don’t ever want to take kids away from other sports, but when we recognize that there is great potential, we try to get the kids to see that,” Cuesta said. “Track is one of those things like math, the more you do it the more you build, and I think that’s what made her catch this bug. She saw this great growth that she had … I want to see her continue to grow. I know all the success that she had in winter is what’s giving her the bug to keep working harder and harder to get the same successes in spring.”

Samuel expects to qualify for states in the long jump, and she’s already booked a trip to Oregon to compete at Nationals with her teammates next month. In fact, the school district opted to move its graduation date from June 17 to June 18 so that Samuel could make that trip without missing graduation. Cuesta said she’s confident in Samuel making it to states, and who knows, possibly beyond, as long as she stays healthy.

“I was very close to making it to states this past winter, placing fourth,” Samuel said. “I’m not even questioning it for the outdoor season, I know I am going to make it to states this year.”