Bronco Campsey, Franco Palombino Are League Champions; Bonac Sends Nine Wrestlers to Counties

Austin Bronco Campsey is living up to his middle name.

The Pierson sophomore, who has already had a historic season for the East Hampton/Pierson/Bridgehampton wrestling team by becoming the first Bonac wrestler to place at the prestigious Eastern States Classic after placing second, took it one step further by winning the 108-pound weight class at the League III Championships at Smithtown East High School on Saturday. And he did so in dominant fashion, earning the “most pins, least time” distinction with four pins in 3:27.

Campsey led what was an overall extremely successful tournament for East Hampton where it had five finalists, two of whom were champions, with East Hampton junior Franco Palombino joining him as a league champ after he won the 215-pound weight class. When all was said and done, nine Bonackers placed in the top four of their respective brackets and therefore advanced to the Suffolk County Division I Championships at Stony Brook University this Saturday and Sunday.

Seniors Juan Roque (116) and Adam Beckwith (190) and junior Juan Espinoza (285) each placed second, while seniors Josue Elias (124), Justin Prince (160) and Aman Chugh (215) and junior Matias Gonzalez (152) each placed fourth. The Bonackers were second overall as a team halfway through the tournament and wound up finishing third behind North Babylon and Smithtown East, respectively.

According to East Hampton head coach Ethan Mitchell, the nine All-League wrestlers are the most for the program since 1998 when 10 Bonackers earned the distinction. But as Mitchell pointed out, back then only the top three wrestlers advanced to counties, so only seven of those 10 went to counties. It’s been even longer, since 1990, since East Hampton has sent nine qualifiers to counties. That year, it had 14 All-League wrestlers.

Because of all of that, Mitchell said the tournament couldn’t have gone better. He said he and his coaching staff were very specific in their approach and plan this season in keeping everyone healthy going into the postseason, and it worked out really well.

“We try our best to plan our season and our program to allow our kids to be at their healthiest and strongest and best for the postseason, so we made a lot of conscious decisions, like if we needed to slow down practices we would do so,” he explained. “The last two practices on Thursday and Friday prior to the tournament, everyone was feeling well and the healthiest and strongest they’ve been all season. No one was coughing or anything, and while nothing is guaranteed in the postseason, we had some great seeds at leagues.”

Campsey said the origin of his middle name Bronco was actually quite simple: He said his parents had a cousin who asked them, if they ever had a boy, to name him Bronco. While they couldn’t fully commit to the first full name being Bronco, they split the difference making Austin’s middle name Bronco, but that’s the name that everyone has been calling him most of his life.

Bronco was the top seed at 108 pounds on Saturday and he proved that to be true. His longest match of the day actually came in his first match, when it took him 1:10 to pin Copiague’s Josue Cruz Leonardo. His quickest pin was the very next round, when he stuck Smithtown East’s Asadadeen Moazeb in 27 seconds. Campsey then pinned North Babylon’s Jayden Centeno in 1:07 before pinning Smithtown East’s Sam Reinard in 42 seconds in the finals to win his first-ever league title after having placed second last season.

Campsey said he never wrestled his finals opponent Reinard before Saturday, “but I went in confident. I thought I was going to win, and I did.

“I just really wanted to win,” he said. “I feel like it’s really hard work paying off.”

Mitchell said Bronco’s performance was one of his best yet and more is still to come from him. He’s expected to get a high seed at the county tournament, where he should do well and possibly earn his first All-County honors.

“It was some of his best work,” Mitchell said. “He was aggressive and looking to get the job done as fast as he could. He just dominated and was a leader by example on how to kick butt.”

Mitchell had a decision to make with his heavy weights going into Saturday’s tournament, namely with Espinoza and Palombino, who had been trading back and forth on who wrestles at 215 and 285 pounds all season. When the three met, Espinoza, who won the League IV title at 215 pounds last season, nominated himself to go to 285 this past weekend. That seemed to fit Palombino just fine.

Palombino, seeded second, pinned his way through to the finals with not one of his three matches going more than a minute, before defeating the top seed, North Babylon’s Jacob Ruiz, by major decision, 13-4, to win his first-ever league title.

“I went into the finals match with a game plan to stay in control, wrestle smart, and I guess I did feel like I was in control,” he said. “I scored the first points in the first period on a take down, and from there I just worked my stuff that I knew how to do. [Ruiz] was definitely strong, but I felt like I had what it took to beat him.

“Going into the tournament, I hadn’t placed at leagues before, so I was going in kind of hungry for that desire to get into counties and I kind of just went in to take everyone down,” he said. “I was quite ecstatic with the win. I was out of breath, for sure. It was hard to collect my thoughts right after I won, but I knew I could win this thing and I felt like I made everyone proud.”

Mitchell said he was indeed very proud of Palombino, who, since he was a freshman, always had the muscular build that could intimidate any opponent. He just lacked the wrestling knowledge and skill to go with that body, until now.

“It’s taken a lot of work for him to feel as confident as he does now,” he said. “When someone spends as much time in the weight room as he does, he deserves to project a body like he does, to take much time in preparing your body. I had an East Hampton alum, not a wrestling alumni, but a former athlete, in Matt DiSunno come in and talk to the kids about weightlifting, and he and Franco really connected. One of the things he stressed is that when you lift weights, you walk into a room wearing your achievements and just how intimidating that can be.

“But one thing Franco has really done this year and this past weekend was be more aggressive,” Mitchell continued. “He would lose 1-0 to a kid in his freshman and sophomore years because he was so nervous to take a shot. But that was not the case on Saturday.”

Espinoza, who was the top seed at 285 pounds, was in line to win his weight class as well. He pinned his first opponent, won a hard-fought decision in the semifinals and then faced the second-seed Xavier Pineda of Smithtown East in the finals, where he pushed the action. But to Pineda’s credit, Mitchell said, he did well to avoid giving Espinoza any back points leading to a 3-1 decision.

What’s tough for both Espinoza and Palombino, Mitchell said, is that both wrestlers are barely true 215 pounders with both weighing closer to 205 pounds. So when they do wrestle at 285, they could be giving up anywhere between 50 and 60 pounds. That means that sometimes instead of using their muscle, they have to rely on their quickness. And it can be tough to do against certain opponents.

One of the biggest surprises of the tournament, or as Mitchell termed it “bracket buster,” was Chugh at 215. The senior missed a lot of time this season due to an injury he suffered playing football in the fall but made his way back in time for the postseason. He upset the fifth seed in the first round, pinning North Babylon’s Elisha Hall in 3:29. Then he pinned Huntington’s Jose Quintanilla in 5:59 in the very next round to reach the semis, where he lost to Palombino’s finals opponent Ruiz.

As far as Roque and Beckwith, the team’s two longest tenured wrestlers and captains, they both had tough opponents in their finals match. Roque faced off against a two-time All-County wrestler and top seed in Smithtown East’s Dylan Reinard. Roque went for a move an all-or-nothing move toward the end of the match that wound up getting him pinned, but the expectation is for him to still do well at counties.

The same goes for Beckwith, who went through his bracket with relative ease before facing the top seed in North Babylon’s John Rowland in the finals, which he lost, 9-2. Mitchell said Beckwith was voted on by opposing coaches as the League III Dual Meet Most Valuable Wrestler. Each coach in the league nominated a wrestler from their team and opposing coaches, then voted from that list. Beckwith scored 104 dual meet points, which surpasses the most by a Bonac wrestler ever, with 91 by Bronco last season. By earning that distinction, Beckwith will be the League III flag bearer at the county tournament this weekend.