Campsey Is Bonac's First County Champion Since 1987

Wrestler Austin Campsey has been known by most people as Bronco, his middle name, for most of his life. He can now add another name to that list: Champ.

Trailing his opponent, Hauppauge senior Connor Sheridan, 1-0, with just over a minute remaining in the third and final period, the Pierson sophomore slowly maneuvered his way into a two-point reversal to take a 2-1 lead, and he seamlessly turned that into a four-point near fall to take a late 6-1 lead which he eventually won by to claim the 108-pound weight class at the Suffolk County Division I Championships at Stony Brook University on Sunday afternoon.

Campsey’s victory was nothing short of historic for the East Hampton/Pierson/Bridgehampton wrestling program, becoming the first wrestler since Eric Kaufman in 1987 to win a county title. He is also thought to be the very first wrestler out of Sag Harbor to ever win a county championship.

With the win, Campsey will be representing Bonac at the New York State Division I Championships February 28 and March 1 at MVP Arena in Albany.

The always even-keeled Campsey did not go berserk after his victory like so many wrestlers do after climbing the mountain that is the Suffolk Division I tournament. He did fashion a big smile on his face, though, and as he got his arms raised in victory, pointed to the stands toward his father, Beau Campsey, an assistant coach on the Bonac wrestling team, who was standing with Bronco’s club coaches, who many in wrestling circles would consider royalty, in Mike Patrovich and Cory Dolson.

Campsey, of course, then received a big hug from his head coach, Ethan Mitchell, with additional pats on the back and congratulations from assistant coaches Greg Schaefer, Kyle Sheehan and Cory Strain — Schaefer was a teammate of Kaufman when he won Bonac’s last county title in 1987. Mitchell, directly following the match, was a bit speechless at what his young wrestler had just accomplished. The top seed after winning the League III title at 108 pounds, Campsey won his first two matches by technical fall, then defeated Bellport’s Henry Caceres, 7-1, in the semifinals before beating Sheridan in the finals.

“He is a force,” Mitchell said of Campsey. “He works his ass off. The best thing I can do is just manage his emotions and let him do his thing. I wish I could take more credit, but he’s got such an amazing support system that he’s able to do what he can do because of them. Between his own father, Patrovich, Dolson, who he’s been going to for years and years, they all might as well be family. They always talk about those two and how much they’ve done for each other.”

Trevor Patrovich, a Hauppauge sophomore, won his very first county title also, just before Campsey did at 101 pounds. It was the 10th individual county title in the Patrovich family.

Campsey said it felt good to win a county title and “pretty crazy” to be the first Bonac wrestler to achieve the feat in 38 years. He wasn’t thinking about the possible history he could make going into the tournament, though.

“The goal of every tournament is to go out there and win, so I did,” he said. “The only thing that really drives me is winning. I just want to win every time. That’s the goal.”

Campsey joined the varsity wrestling team at East Hampton as an eighth-grader. Mitchell said he probably had the skills to join as a seventh-grader, but he was simply too small. Even as an eighth-grader, Campsey struggled fulfilling the minimum weight requirements in the lightest weight class, to the point, Mitchell said, that he had to drink a bunch of water at times just to hit his weight.

Campsey said he started wrestling at around 5 or 6 years old, but didn’t really get into it until he was 9.

“It’s just a great sport,” he said. “Everyone should do it at least once in their life. It’s really fun.”

Campsey was not the only placewinner for the Bonackers. East Hampton senior Adam Beckwith finished fourth to earn All-County honors at 190 pounds. He also competed on Sunday afternoon, but in the consolation semifinals against a very familiar opponent in North Babylon senior John Rowland, whom he lost to at the League III Championships the week prior.

But on Saturday, during the first day of competition, Beckwith had pinned Rowland in 3:30 to reach the semis against Bay Shore’s John Betancourt, who pinned Beckwith in 50 seconds and wound up placing second in the county.

Beckwith defeated William Floyd junior David Gonzalez, 5-4, to reach the consolation finals against Rowland. He had defeated Gonzalez, 3-2, in the Round of 16 on Saturday. In his last 10 matches dating back to the Bonac Duals on January 30, to the League III Championships, to counties, Beckwith wrestled the same two wrestlers, both Rowland and Gonzalez, six times. Rowland wound up securing “true second” with a 2-1 victory over Betancourt who had lost to Commack senior Brady Curry in the county finals. Gonzalez placed fifth in the county.

“So he definitely had some stiff competition to end the season,” Mitchell said of Beckwith. “I’m incredibly proud of how Adam wrestled all weekend. I still think he has another level of letting himself go, like Bronco did, but it’s a long, long weekend, and he had some very tough matches.”

“I knew that when I lost my semifinals match that I would be facing [Rowland] for the third and fourth place match,” Beckwith said. “I knew that we were the next best in the county, and I think had the seeding been different it could have been me and him in the finals instead. But I feel like I’ve faced him every week since leagues. He made me work harder every week just knowing I had to face him and because of that I am a better wrestler.”

Due to a shoulder injury, Beckwith sat out most of the football season in the fall so he could be ready to make a run to the state tournament this season. He fell just a bit short of achieving that goal, but it was still a very successful season. He set the team’s record in dual meet points this season and was named League III Most Valuable Wrestler.

“I wouldn’t say I’m happy, but I would say I’m content,” Beckwith said of his season. “Every time I stepped out on the mat, I gave it my all. And that’s all I could ask for. Even if I didn’t get the result I wanted, I know that when I look myself in the mirror tonight, I can tell myself I gave everything I had.”

Beckwith, a four-year wrestler, agreed that the program has certainly come a long way in a short period of time. He was extremely proud of Campsey’s accomplishment and excited to see what he and the rest of the program can do moving forward.

“There are no words to say how proud I am of him,” he said of Campsey. “He works so hard, he and Juan Roque. Juan had a pretty unsavory end to the season today, but he and Bronco work so hard every day. Whether it be at The Barn or at an East Hampton practice, they push each other. And I know Bronco, I know his parents and I know how they live. This is what they live for, and I knew because of that Bronco wasn’t going to lose tonight.”

Beckwith is a part of a senior class that was Mitchell’s first full class that only learned under him and said the best is yet to come.

“I know that he’s built the program so much and I can only imagine how much better the wrestling program is going to get in the next coming years,” he said.

East Hampton senior Juan Roque (116 pounds) and junior Juan Espinoza (285) each made it to the second day of wrestling, but just missed getting to the all important “blood round,” where one more victory in the wrestleback portion of the brackets could have guaranteed themselves an All-County placement.

Roque lost his quarterfinal match to Connetquot senior Julian Medina, who wound up placing third in the county. He won his first wrestleback match via tech fall, but then was pinned by Islip’s Matthew Peterson right before the blood round.

Similarly, Espinoza lost his quarterfinals match to Bellport junior Jacob Snedeker who wound up placing third. He won his first wrestleback match, 1-0, over Connetquot junior Nick Feramola, but then was pinned by Islip senior Jonathan Hernandez just before the blood round.

“Both Juan Roque and Juan Espinoza stopped wrestling in pivotal moments against tough wrestlers,” Mitchell said. “Both were from Islip. They have good coaches over there, and a good program, and they took advantage of those pauses or hesitances. One of the things we try to preach is there’s wrestling to win and there’s wrestling to not lose. There’s a difference between the two, and both of them were wrestling to not lose instead of wrestling to win.”

Whereas Espinoza, who last year was Bonac’s first league champion since 2018, is returning next season as a senior, this was the end of the line for Roque, who along with Beckwith, were with the program since their freshmen years. Roque certainly made his mark on the program, becoming the program’s first-ever wrestler to win a New York State Greco-Roman title and qualify for Nationals, and was its first All-County wrestler in nearly a decade just last season. But he could never get over the hump of qualifying for states.

“We’re disappointed in that respect because we were all hoping and pushing for him to really make it over that line,” Mitchell said. “He’s definitely been someone we felt has been a contender to be a state qualifier since his sophomore year. But, as we’ve seen, crossing over that edge is tough to do and just continues to prove just how tough Suffolk County is. I haven’t totally dissected the bracket quite yet, but I know of two returning state qualifiers from last season that didn’t place, so Juan is far from the only wrestler who had a tough tournament.”

Josue Elias (124), Justin Prince (160) and Aman Chugh (215), all seniors, and juniors Matias Gonzalez (152) and Franco Palombino (215), the latter of whom was a league champion, each competed in the tournament for the Bonackers as well. Of that group, though, only Prince was able to pick up some victories and did so in dramatic fashion. After pinning Patchogue-Medford junior Cole Welsh in 3:35, Prince found himself trailing his next opponent, Half Hollow Hills West junior Kade Diaz, enough to where he was one wrong move away from losing by tech fall. But he instead pinned Diaz in 3:52 to reach the quarterfinals. Mitchell said a stat that stood out to him is that his wrestlers won 55 percent of their matches via pin this season.

Prince lost his quarterfinals match to Islip junior Spencer Nassire, who placed fourth in the county. Prince then lost a 12-6 decision to Westhampton Beach junior Carmine Esposito in his one and only wrestleback match.

There is a team portion to the county tournament in which each wrestler can score various numbers of points depending on how they won and in what rounds they won. East Hampton placed 14th in the county with 69 points, which Mitchell was told by his mentor and former Westhampton Beach head coach Paul Bass that was the most points for a Bonac team in the past 12 seasons combined. Even when the team placed 11th in 1999, it’s highest placement ever, it had only scored 62.5 points.

“It’s hard to argue that this isn’t the best tournament we’ve ever had,” Mitchell said. “I think last year was the little breakthrough that we needed. Now, with Bronco winning a county championship and breaking that 38-year drought, there’s no doubt we’ve really set it off. We still have some wrestling left in the season, but we’re very excited for the future.”