East Hampton Athletes Are Ready To Begin Play This Spring

After the COVID-19 pandemic forced the cancellation of the 2020 spring athletic season across all of New York State, this spring marks the first time in two years that sports such as baseball, softball, lacrosse, girls golf and track and field will be played in two years.

Because of that fact, Section XI, the governing body of Suffolk County high school athletics, has dedicated itself to ensuring that this season goes off without a hitch. To that end, the county has scheduled the spring season to run from May into the second week of June, which it was able to do when the state canceled all of its championship tournaments. Typically the season starts late March/early April, but the fall season was pushed back and ended in late April.

The county has used the previous two seasons, the winter and the fall, as a springboard to this season, and has taken what it’s learned during that time as a way to improve how high school athletics are run during a pandemic. Furthermore, the county just loosened its COVID testing requirements (see separate story) for high-risk sports such as boys lacrosse, in an effort to give those athletes as normal a season as possible, which is the ultimate goal for this season.

The following are brief previews of where each program stands going into the spring.

When Annemarie Brown took over the softball program in 2019, along with assistant coach and her cousin Mel Anderson, she admitted that she didn’t know many of her players and that the program basically had to start from scratch with the fundamentals. Last season, after four days of tryouts, Brown was ready to make her decision on who would make the varsity teams and who would be going down to junior varsity, then the pandemic happened and canceled the season.

After doing a number of summer and fall leagues, once pandemic restrictions lifted, Brown is encouraged with how much improvement she’s seen in the players and how their love of the game has also returned, something she noticed on the very first day of tryouts last week.

Maddie Brown, a junior second baseman, and sophomore catcher Emily Kennedy are the only two holdovers from the 2019 squad. Senior captain Katrina Osterberg was due back as well but will not be able to play this season due to knee surgery she underwent over a week ago.

The Bonackers have two seniors this season in Ella Grenci, who will start at first base, and Sarah Baylinson, who Brown said will see playing time here and there. The rest of this year’s squad will be made up of sophomore starting pitcher Caroline Disunno, junior third baseman Leah Masi, freshman center fielder Katie Kuneth and sophomore shortstop Emma Terry. Brown said the team has a number of strong outfielders as well that should help the team improve from its three-win 2019 campaign.

East Hampton will play in League V and started the season on Tuesday at perennial powerhouse Kings Park and will play another strong program in Sayville this Saturday at home at 4 p.m.

The South Fork boys lacrosse team, comprising student-athletes from Bridgehampton, East Hampton, Pierson, the Ross School and Southampton, was expecting to take a big leap forward in 2019, but an off-the-field injury led to starting goalie Hudson Brindle to miss most of the season, which ultimately led to the Islanders to going 3-13 in Division I. The Islanders were eager to quickly turn that around in 2020 but the season was canceled due to COVID.

With the team back and healthy, the South Fork team, which was ranked 17th out of 21 Division I schools this preseason, is finally ready to prove it can play with the top teams in Suffolk County. Luke Marro, a two-time All-Division and All-County player who has led the team in goals every year since he was in eighth grade, returns for his final season. Hudson Brindle, a Pierson senior, Southampton senior attack Zac Mobius and East Hampton senior defender and four-year starter Aiden Cooper all make up the team’s captains along with Marro.

Southampton seniors Cooper Brindle, Andre Aponte and Jai Agoglia all return as well. New to the team this season are Southampton seniors Owen Koszalka, Jarrett Helgerson, Riley Fisher, Reece Nugent, Sebastian Frowein and Griffin Wei, junior Justin Marro and sophomore Chance Brindle, and East Hampton seniors Bryan Pannasch, Lucas Nordlinger, Ethan Stein, Kai Esposito and Nick Lombardo, junior Colin Schaefer and freshmen Jack Cooper and Charlie Corwin.

The boys started the season on Tuesday against William Floyd and also play Copiague and Riverhead on Thursday and Saturday of this week, respectively.

The East Hampton-Pierson-Bridgehampton-Ross girls lacrosse team has struggled with numbers and a lack of experience in the past, but head coach Jessica Sanna is hoping this season the team starts to make some positive changes.

Pierson senior Grace Perello headlines the team after leading it in scoring in 2019. She’s key on draw controls and stands out on both attack and defense. East Hampton senior Asha Hokanson is another key returning player who Sanna said specializes in ground balls and causing turnovers. East Hampton junior Laura Calderon will lead the defense in goal, along with defenders Emma Stein, an East Hampton junior, and Emily Flores, an East Hampton sophomore.

The rest of the team is new to varsity, but Sanna is expecting East Hampton freshmen Lola Garneau and Melina Sarlo to contribute to the team’s success right away.

The Bonackers will be playing in the large school Division I for the first time ever this season and will play against the likes of Brentwood, Sachem East and Patchogue-Medford. They started the season on Wednesday at Commack and will also play this Friday at North Babylon.

The East Hampton-Pierson-Bridgehampton boys track team will be a mix of strong senior athletes and young up-and-coming athletes.

Leading the way will be East Hampton senior Luc Campbell and Pierson senior Ben McErlean, both of which were named captains by East Hampton head coach Ben Turnbull. Campbell can compete in just about any event, which is why he’ll compete in the pentathlon at invitationals and postseason meets, and he also runs the 110-meter high hurdles exclusively. McErlean, coming off a cross country season in which he won the Suffolk County Class D title, leads what is a strong middle and long distance running group. He’ll run almost exclusively in the 1,600-meter race, in which Turnbull said he’ll be looking to run under 4:20.

Pierson junior P.J. Ramundo, who was also key runner on Pierson’s county championship cross country team, will be running in the 3,200-meter race along with East Hampton freshman Brayan Rivera, who will be running in both the 3,200 and 1,600. East Hampton junior Amari Gordon (800, 1,600), Pierson junior Jackson Bakes (100- and 200-meter dashes), Pierson sophomore Marcus Krotman (400-, 800-meter runs) and East Hampton freshman Liam Fowkes (800, 1,600) all create what is to be a competitive running group for the Bonackers.

The boys don’t have their first meet until May 13 when it hosts Islip.

The East Hampton-Pierson-Bridgehampton girls track team will be led by its strong group of distance runners this season, head coach Yani Cuesta said. Pierson senior Penelope Greene, who won the Suffolk Class D title, and East Hampton freshman Dylan Cashin, who placed third in the county Class B race, form a tough one-two tandem in long distance races for Bonac, along with East Hampton seniors Ava Engstrom and Bella Tarbet and junior Emma Hren.

East Hampton senior Isabella Espinoza specializes in the pole vault and will make an impact in both league dual meets and later on in the postseason, Cuesta said. Pierson sophomore Meredith Spolarich is joining the track team for the first time and Cuesta said she’s done well early on in the discus and middle to long distance running events. East Hampton senior Tiffany Georgopolous is the team’s most experienced triple jumper and leads what is a young group in the jumps.

The girls began the season on Wednesday against Mount Sinai.

The East Hampton-Pierson boys tennis team only returns three players in East Hampton senior Matthew McGovern, East Hampton sophomore Max Astilean and Pierson junior Jackson LaRose from its 2019 squad. East Hampton head coach Kevin McConville said the team was hit hard not only by graduation, but players who transferred to different schools or who just simply opted not to play tennis this season.

East Hampton freshman Nick Cooper is new to the team and could push Astilean for the No. 1 singles spot throughout the season. McGovern will continue to play doubles at the top pairing with East Hampton senior Brian Chen. East Hampton sophomore Jesse Cohen and East Hampton senior Max Houser will compete in the doubles lineup as well.

East Hampton began its season this week with a pair of non-league matches against Miller Place on Wednesday and Ward Melville on Friday.

East Hampton head coach Vinny Alversa thought 2020 was going to be the season his up-and-coming program was going to breakout and possibly earn its first postseason berth in quite some time before it was canceled. He felt with good senior leadership the team could have broke through.

Now the Bonackers must regroup and will do so with a solid core of returning players from the last time they took the field in 2019. Leading that group is junior pitcher Colin Ruddy, who, this past summer, was selected to play in the prestigious Area Code Games, which feature the top 150 high school players in the country. He'll anchor what Alversa thinks will be a strong pitching staff, which also includes sophomore Jack Dickinson and 6-foot-7-inch lefty Charlie Condon.

Also returning is senior infielder Drew Salamy, junior infielder Avery Siska and freshman catcher Nico Horan-Puglia, who Alversa said most likely would have started last season as an eighth grader.

Newcomers this season include sophomore pitcher/infielder Nick Eberhart, sophomore outfielder Callum Anderson, sophomore pitcher Will Darrell, freshman outfielder Michael Locasio and eighth-grade pitcher Carter Dickinson, Jack’s younger brother.

East Hampton kicks off the season this Saturday evening against Kings Park at the Moriches Sports Complex at 5 p.m.