East Hampton Wrestlers Pick Up First League Dual Meet Victory at Home Friday Night

For the past decade or so, the East Hampton/Pierson/Bridgehampton/Ross wrestling team has had a good back-and-forth with West Babylon, with the latter winning a good portion of the matches early on during that time period and the Bonackers starting to turn things around more recently.

Bonac head coach Ethan Mitchell said that in the past couple of years his team has defeated West Babylon but it’s only been by mere points, and he felt, going into Friday night’s dual meet, his team was good enough to win with points to spare. The Bonackers did that and more, impressing their head coach in the 48-19 victory, their first League IV dual meet win.

Bonac won six of the 10 contested bouts by pin, which included three of the first four matches that were competed on Friday night.

“The last two times we faced West Babylon it has come down to the last match,” Mitchell said. “We were ready for a tough match, the boys were psyched up and we definitely felt we should win this match not coming down to the last one. I wasn’t expecting as many pins, but I think that goes to how tough they wrestle at home when they’re charged up and wrestling in front of a good home crowd.”

Juan Roque (124 pounds) got things started when he pinned Jack Renner in 3:08. After Anthony Petersohn (108) won his match via a 4-2 decision over Darren Barje, Esteban Velez (138) and Luke Castillo (145) won via pains in 3:02 and 3:01, respectively. By the time West Babylon won its first match East Hampton already led, 21-4, and three more pins by Adam Beckwith (170), Jhojairo Contreras (190) and Austin “Bronco” Campsey (101) really put things out of reach, along with an 8-2 decision by Francesco Palombino at 285.

Mitchell said he appreciated Beckwith’s victory as it was a nice comeback after losing his match in the season-opening dual meet at Smithtown West just two days prior on December 13, which the Bonackers lost, 43-22. Against a returning All-County wrestler in Nick Zins, Beckwith wrestled a little timid, Mitchell said, something he hadn’t done all season. But on Friday night, Beckwith came out in control from the opening whistle and wound up getting a solid pin in the second period.

Mitchell said he also liked what he saw from Contreras who secured his pin with less than a second left in the first period. And although he lost his match by a decision, Mitchell also appreciated the hard work that Alex Cabrera put in at 160 pounds. As a freshman last season Cabrera didn’t get much time in the starting lineup, but as a sophomore he’s slid right into the starting lineup at 160 and all he needs is more and more mat time, Mitchell said, to gain experience.

The Bonackers had a tough pull in their season opener, facing the top-ranked dual meet team in the county in Smithtown West. Despite that fact, Mitchell liked that his team was able to score 22 points against the Bulls with Palombino beginning the match with a pin in the third round of his match. Josue Elias (131) and Juan Espinoza (215) both won their matches via pin and Cabrera won a 9-0 major decision.

East Hampton wrestled at Bellport for another league dual meet on Wednesday and has a tri-meet at Connetquot on Saturday along with Center Moriches just prior to Christmas. Over the holiday break, the Bonackers will compete in the two-day Sal DiFazio Tournament at Half Hollow Hills East on December 28 and 29, and right out of the break on January 3, they will host Deer Park at 4:30 p.m. for another league dual meet.