League VIII Boys Golf Will Continue To Be Very Competitive This Season With Some of the Top Golfers in the County

At last year’s Section XI Boys Golf Individual Championships, five of the top nine state qualifiers hailed from League VIII, which encompasses four of the five South Fork teams — Westhampton Beach, Southampton, Pierson/Bridgehampton and East Hampton. Four of those five individuals that qualified for the New York State Championships played for South Fork teams last year, further driving home the point that some of the best golf in the county continues to be played on the South Fork.

And that should be no different this year.

Westhampton Beach pair Owen Jessop and Zach Berger and East Hampton pair Nico Horan-Puglia and Trevor Stachecki were state qualifiers last year, and three of those four golfers return. Southampton, which won the League VIII title last season to earn the highest seed (six) of the South Fork teams in the county team tournament, had three golfers, Liam Blackmore, Jack Browne and Ronan Brady, reach the second day of the county tournament, and two of those three golfers are returning. And Pierson is returning both of its golfers that competed at counties.

Southampton

As good as East Hampton and Westhampton Beach were last season, it was the Mariners who prevailed on top of League VIII last season, thanks to the team’s depth throughout the lineup. On top of having a two-time All-County golfer in Liam Blackmore, Southampton also had some senior experience in Brian Emmons and Jack Browne, and Ronan Brady was a pleasant surprise at the county tournament.

While Emmons and Browne have since graduated, the Mariners still return four of their six starters, with Blackmore being a bona fide number one, followed by Brady, sophomore Ethan Heuer and junior Cooper Tracey. Sam Conklin, a junior, has a few varsity matches under his belt and is looking to take a starting role, as is sophomore Colin DeLalio, who is new to varsity. Southampton head coach Tim Schreck said that the last two spots on varsity are up for grabs, and has three players going for them. He said this weekend that he should have the entire lineup figured out by the team’s first match of the season, which was home at Southampton Golf Club on Wednesday against Pierson.

“I feel like all three teams all lost some good golfers,” Schreck said of the top three teams in League VIII last season, his own, East Hampton and Westhampton Beach. “All have potential replacements for those that were lost, they all have solid returners, and so it’s going to come down to the newer members of each of those teams. It’s going to be another battle.”

East Hampton

The common theme throughout the South Fork boys golf landscape is that each team did graduate quite a few, but they’ve still got their top golfers in place, which is the case with the Bonackers. Trevor Stachecki led the list of graduates for East Hampton last season, and he has since been able to walk on to the men’s golf team at Middlebury College in Vermont. But Nico Horan-Puglia, a two-time state qualifier and a five-year varsity golfer himself, returns as number one.

Juan Palacios, a four-year varsity player, also returns, and Lucas Centolanza is the only other returning varsity player from last season.

“Between Nick and Juan, we’ll be relying on their leadership and experience, and I think they’ll both serve the young players really well,” East Hampton head coach Rich King said. “After that, we have a bunch of good players who are kind of young and inexperienced at the varsity golf level. I think the next week or two will tell us more about those guys.

“All three of those programs have a lot of depth at the top of the lineup, where their top kids are some of the top kids in the county,” King said of his team, Southampton and Westhampton Beach. “There’s so much depth within our programs each year, our top JV kids could fight for spots at the varsity level. It’s a good luxury to have, and we’re lucky to have that because it creates competition. We have a lot of options, which is good for the kids to know they have to compete, not only in match play, but in practice. It makes everyone better.”

East Hampton opened the season against William Floyd on Wednesday and was scheduled to play at Southampton on Thursday.

Westhampton Beach

The Hurricanes’ top three of Zach Berger, Owen Jessop and Charlie Beasley are arguably the top three on the South Fork, and possibly in the county. They’ll be relied upon heavily with an inexperienced back end of the lineup after the graduations of Zach Bennett and Avery Merrihew.

Returning to the team from last year are juniors Nick Barrusso and Reid Groth and Dagney Beasley, Charlie’s younger sister who is a sophomore. First-year senior Jack Hendrickson and junior Dylan Razzano join the team.

“We’re very strong at the top — you could make the argument that we have three number ones — the question marks are on the back end,” Westhampton Beach head coach Fred Musumeci said. “We’re going to be good, but we don’t quite know how good we’re going to be. We’re coaching up the back end as best we can.”

The ’Canes opened the season on Tuesday in a tri-meet against Center Moriches and Pierson, and then played Center Moriches again on Wednesday.

Pierson

Unlike some of their South Fork counterparts, Pierson has been hit hard by graduation the past few seasons and that trend doesn’t seem to be slowing down any time soon. And when you’re already the smallest school in the league, it just doesn’t help in terms of building a rhythm season after season. Still, the Whalers have been able to stay competitive enough that they qualify for the county tournament year in and year out, and head coach Clint Schulman expects that to continue this season.

Pierson lost Bridgehampton’s Jack Boeshore, Ross School’s Yudai Morikawa and Sag Harbor’s own Christian Pantina to graduation. One luxury the program doesn’t have this season is players from those other feeder districts, at least at the varsity level.

But the Whalers got two shots in the arm when seniors Harry Ambrose and Nathan Dee both decided to come back out for the team after taking last season off. They’ll join senior Carter Kleinsmith and junior Adam Drohan, who are returning after qualifying for counties last year. Seniors Brandan Mitchell and Mason Wheeler also return, along with junior Paul Roesel.

“It’s rough being in this League VIII every year when three of the top teams in the league are some of the best in the county,” Schulman said. “But we’ve managed to stay very competitive every year. Our record may not say all that much, but we always do enough to get to the county tournament and I’m always happy about that. There’s also great camaraderie among all of the teams in the league and that seems to really push everyone to be at their best.”

The Whalers played William Floyd on Monday, Westhampton Beach on Tuesday and Southampton on Wednesday. They will play at East Hampton on Monday.