The East Hampton YMCA Hurricanes Are Back-to-Back State Champions

A year ago, the East Hampton YMCA Hurricanes swim team won the New York State YMCA Championships for the first time in its 19-year history as a club and, for all intents and purposes, the program had reached a pinnacle after years of building up to that moment.

While head coach Tom Cohill agreed it was a high-point for his program, he also knew there was more to come. This past weekend, the Hurricanes repeated as state champions at the Burt Flickenger Athletic Center in Buffalo, accumulating 439.3 points between their boys and girls combined, finishing 58 points ahead of second place Huntington YMCA Bluefish. Southeast Family Branch YMCA finished third with 374.2, Auburn YMCA finished fourth with 329 points and Rye rounded out the top five with 274.7 points.

Cohill had a feeling going into the final day of the meet on Sunday that his team had a shot at winning, but he personally doesn’t look or pay attention to the scores, so he didn’t know until his assistant coaches and swimmers told him that they had won. He said that after what was a challenging season, it felt good to win another state title.

“There’s been a lot of challenges for a lot of different reasons,” he said. “There were a lot of bugs going around, so it’s definitely been, I feel, a less than smooth couple of months as far training is concerned, and as far as everything is concerned.

“But one of the things that we really saw this weekend was the leadership from the captains and the older kids on the team,” he continued. “I think that I knew we would have a good team, I had no expectations of going there and winning. I think the kids were enthusiastic and excited and they were ready to race. I think one of the things, despite the last rocky couple of months, is this team really shows up. They support each other, and when they do that, their performances become more about having fun, and the results, it’s like they become organic in a way.”

Each year for the state meet, Cohill said, the swimmers get to choose their color scheme of their swim caps. This year, the team chose bright pink caps with black lettering that really made them stand out. That made it a little easier for Cohill to follow along.

“I was seeing a lot of good performances from across those pink caps,” he said. “In all honesty, I didn’t look at the score until the end of the meet last night, because I feel like if the kids are doing the little things — they’ve got good energy, they’re cheering for each other — then each person is doing their part, and their scores and times will work themselves out. I didn’t know what the scores were until my teammates and assistant coaches told me, and some of that might be me being a little superstitious.”

Swimmers qualify for states by hitting certain standards throughout the season and can do so at any YMCA-sanctioned meet. Once again, similar to last year, East Hampton had over 50 swimmers compete at states, which is a solid number, but far from the most.

It was clear that East Hampton was led by its strong girls squad, which more or less dominated the competition. The girls accumulated 26 gold medals, 11 silver and nine bronze, all very much well ahead of their competition. The top three swimmers, in terms of individual medal counts — Summer Jones, Heidi Rizzo and Daisy Pitches — all hailed from East Hampton. Jones was selected as the female recipient of this year’s New York State YMCA scholarship and she also set a new program record in the 200-yard freestyle, finishing in 1:55.76, surpassing Maggie Purcell’s 2016 record of 1:56.05. Jones won state titles in the 15- 19-year-old 200 free, 50 free, 100 free, 100 fly and 500 free.

Rizzo won state titles in the 9-10 50 breast, 50 back, 200 free and 100 IM; Pitches won the 200 IM, 50 free and 100 free; Novella Dunham won the 8-and-under 25 free and 50 free; Mia Luna won the 11-12 50 breast; Vanessa Rizzo won the 11-12 50 back; Cami Hatch won the 15-19 100 back; and Jane Brierley won the 15-18 100 breast, much like she did this past fall swimming for the East Hampton girls varsity swim team. The girls 8-and-under 100 free and medley relays won state titles, the 10-and-under 200 free relay won, the 11-12 and 13-14 200 free relays won, and 11-12 200 free relay won and the girls 15-18 relay not only were state champions, but were national qualifiers.

Liam Knight paced the boys with a pair of state-title clinching performances in the 13-14 100 back and 500 free. Miles Menu was a state champ in the 200 free and the boys 13-14 relay were champs as well. Hurricanes assistant swim coach Angelika Cruz noted that Aidan Menu was the second alternate for the team in the 100 free, and when there was a no-show in the “B” final, Aidan hopped out of the warm-up pool, ran to the empty block and not only swam his best time, but came in second place.

“Winning a state championship does not happen because a few win events. State championships are won by the points scored by each member of the team,” Cruz explained in the team’s emails to swimmers and families. “Those that did not reach scoring position added to the chemistry needed to win by cheering and supporting their teammates until the very end of each long session.

“And the parents are part of that winning chemistry also,” she added. “They not only stayed to cheer until the end of each long session, but have driven the kids back and forth to practice throughout the season. A special recognition for those parents that volunteered [their] time because without them there would be no meet to win!”