Upcoming Games Will Prove a Lot for East Hampton Boys Basketball

Despite suffering a 72-60 nonleague loss over the holiday break on December 27 at host Kings Park, East Hampton boys basketball head coach Dan White said it was one of the best games his team has played this season, and the Bonackers are 3-0 in League IV games, 5-2 overall.

The reigning Class A county champion Kingsmen possess one of the top players in Suffolk County in Matthew Garside, who scored 29 points and largely led a first-quarter outburst in which Kings Park outscored East Hampton, 26-16. From that point on, though, it was an even game. In fact, Bonac was only trailing by six points with just over two minutes remaining in the game when senior Luke Reese was called for what White thought was a questionable foul, his fifth of the game, fouling out and leaving East Hampton a little undermanned to make any more of a comeback.

Liam Fowkes, a junior, and senior Jack Dickinson each scored 17 points in the loss, while Reese finished with 14 points.

“It was absolutely perfect for us, to be quite honest,” White said of the game. “I had given the entire team off for Christmas and Christmas Eve, obviously, so we weren’t overly prepared for them, but I was impressed with Kings Park. They might have one of the best players in the county in Garside, and they’ll be one of the top teams in [League IV]. But every one of our players played well and that’s all that matters. We gave the returning champions all they could handle.”

East Hampton kept its unblemished league record intact with a 59-37 home victory over Rocky Point on December 19 and a 47-35 victory at Westhampton Beach in its final game before the holiday break on December 22. Toby Foster, a freshman, led the offensive charge against Rocky Point, racking up a team-leading 14 points. Fowkes and Reese each scored 13 points. Fowkes scored a game-high 23 points off of five three-pointers in the win at Westhampton Beach.

White said that the next two weeks are very important for his team, playing some of the top teams League IV has to offer, and it started Tuesday night against Comsewogue, which went into that contest, like Bonac, undefeated in league play. It is somewhat surprising the Warriors are doing so well being that they haven’t been all that competitive in recent years. But as White pointed out, the change throughout the county to go from enrollment-based leagues to geographic-based has done wonders for some programs.

“Comsewogue has always been good, probably, they’ve just been buried in a league for years that had the top teams in the county, like Kings Park, Amityville,” he explained. “Now, like a lot of us, they’re on a more even playing field and they’re doing well.”

After Comsewogue, the Bonackers are scheduled to play at an always competitive Shoreham-Wading River this Thursday, January 5, and then have big back-to-back games, hosting Mount Sinai this Tuesday, January 10, at 6:45 p.m. before playing at Bayport-Blue Point on January 12 at 4:45 p.m.