8 Photos
East Hampton's Anthony Petersohn works on a pin. MARIANNE BARNETT
East Hampton senior Cooper Ceva grabs the leg of his Hampton Bays opponent. MARIANNE BARNETT
Matias Gonzalez works on top of his Hampton Bays opponent. MARIANNE BARNETT
East Hampton senior Richie Maio works on top of his Hampton Bays opponent. MARIANNE BARNETT
East Hampton sophomore Juan Roque is 10-0 to start the season. MARIANNE BARNETT
Josue Elias works with his Hampton Bays opponent. MARIANNE BARNETT
East Hampton's Esteban Velez works with his Hamptons Bays opponent. MARIANNE BARNETT
Bonacker Luke Castillo looks for some wrist control on his Hampton Bays opponent. MARIANNE BARNETT
There’s an old saying: Once is a mistake, twice is a coincidence, three times is a pattern.
As of Monday evening, the East Hampton/Pierson wrestling team had two-thirds of that saying down. After placing second at its host Sprig Gardner Tournament last weekend — its highest placement in over 20 years — the Bonackers competed in the Hampton Bays Doc Fallot Wrestling Duals on Saturday and once again impressed, going 4-1 and defeating teams that in the recent past they had typically lost to.
They looked to complete the “winning pattern” this week, in their first set of League IV dual meets on Wednesday against Deer Park and Friday at Smithtown West.
“I couldn’t ask for a better start to the season,” head coach Ethan Mitchell said. “Deer Park is down this year. Numbers-wise, we’ll be filling in all of the weight classes which will be the reason we win. In the past, we haven’t been able to do that so we’d lose those close matches. And I’m expecting we’ll have a morale boost because of that. Since we’ll have the numbers on our side, it’ll take some of the pressure off some of our guys where they just need to win. They don’t need to pin a guy or a tech a guy. They just need to win and we’ll be okay.
“Smithtown West on Friday, they have a much tougher team,” he continued. “They have one standout stud. The rest are a couple fourth places in the leagues last year then a bunch of new or inexperienced wrestlers, so we’re going to look to keep this positive momentum going.”
East Hampton defeated St. John the Baptist (35-30), host Hampton Bays (60-6), Westhampton Beach (50-20) and Elwood/John Glenn’s “B” team (46-27) at the Doc Fallot Duals with the team’s only loss coming to Glenn’s “A” team (45-26). The highlight of the day came from Pierson eighth-grader Bronco Campsey’s varsity debut, in which he went 5-0 and was impressive in just about every match.
There is a rule in wrestling that an eighth-grader needs to weigh a minimum of 94 pounds to compete in the 102-pound weight class. Campsey weighed in Saturday morning at 94 pounds, which allowed him to get on the mat. His weight was the only thing keeping him from making his debut earlier.
“He’s very technically sound. His movement and series of top moves, you very rarely saw him doing the same thing. He had a lot of take downs in a lot of different ways,” Mitchell said. “He does a lot of tilts, which allows him to score a lot of points. With his size, it makes pinning hard because you really need some weight to be able to keep a guy down, but he still has a lot of strength. He’s insanely strong.”
Juan Roque, a sophomore, a champion at the Sprig Gardner a week ago, carried over that success to the Doc Fallot, going 5-0 with three pins on the day. He’s 10-0 to start the season. Josue Elias, Cooper Ceva and Jose Calderon each went 4-1 in their respective weight classes, while Anthony Petersohn, Luke Castillo, Mattias Gonzalez, Richie Maio and Juan and Edwin Espinoza each went 3-2.
Mitchell also noted that while Esteban Velez didn’t win any matches, he also didn’t get pinned or lose by technical fall, which helps set the tone for the rest of the team and shows grit.
“The one thing I kept hearing from other teams was that we may not be technically sound, which is fine — we’re still learning, but that we’re tough, we’re fighting off our backs,” he said. “Very few times, if any, did I need to have a pep talk with a kid to make sure they were fighting, which is very encouraging.”
The Bonackers have a tri-meet at Connetquot this Saturday, when they will face the host Thunderbirds and Westhampton Beach. They will then host Bellport in a dual meet on December 21, at 4:30 p.m., in their final match before the holiday.
For the first time since January 2020, East Hampton’s kid wrestling program returned on Tuesday and will continue to run every Tuesday and Thursday night, as long as school is open, over the next several weeks. The program is for both boys and girls, grades two to eight, and is $45 per entrant. To sign up for the program, go to ehamptonny.gov, hover over “Community” and click on “Programs & Facility Booking” under “Recreation.”
