Bonackers Savor Win Over ‘Canes

For the first time since 2009, an East Hampton High School football team defeated its Westhampton Beach peers, by a score of 27-7 on Saturday.

The Hurricanes were forced to punt all four times they had the ball in the first quarter, a 12-minute span during which the host Bonackers tallied 20 points, which ultimately proved to be the margin of victory.

East Hampton/Pierson/Bridgehampton punted the first time it had the ball, but then, taking advantage of short Hurricane punts, broke the ice with Jai Feaster’s first-and-goal 4-yard carry about seven-and-a-half minutes into the contest, and followed up with a 41-yard scoring pass from Bonac’s quarterback, Theo Ball, to Livs Kuplins, and with another TD pass, in the flat, to Kuplins, who ran the remaining 14 yards into the end zone.

That last first-quarter touchdown, scored with 11 seconds left in the period, followed a blocked punt by East Hampton’s Orson O’Brien that his fellow linebacker, Tiger Brew, fell on at Westhampton Beach’s 12-yard line. Manny Morales’s point-after kick sailed wide right, the first time that’s happened to him this season.

But then, in the second quarter, things became interesting as Bryan Schaumloffel, Westhampton Beach’s coach, made adjustments that pretty much shut down East Hampton’s running game and, conversely, fueled that of the Hurricanes, whose bulldozing running back, Nic Simone, repeatedly rushed through holes opened for him by Westhampton Beach’s huge O-line.

As the second quarter began, Westhampton Beach, set back on its 4-yard line as the result of three successive 5-yard penalties, found itself in trouble again as Bonac’s Cole Dunchick intercepted a Pat Fay pass at the 29. But four plays later, Riley Maire replied with an interception of his own, at the 13, giving Hurricane fans something to cheer about for the first time that afternoon and setting up an impressive 87-yard, 14-play drive that Simone, reeling off big gains now, capped with a first-and-goal 5-yard touchdown run to which Maire added the extra point.

With 20 seconds left until the break, the Hurricanes came very close to scoring again. Their drive began at East Hampton’s 45, beginning with a Fay to Dan Shannon screen pass good for a first down at the 35. Fay then passed to Simone, who advanced the ball to Bonac’s 17. Following a Westhampton Beach timeout, and with three seconds left on the clock, Fay targeted Maire at the goal line as Kuplins, closing in, batted the ball away, an effort, however, that drew a pass interference call, presenting the Hurricanes with a first-and-goal at the 8, where Fay, having faked a hand-off to Simone, gave the ball to Shannon, who swept swiftly toward the right corner of Bonac’s end zone, where he was met just shy of the line by Charlie Stern and Jackson Carney.

Both coaches, Schaumloffel and East Hampton’s Joe McKee, agreed later that that stop was the play of the game.

“If we score there,” Schaumloffel said afterward in an email, “it puts us right back in it.”

East Hampton was on the move again as the third quarter began, but, with the Bonackers going for it on fourth-and-2 from Westhampton Beach’s 17, Alex Davis, East Hampton’s workhorse running back, was stopped at the line of scrimmage, turning the ball over. Soon after, Fay, facing a third-and-4 at the 39, went long, but the pass, intended for Kyle Coffey, rushing down the left sideline, was overthrown. Rather than punt, Westhampton Beach went to Simone on fourth down, but he, as happened to Davis before him, was stopped at the line.

Davis too was stopped short moments later, twice, on third-and-2 and fourth-and-2 from the 20. Fay took to the air on first down, but his pass was intercepted by Carney at the ’Canes’ 37 — East Hampton’s third interception of the day. Presented with a short field once more, the Bonackers cashed in in the opening minutes of the fourth, Ronick running the ball in from the 1, after which Morales’s point-after kick made it, 27-7, East Hampton.

Carney was to come up big again when, with two-and-a-half minutes left, he fell on a Morales punt at the 2, before it rolled into Westhampton Beach’s end zone. Simone gained 9 yards on the first play, gained 12 more after a pass for Nate LoGelfo went incomplete, and was in the midst of reeling off another long gain when time ran out.

“A great team win,” McKee was to say to his jubilant players in the post-game huddle. “But we’re nowhere near done. Next up is West Islip. Enjoy this tonight, but tomorrow it’s back to work.”

As for Westhampton Beach, “they’re a well-coached team,” said McKee. “They took us out of our running game … that stop we made at the end of the first half was the play of the game.”

“We gotta keep rolling,” Jason Menu, East Hampton’s line coach, said, as he and reporters walked off the field. “West Islip, then Sayville.”

“Outside of losing, which stings,” Schaumloffel said in the email, “I’m glad to see the success that Coach McKee and East Hampton are having … the East End needs football for our communities and high schools.”

East Hampton’s win improved its record to 4-1, and dropped Westhampton Beach to 2-3.