East Hampton boys tennis honors six seniors after 7-0 Longwood win

Griffin Beckmann, Joseph Martinez-Garces, Evan Schaefer, Henry Cooper, Julian Blandon and Lucas Centalonza were the faces of East Hampton boys tennis on Friday, when the Bonackers followed a 7-0 win over Longwood with pizza, plaques and a senior-night celebration that felt bigger than a single dual meet. Beckmann will go to Brown University to study environmental sciences and studies, Martinez-Garces is headed to Yale for ethics, politics and economics, Centalonza will attend Roger Williams University for business and Schaefer will continue at the College of Charleston. Cooper had not announced his plans.

Pablo Montesi’s sendoff made clear why this group mattered to the program. Schaefer picked up tennis in his senior year, reached varsity and competed in both singles and doubles. Blandon emerged as one of the team’s most improved players, with his net play becoming a strength. Centalonza and Martinez-Garces gave East Hampton a dependable doubles partnership, while Beckmann was named captain and handled first doubles with confidence. Cooper, meanwhile, had played more matches than anyone on the roster over the past three seasons, becoming the kind of steady presence small-school programs lean on.

The Longwood result fit neatly into a spring that has already shown East Hampton’s depth. On April 29, the Bonackers beat Sachem 6-1 in their first match against Sachem since the school joined the newly aligned Eastern Conference in Suffolk Division I. The only loss came at first singles, where Cooper played competitively against Leonardo Villacreses, whom Montesi called the second-best player in Suffolk County. That made the sweep even more telling: East Hampton was not merely rolling through a weak stretch, but holding its own against one of the county’s best players and still winning across the lineup.

That confidence has been building at home, too. East Hampton opened its home season on March 23 with a 6-1 win over Riverhead, led by a 12-10 super tiebreak victory from Martinez-Garces and Centalonza at second doubles, a first-doubles win from Beckmann and freshman Harry Schultz, and a 6-0, 6-0 shutout by Cooper at first singles. Alex Valentine, a middle school student, added a win at third singles. Beckmann said the windy home courts can be difficult at first, but eventually become an advantage because the Bonackers are used to them.

The 2026 seniors did not arrive out of nowhere. A 2025 win over Islip already showed Beckmann, Martinez-Garces, Centalonza, Cooper and the rest of the core taking shape. Their departure now leaves East Hampton with more than a polished senior class. It leaves a standard for what the program can be on the East End: competitive, experienced and built to matter when the wind picks up and the matches tighten.