The Hurricanes of ’98 were one of the best teams the East End, or Long Island for that matter, has ever seen. They compiled a perfect season of 28-0 for the first championship in Westhampton Beach school history.
On Friday, February 8, Westhampton Beach High School held a 10th year reunion of the team on Senior Night before the current boys team faced Shoreham-Wading River.
“The best experience I’ve ever had as a coach,” said coach Bill Hempfling, who was an assistant on the 1998 team and organized the reunion with athletic director Kathy Masterson. “That season for me was, in one word, ‘incredible.’”
Many of the players, coaches, and fans around the community, have the exact same feelings about that season.
Westhampton Beach was actually one of two teams that won a New York State public school championship that year. The Bridgehampton Killer Bees won the Class D title in the same season, bringing two titles to the East End.
Hempfling, assistant coach Jack Vivonetto, who returned to the Westhampotn Beach bench as an assistant this season, and former head coach Rich Wrase all took part in the festivities on Friday night, along with a handful of former players from the team.
Wrase compiled a record of 168-26 during his career at Westhampton Beach, including eight straight league championships, three county championships, and, of course, the state title. Wrase helped mold 13 all-county players and 10 all-state players.
“In every big game that we played,” he said, “it just seemed like someone always came up big for us.
With half of the team growing up together, literally on the same block, chemistry became almost second nature. Jeremy Liggon, Mike Ford, Jason Ritchie and Bronson Martin, Westhampton’s reigning career leader in points with 1,708, all lived on Hazelwood Avenue and played basketball together. Jermaine Hollman, who lived just a few streets over, would join them.
“I remember playing basketball in Jeremy’s backyard at 9 years old,” said Martin, “and us dreaming about winning a state title together.”
The five of them would go on to play together through junior high and then in high school. Dale Menendez, MVP of the Public School tournament, and Dwayne Sanders joined them and thus became the nucleus of one of the greatest teams on the East End.
“We were seven deep,” said coach Vivonetto. “No matter who other teams tried to take out, there was always someone to fill in that spot.”
The fire for the team was lit the season before the championship run when they ended the 1996-97 season with a loss to Amityville in the Class B county championship.
“The following year we didn’t want that feeling and it brought us together,” said Jermaine Hollman, who became MVP of the Federation tournament in 1998.
The road to the championship was definitely a long and hard one. The Hurricanes had to face North Babylon in the county championship, the only team that gave them trouble in the first game of the 1997-98 season. In the playoffs, the Canes had no trouble breezing past them. Then came the Long Island championship game against Southside, which was one of coach Hempfling’s most memorable games. Hempfling, along with coach Vivonetto, went to go scout Southside in the Nassau County championship game against Hempstead. They were a good team and both were very impressed.
“I remember talking to Jack on the car ride home,” said Hempfling, “and we both agreed that they were very good. We paused, looked at each other, then, almost at the same time, we said ‘so we should beat them by 20 points.’ That’s how confident we were.”
The Hurricanes actually won by 19 and missed the 20-point mark because Hollman missed a dunk at the end of the game.
By winning the Long Island title, Westhampton Beach advanced to the state final four in Glens Falls, New York. The Canes blew out Rochester area Penn Yan Academy before advancing to meet Westhill for the state championship. On paper, Westhill entered the game as an obvious favorite. The Warriors had gone 27-0 to win the Class B state title the year before and hadn’t lost a game in almost two years.
But the Hurricanes’ well known and well regarded trap defense was just too much for Westhill as the they upset the favorite. Southampton head coach Herm Lamison was one of the few who believed Westhampton would win.
“They had a great nucleus of talent and great coaches,” said Lamison. “I am a defensive oriented coach and any team that can play with the energy and passion on defense is critical to a championship team. They were one of the best teams.”
On their way home from Glens Falls, after the state championship, the team was escorted from Sunrise Highway to the high school by the fire and police departments and greeted by an estimated 800 people. It was something that almost every member of the team has fond memories of .
But it was not only the players and coaches who appreciated the gesture.
“It seemed like thousands of people would show up to every game, whether it was home or away,” said Enoch and Lillian Martin, parents of Bronson Martin. “The community helped the boys out so much it was unbelievable.”
One person in particular who was very close to the team and community was Laurance Makransky. “Big Larry” was owner of The Sandwich Club and the Circle M Beverage Barn and a school board member who earned the nickname as the “Godfather” of Westhampton Beach basketball. Makransky died in a 2001 car accident in North Carolina.
Makransky helped out a lot of the players while they played on Police Athletic League teams. Wrase said he also used to send at least two kids a year to a five-star basketball camp in Pennsylvania, something not many in the community knew of before his death.
The Larry Makransky Tournament is usually held every year at Westhampton Beach High School. Although the girls team held the tournament this year, the boys tournament could not be held. The event will be renewed next year, according to Wrase.
The Federation tournament includes champions from the Catholic High School Association, the New York City Public School Athletic Association and the Independent Private School Athletic League along with the Public School Athletic Association. The Hurricanes had to make a second trip to Glens Falls during a massive winter storm to partake in the tournament. When they got to the championship, Wadleigh from Harlem was waiting for them. The Hurricanes took the championship with astonishing ease and shocked not only themselves but the entire state.
It was not too long after winning the championship that the players and coaches had to move on. Bronson Martin graduated and went on to Cornell University, where he graduated cum laude with a degree in economics and management. He now works in New York as an associate at a financial services firm. Jermaine Hollman graduated and played basketball for four years at the New York Institute of Technology and was, for a short time, a graduate assistant coach. He now works in Manhattan at Scholastic Publishing. Wrase moved on to Suffolk County Community College in 2003 where he became head coach of the men’s basketball team. According to the SCCC website, coach Wrase’s record is 110-13 and he has won two regional championships. In his first year as coach, he finished the season 34-0.
Coach Wrase perhaps summed up the Hurricanes’ accomplishment best when he spoke to his team after the after the Federation championship.
“No one can ever beat it, they can only tie it,” he told them.
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