Hills West loses to North Babylon 14-15 in Season Opener

In the first official game of the season for Hills West, they competed against North Babylon on their home turf. In arguably one of the best lacrosse games the spectators have ever seen, the game was quite exciting even for the competing players. Zach Lebowitz, a junior defenseman, said “It was one of the most exciting games I’ve ever been a part of during my time as a lacrosse player here in high school.”

As the game was going back and forth the whole time, the aggression from both teams was really escalating. At one point during the game, Hills West was looking for offensive moments to come and happen, as their defense and offense were not yet in sync. Led by scorers Willie Holmquist, who added three goals of his own, and Brendan Forte, who tallied in two goals. The real hero early on seemed to be Andrew McAlpine who had a whopping four goals. Perhaps his most pivotal goal came when Hills was trailing with under a minute in the game left. With thirty seconds left, McAlpine managed to split three defenders and throw in a goal that had the fans go wild. Before McAlpine even managed to tie the game, Hills was down by three goals. With momentum, the Colts went on a 4-0 run to go up by one, with under 8 minutes to play. North Babylon decided to come back, and scored 5 goals in a row, leading Hills by one. Hills once again came back to tie the game with three minutes left. With under a minute left, they took a one point lead, and then McAlpine saved the Colts by sending them into overtime.

The Colts went into overtime tired and exhausted but still had the intensity in their eyes. They played their hearts out and lost by 1 goal. Senior starter Brendan Forte had this to say : “This game was one of the most exciting games of lacrosse I have ever been involved in. We are in a new season, forgetting about the past and we came out wanting it. They were up by 1 goal with 39 seconds left and we never gave up. We scored and went into overtime. It was a huge upset for us when they scored to win it 2 minutes into overtime. We are going to try to put it behind us and work hard to move forward and win from now on.” Better luck next time, Hills.