The Middlesex Boys' Varsity Lacrosse team opened its season with a tough home win against a talented young Pingree team on Saturday afternoon at Herter Field. After a picturesque snowy warm up, MX got off to a strong start with great physicality on defense and in the middle of the field, and with unselfish ball movement on offense. As the weather became more mild, new junior Colin Hope '26 opened the scoring for the home team, setting the tone for a hot start to the game, as consecutive goals by Owen Crann '25 (from Matt Egan '25 and Isaiah Atherton '26, respectively), and a nice inside finish from freshman Will Batchelor '28, also from Egan, finished off the quarter with the Zebras in the lead 4-0.

Pingree punched back at the beginning of the second with consecutive goals: one by Henry Card '27 on the extra man opportunity, and one from junior Jake Hiltz '26 after some quality offense. Colton McCann stopped the run with his first of three goals in the contest. A tightly contested, and sloppily played, fourth quarter saw some great individual efforts from both teams, including Crann and McCann's third goals of the game and a huge game winning save by Will Cohen '25, who made a number of monumental doorstep stops in the second half. Both Cohen and Arjun Rath '25 were solid in cage for the home team throughout the game.

The unsung heroes of the game, who played lockdown defense for four quarters, were Luke Sardone '27 (4 GBs, 3 CTs), Jack Francini (2 GBs, 3 CTs), and Emmett Goodrich, whose 2 GBs and 2 CTs took a back seat to his tone-setting physicality and his blanketing of an unlucky Pingree attackman.

Middlesex Boys' Varsity Lacrosse is back in action at Phillips Andover on April 2nd before the start of the ISL season.