Little Spring in First Week of Hawks' Warm-Weather Sports

It has been, indeed, a long, cruel winter. At long last, however, the snow is gone and it's time for the spring sports season.

Taking a quick look back at the winter season, we can proudly lay claim to two more state championships, as the swimming team managed to re-claim the perch that it had maintained for 24 consecutive years and took the state title in decisive fashion, its 25th title in the past 26 years. On the mat, the Hawks' wrestlers once again dominated Rhode Island competiton and walked away with their third consecutive state championship.

The winter season did, however, end in uncharactistically harsh fashion, as our guys fell to archrival LaSalle in the hockey state finals, two games to one. The Rams were a very talented team this season and over the course of the entire schedule certainly proved that they deserved their hard-fought state title.

That loss to the Rams did seem to leave a bad after taste, though, once the spring season got underway last week. Twice more we went head-to-head with the Maroon, and twice we were waxed - The Rams' volleyball squad took our guys in straight sets (in a contest broadcast live right here on The Network), 25-23, 25-19, and 25-18. To their credit, our guys kept fighting throughout, but in the end the Rams' attack was simply too much to overcome. Some of the Hawks' fight can be seen here:

The following night the Rams then came to Hayden Stadium on our own campus to take on the Hawks' LaCrosse guys (another contest broadcast live right here on The Network), and the result was much the same and possibly even a bit worse, as the defending state champions walked off our turf with a convincing 15-5 win. The Hawks hung tough for much of the game, managing to close the gap to 8-5 with about one quarter remaining in the game. From there, however, the Rams put the pedal to the metal and left no doubt.

On Wednesday, our Unified Hoopsters took to the McNally Gymnasium floor to do battle with Toll Gate, and The Network was once again on hand with the live broadcast, as DT Barron, Ben Macksoud, and Cam Brennan were the men working the booth:

Despite some great efforts from our guys and a really fun game to watch, the Hawks came up short once again, 36-34. One of the highlights of the game was Matt Mangilli's three-pointer from deep, which can be seen right here:

The loss evens the Unified team's record at 2-2.

And, finally, our tennis team closed out the first week of spring action by hosting Barrington on the Hendricken courts, a contest in which we here at The Network broke through yet another barrier as we broadcast live, for the first time, one of our tennis matches, the entirety of which can be seen right here:

Unfortunately, our guys also came up short in that one as well, as the Eagles squeaked out the four sets-to-three win.

As stated earlier, it was both an uncharacteristic end to the winter season and beginning of the spring season, as our teams collectively dropped four contests. We're fairly accustomed to winning here at Hendricken, so hopefully as the weather breaks more permananetly and all the other sports also get underway, we'll begin to see a return to the excellence that we've come to expect from our students and our teams.