Rivals varsity lacrosse teams from New Hyde Park and Herricks high schools battled it out Saturday before a crowd of nearly 500 spectators at NHP’s Van Eeuwen Field.
Coming into Saturday, both Herricks and NHP were in first place in their respective Nassau County Conferences [B & B1] with this year’s match up being dubbed the First Annual Cross-Town Showdown, an idea thought up by New Hyde Park alumni and NHP-PAL coaches Rob Mirabile and Art Capelle.
Mirabile and Capelle both NHP alumni and now NHP and Herricks dads respectively, wanted to acknowledge the local rivalry between the two schools that has been present for many decades.
“NHP and Herricks have a rivalry in lacrosse that has been going on for years, sure we are rivals in other sports, but the lacrosse rivalry has been much more prevalent” noted Capelle.
Perhaps it’s because many of the players in each school started out learning the game and playing together at the New Hyde Park Police Athletic League, where Mirabile is a longtime coach and assistant director of the lacrosse program.
“We wanted to recognize the NHP-PAL Lacrosse Alumni who are sent on to play for both NHP and Herricks High Schools, and at the same time promote the sport in our communities” said Mirabile Saturday just before game time. Mirabile and Capelle, who happen to be life-long friends put their heads together and with permission form coaches Michael Milio [NHP] and Mike Chin [Herricks], and developed the ‘Cross-Town Showdown’ complete with a Perpetual Trophy known as ‘The Marcus Cup’.
“The cup is named after Marcus Ave, the dividing line between the 2 school district boundaries,” Capelle stated.
Saturday’s game was a high energy battle attended by students and parents from both schools, even many Alumni attended. In the end NHP came out on top 10-5 and took home the Marcus Cup.
The trophy was awarded to Coach Milio and his team by the Athletic Directors of both schools T.J. Burke and Jim Petricca. New Hyde Park will display the cup until the next Cross-Town Showdown, when they’ll have to bring it to the game and its up for grabs once again.
Most notable was the fact that 25 of the players on the field are former lacrosse athletes who learned the game right here on Denton Avenue at The New Hyde Park Police Athletic League.
“It’s quite an impressive accomplishment so see all these talented lacrosse athletes really come into their own,” commented Mirabile. “Especially teaching them the game and watching them grow up into a group a respectable student-athletes”
“Look at the numbers, it’s clear our PAL athletes are the ones on the highlight clips and the ones on the stat-boards,” said Pete McClean, who is the director of Lacrosse Operations at the PAL and co-chairs the NHP-Lacrosse Alumni Association with Mirabile, who will be hosting the New Hyde Park Lacrosse Alumni Day at NHP on April 30 this spring. “The program works, we feed both High Schools with quality athletes who have a sound foundation in which the High School coaches can build on. It’s just an amazing day for our community”
