Despite heavy rain, Half Hollow Hills advances to Final Four in lacrosse
Anthony Raio of Half Hollow Hills scores in the second quarter in NYS Class A lacrosse Southeast Region quarterfinal against Mamaroneck on Saturday June 7, 2025 in Yorktown Heights. Credit: Michael A. Rupolo Sr.
YORKTOWN HEIGHTS — The Class A Southeast Regional final was ready to start Saturday afternoon on the Yorktown High turf, and so was the deluge from the sky.
Heavy rain watered down Half Hollow Hills’ prolific offense, especially in the first half against Mamaroneck.
“You could obviously see it was affecting us a lot,” senior attackman James Bruno said. “We weren’t able to complete our passes and kind of execute. We were getting our looks, but it really wasn’t working out for us. We kind of fixed the little things at halftime, but still it didn’t look the best.
“But good teams find a way to win.”
And Half Hollow Hills is a very good boys lacrosse team. It’s still an undefeated team. It’s also now a final four team. The rain was varying degrees of lighter for a lot of the second half, and Hills found a way to beat the Section I champion Tigers by the exact same score as it did in the season opener, 11-7.
“It’s always hard to play in the rain, in that type of weather,” Hills coach Connor Hagans said, completely soaked. “But it’s figuring out how to get through it. They’re playing in it the same way we were are. The adversity, it is what it is. But we were lucky enough to get out of here.”
Hills got out of Yorktown and will move on to Middletown for the state semis for the first time. This 21-0 group will face either Section IX’s Monroe-Woodbury or Section IV’s Corning-Painted Post at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at Middletown High’s Faller Field.
Final four?
“It means everything,” said Anthony Raio, the senior attackman/midfielder and UNC commit. “It’s just another step to the goal at the end that we started [with] at the beginning of the season, which is that state championship.”
Bruno arrived with 99 goals and delivered four more and one assist. Raio had three goals and three assists.
The confidence of all these Hills players are rising with each win.
“It definitely grows,” Raio said. “This is a special group of guys. We’ll keep batting to the end no matter what the conditions are, no matter what the circumstances are. I think that’s what motivates us the most.”
They were clinging to an 8-7 lead early in the fourth.
“At that point, time’s running out, you’ve just got to dig deep for your teammates,” Bruno said. “You’ve got to think about when you were a kid. You’ve got to think about all the things your parents have done for you since you were little.”
Bruno scored to make it a two-goal game with 9:07 left. The rain began to lighten with nearly six minutes left. Nick Haugen made it a three-goal game with 3:23 to go.
And Raio put an exclamation point on win No. 21 with 1:46 on the clock.
“I want to give big kudos to the defense,” Hagans said. “The defense started making some stops, and when our defense is making stops, it makes our offensive look better.”
Mamaroneck led 2-0n, but Hills responded and went up 4-3 after one quarter. It was 5-5 at halftime and 8-6 Hills after three.
“The zone [defense] with the conditions kind of hurt us a little bit,” Tigers coach Jeffrey Barnard said. “It was just really ugly conditions.”
Hills survived them. On to the final four.
“We get an extra couple of days with these guys,” Hagans said. “We’ve been preaching it: At the end of the day, we’ve got about seven days left if it all goes well.”
