Garden City, Manhasset players saddened by loss of Woodstick Classic

For the first time since 1934, Manhasset and Garden City won’t be facing off at the ‘X’ on a lacrosse field.

When Long Island officials cancelled the spring high school sports season April 21 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it put an end to the streak of the oldest continuous boys lacrosse rivalry in the country. 

Shortly after Manhasset created its boys lacrosse program in 1932 and Garden City did the same in 1934, the two began playing one another every season. From that, the “Woodstick Classic” was born. Ever since 1935, the two teams have met in a regular-season game, which has turned into an all-day Saturday event.

The schools were scheduled to play the 135th installment in 85 years April 18. Manhasset leads the series, 75-61, and Garden City has won 10 of the 15 postseason matchups.

“It’s been going on every season since 1935 and you’re going to see a blank for 2020,” said Jim Amen Jr., the Manhasset athletic director, boys lacrosse state coordinator and  former long-time lacrosse coach. “It’s been a tradition that has all of a sudden been deleted for 2020.”

Billy Kephart, a senior defender committed to Cornell and varsity player since his  freshman year, was training on Garden City’s field April 18, That's where this year's game was scheduled to be played. 

“That was a strange weekend,” said Steve Finnell, the Garden City lacrosse coach since 2007 and a 1991 graduate who played three years of varsity lacrosse for the Trojans. “You knew where you were going to be. You knew what you were going to be doing.”

The Woodstick Classic has grown from a two-hour rivalry game to an extravaganza. Thousands of fans — many from outside districts — attend every year. The Manhasset and Garden City varsity girls programs now play the same day, along with the junior varsity teams.

“It’s like going to the Army-Navy game,” Amen said. “You want to be there and witness the spectacle. If I was going to take my wife to a lacrosse game, I would take her to the Manhasset-Garden City Woodstick game. The atmosphere is festive and celebratory.”

But there won’t be any of that this year. The Garden City student-athletes lost out on their hopes of avenging a pair of one-goal losses to Manhasset last year, including a 6-5 double-overtime defeat in the Nassau Class B championship game.   

“We were motivated to go out and get vengeance on them this year,” said Garden City senior midfielder Ford Carney. “It just stinks that we can’t be able to do that. I never would have thought growing up that the one year it’s not played was the one when I’m a senior in high school.”

Manhasset seniors Tim Barrett and Marc Psyllos remember attending the Woodstick Classic as youth players.

“All you would think about is how that will be you one day,” said Psyllos, a four-year varsity player and a Cornell commit . “It’s like you are watching pro athletes as a kid.”

And some of those players become professional athletes. Justin Guterding is the NCAA all-time leading goal scorer (212), a three-time All-American at Duke and member of the Premier Lacrosse League’s Chrome LC in California. Guterding, a 2013 Garden City graduate, said he asks friends to send live updates every year the day of the Woodstick Classic. He added the game has one of the best atmospheres at any level of lacrosse. 

“Going from a college where I played in Final Fours and huge ACC rivalry games, it’s right up there with them, which is crazy to say,” Guterding said. “Maybe not the Final Four per  se, but ACC games, Duke-North Carolina, it’s right up there with the intensity and it’s pretty crazy that a high school lacrosse game is up there with some of the top college games today.”

Brendan Haggerty, a junior goalkeeper at Villanova and a 2017 Manhasset graduate, also looks back at the Woodstick Classicat some of the most enjoyable lacrosse he’s played.

“It’s really cool to just understand you are being a part of history, whether you know it or not,” Haggerty said. “And when you are able to look back, you realize how fortunate you were to be able to be a part of games like those.”

Amen said there will only be one Woodstick Classic game next year, as Manhasset and Garden City will be in different classifications. The teams have met in six county championships since 2011.

“Not being able to really savor the last moment, everything feels unfinished,”  Psyllos said. “When you expect to have a last moment and another year and you have that in your mind and it’s completely taken away, it’s just ‘Wow,” and you never realize that last year was your final chance playing for Manhasset.”

“You never forget your high school memories and the Woodstick game is certainly one you don’t forget,” Manhasset coach Keith Cromwell said. “So you just feel bad that they can’t play one more game like that.”