There’s something funny that happens whenever teams from Falmouth and Barnstable get together, especially boys’ teams. Maybe the girls have ill feelings about the opposite schools, too, but the vitriol seems to be much lower at their games.
Yesterday we had a Falmouth and Barnstable boys’ lax game up in Hyannis. The Red Raiders won the game, which was a bit surprising because I think that Falmouth’s one of the best teams in the state this year. But, it sounds so cliche, but you really can throw out the records when those teams play, and the BHS goalie played out of his head. Marc McNaughton was fantastic. He put on a clinic throughout the game, it was impressive.
Also impressive was the amount of penalties that the teams accumulated in the second half. The hitting was solid, but the refs lost control and it got out of hand. Once they lost control, things started to deteriorate. Barnstable’s coach, a former Falmouth player, was thrown out of the game. Another Red Raider was tossed the from the action. Falmouth kids started to get called for illegal checks. It got pretty ugly, which was a shame because for three quarters the game was outstanding.
I wish there were some simple fix for these schools to play one another and just have a great game, minus the extracurricular stuff. But, when it comes to contact sports (football, hockey and lax mostly) the games just get crazy. I’d actually say that the lax game was the most nuts out of all three. The hockey games are actually worse in the stands than they are on the ice. Thankfully not as many people go to lacrosse games as they do hockey, and far fewer actually understand the game.
Its too bad that they won’t be playing again, though. The schedule has just one BHS-FHS game in 2008, and because FHS is considered a D2 team and BHS a D1 for state tourney play, that means it’s officially over until 2009.
If you love sports, you love when these teams play. Sure the games might get a little dirty at times, but you can’t fake that kind of intensity. Barnstable and Falmouth is really like Yankees-Red Sox, Coke-Pepsi, Apple-Microsoft. It’s not fabricated, it’s not hype. It is what it is, an unmatched rivalry in these parts.
The views and opinions in the Enterprise blogs are those of the author and are not neccessarily shared by Falmouth Publishing.
