By Lauren Shin, Staff Writer
The River Hill Ice Hawks celebrated Senior Night last month on January 26, which was followed by a win against the Hammers. Many family members and friends showed up to support the team and make their Senior Night a night to remember.
The team consists of 8 seniors this year: Shreyas Bhargava, Evan Blanco, Sophia Ditch, Andrew Handelman, Jonathan Li, Bennett Lin, Griffin Millstein and Bryan Simo. Each of their names were called out before the start of the match for families and friends to take pictures on the ice.
These seniors describe their bittersweet feelings regarding the end of ice hockey season.
Bennett Lin has been playing for the Ice Hawks since freshman year. He states that “all of a sudden, it became really real that this was going to be my last ever regular season game.” Although he is sad to say goodbye to his Ice Hawks teammates, he looks forward to playing for the Huskies at Northeastern University.
After their brief Senior Night celebrations, the Ice Hawks played against the Hammers, a team made up of players from Howard High School, Atholton High School and Marriotts Ridge High School, at Garden’s Ice House in Laurel from 5:00PM to 7:00PM.
Senior Jonathan Li, co-captain of the Ice Hawks along with Bennett Lin and Andrew Handleman, shared that he was “kind of nervous because it was our Senior Night, and it was the first time we actually had more than parents coming to see us play.” He explained that the Ice Hawks usually don’t have a large student section due to their games being far away.
Jonathan stated that with the support from fans this time, he and the rest of the team were determined to play their best game. “It was the last regular season game and we needed to win it in order to get a better standing at playoffs to increase our chances of winning against the teams we’re up against,” he explained.
Seniors Lily Peng and Sarah Chin were among the many students who attended the Ice Hawks’ Senior game. They showed up with posters to support their friends and helped decorate the stands with River Hill colors.
Despite it being their “first time watching an ice hockey game and not knowing what was really going on,” they exclaimed that they had “so much fun; we’re definitely going to go to every single game from now on.”
Although starting off with a 3-0 Hammers lead in the first period, the River Hill Ice Hawks were able to turn the game around with 3 goals during the second period and 2 more during the third period, winning 3-5 in the end.
They then went on to play in the playoffs on February 2nd, once again coming out on top with a 10-1 victory against Marriotts Ridge High School.
This winning streak led them to the quarterfinals game against the Wolves, a team made up of students from Wilde Lake High School, Hammond High School, Oakland Mills High School, Long Reach High School and Centennial High School. The Hawks unfortunately lost 5-7 after an intense game of astonishing performance from both sides, which brought the team to the end of their season.
Bennett fondly looks back on the season, expressing his pride in “how much the people on our team have improved this year. Being a senior and a captain, I thought it would be more stressful because of all the responsibilities but everybody was so supportive of each other and striving to do their best all the time, so all I can say is that I had a great year and I’m so grateful I was able to play with such great teammates.”