For the first time all season in front of a home crowd, Mattituck/Greenport/Southold fell behind early. Rocky Point (3-6 Division II) came out of the gates firing and jumped out to a 4-0 lead halfway through the first half before the Tuckers got on the board with 11 minutes remaining.
That’s when the Hoegs took over. Yes, that’s plural —as in more than one. As in five. Yes, five. At one point in Friday’s game five Hoegs were on the field. Not only were they on the field but they were scoring, too.
Katie Hoeg, the University of North Carolina recruit, did whatever she pleased, setting up her family members for scores to start cutting into the lead.
Looking down the stat sheet, all you saw was Hoeg from Hoeg, Hoeg from Hoeg, Hoeg from Hoeg.
Katie found Riley Hoeg for the first goal. Then she found Audrey Hoeg for the second to make the score 4-2.
“Obviously they have a little bit of a connection that’s more than just practice,” Tuckers head coach Matt Maloney said. “They’ve been playing with each other in the backyard and summer tournaments for years.”
After a Rocky point goal, Katie hit the back of the net unassisted and then Audrey scored off an assist from Riley.
At the half the score was 6-4. Neither team would let up.
“Going down to a team like that I knew it would be tough to fight back,” Maloney said. “Rocky Point is a perennial playoff team. Not too long along they were in back-to-back County championships. I have a lot of respect for them.”
The second half featured more Hoegs, as you can expect.
Katie scored unassisted and then she assisted on a Mackenzie Hoeg goal to tie the game at 6-6. Though the Tuckers had all the momentum the Eagles wouldn’t go away and scored to take a 7-6 lead with 14 minutes remaining. An Audrey to Mackenzie connection tied the game up again. But Rocky Point fought back and took the lead again.
Disclaimer: Hoeg-free stat upcoming.
To tie the game, Chelsea Marlborough darted the ball over to Trish Brisotti who took care of the rest. It was 8-8 with eight minutes to go.
That’s how it would stay until 8.8 seconds left. The ball was in the Tuckers’ possession behind the goal after a shot had sailed past Rocky Point’s goalie. Audrey had it in her netting and as the whistle blew the ball was flung in front of the net and somehow, Katie came up with the ball and got it in the goal to win the game, 9-8, with just 3.6 left on the clock.
“I honestly don’t even know how I got it in,” Katie Hoeg said. “It was kind of like an alley-oop. And I was like please..I don’t know.. crazy.”
It was hard to put in words what had just happened. In the blink of an eye, the game was over and the final stat said: “Hoeg to Hoeg.”
“When we win, I can look in the faces and know that I did it for them and they did it for me,” Hoeg said about playing with her family. “But more importantly, we’re part of a bigger family here, this lacrosse team.”
Mattituck/Greenport/Southold improved to 6-3 in Division II and 7-3 overall with the victory. They’ll travel to Babylon on Monday.
SoutholdLOCAL photos by George Faella
