By Steve Bradley
It’s not uncommon for two related head coaches to meet. A brother may face a brother, a coach may face an uncle or occasionally a father may face a son. But it may be a first that a head coach father coaches against a head coach son when they both live under the same roof. Father Mike Lilac and son Alex Lilac met as head coaches last Thursday at Hoosic Valley High School. It was long time Hoosick Falls coach Mike versus rookie coach Alex meeting for the first of what could be many meetings to come. Coach Mike began as baseball head coach at HFCS in 1991. He graduated from Stillwater CS and attended SUNY Cortland, where he was a catcher on the baseball team. After 28 seasons he has 350 HFCS baseball wins under his belt.
Twenty-four year old Coach Alex graduated HFCS in 2012, continued his education at the College of St. Rose in Albany then was offered a teaching position at Hoosic Valley, along with several coaching positions, for the 2018 school year. Alex had four notches in the win column coming into this game.
Alex got the first lead of the game when Hoosic Valley (O 4-4, L 4-3) grabbed a two run lead. But Dad’s team (O 3-4, L 3-3) came back in the top of the fifth to take a 5-2 lead when Ryan Landry had a one run homer and Brandon Decker homered over the center field fence with two on later in the inning. Hoosick Falls would tack on another run with a steal of home for a 5-2 win.
Although Dad’s team was the winner on this day, there will be more games to come. Alex will get his first win over Dad and proudly sit down at the supper table with a big smile on his face and Dad will be smiling too. The person who is sure to be a winner regardless of which one wins is wife / mother Katie, although she’s probably leaning a little to Coach Alex’s side right now.
Other Baseball Results
Mother Nature was again the big winner this past week, in the winter that will not end. Some schools did get games in. the Cambridge Indians topped the Berlin Mountaineers last Friday, April 27, by the score of 14 to 4. Kaedin Oglive pitched five strong innings for Cambridge, striking out 8 to post the win. Nate Genevcik, Brandon Houle, Daniel Mcguire and Nate Woodworth all drove in 3 runs apiece for the Indians, while Chris Hunt had a 3 run double for Berlin.