He’s playing defense against a man 40 pounds heavier and 40 years older than him, but sophomore Brayden Nguyen doesn’t care; he’s still having fun. He’s playing in the Bellaire Men’s Lacrosse Alumni Game, a Thanksgiving tradition dating back to the ‘90s.

Every year on the weekend after Thanksgiving, Bellaire’s current players play together against Bellaire’s alumni team across four 15-minute quarters. The alumni win nearly every year, and this year proved no different as the Men’s Alumni team won 13-3 over the current players.

The current players faced a disadvantage as they played against various college players. Justice Cordova and Jake Beasley graduated from Bellaire in 2022 and brought their experience from college. Cordova plays for Texas A&M’s MCLA team. Beasley plays for the University of Houston and is the head coach of Pin Oak Lacrosse and Houston Youth Lacrosse.

“Bellaire Lacrosse means so much to me; I spent four years there with my best friends,” Cordova said. “One of my best memories from high school was going to practice and playing lacrosse every day and getting to spend quality time with some great guys. I just really love Bellaire Lacrosse. It meant a lot developmentally to me.”

For current junior and varsity lacrosse player Riley Deneen, who played with Cordova and Beasley his freshman year, this was his second alumni game against his former teammates.

“The alumni game means a lot to me because I get to see the guys who graduated,” Deneen said. “I get to connect with a bunch of kids who I don’t usually see anymore.”

The alumni game is more than just about seeing old friends but also family members who have graduated from Bellaire Lacrosse. Freshman defenseman David Weber has two older brothers who played for the team before he joined, Jonah, who graduated in ‘23, and Josh, who graduated in ‘22.

“The alumni game is just the older guys showing the younger guys how to play lacrosse,” Josh Weber said.

For senior goalie Joe Beasley, his final alumni game as a Bellaire student meant even more to him as he had played with five of the players on the alumni team for two or three years, including his older brother Jake.

“Jake Beasley, Colby Von Eiff, Justice Cordova, Aiden McNulty, all of them, they’re all my friends and they’re family too,” Beasley said. “The game means a lot, I get to see all the guys who graduated, talk to them again, and see how their life is going.”

Von Eiff is a sophomore long pole for the University of Houston, while McNulty is a Division III attackman for Southwestern University, both within a three hour drive of Bellaire.

“A lot of them moved away to college, but some of them are still here,” Beasley said. “I still see them a lot, so it was just fun playing against some friends.”

For the players who had yet to experience an alumni game, they took a different approach to the game. Freshman midfielder Nathan Conflenti said this was one of his first games outside of scrimmages.

“I don’t really know any of the alumni,” Conflenti said. “But I think the game showed what we need to work on, as well as our attitudes and how we can work around everything.”

However, college students weren’t the only players Conflenti and his team would have to work around. Many of the alumni were adults who had already gone on to live their own life outside of lacrosse, like Brooks Creasey, who graduated from Bellaire Lacrosse in 2009, graduated from Baylor Lacrosse in 2013, and coached Bellaire Lacrosse from 2015-16.

“It was a great time today, to come out and see if I can still run,” Creasey said. “This is the first time I’ve felt old, enough things hurt to make it an issue.”

Head coach Nick Ignatiev refereed the game, but even more significantly, is that he played in Bellaire Lacrosse’s inaugural season from 1989-90 as a senior. Ignatiev assumes that the first alumni game was played back in the mid to late ‘90s between when Bellaire went to the state finals in 1994 and won in 2001.

“The alumni game is about getting former Bellaire players back and talking to our current players,” Ignatiev said. “It’s important that they stay connected. It’s part of the team staying connected with the alumni and the alumni staying connected with the team.”