As the saying goes, "To the victor go the spoils." And the accolades received by the 2026 version of the Mt. Hope High School boys' lacrosse team were ample for sure.

There was never a doubt in the minds of the Huskies that they would win the Division III title this past spring, which they did with a furious late rally to defeat Lincoln High in the championship game in June.

That unwavering belief in themselves began almost from the moment Mt. Hope crushingly lost the 2025 league final to Narragansett. Just like this spring, the Huskies entered the 2025 postseason as the No. 1 seed and the favorite to win the title. Unlike last year, however, the locals would not relent in the end, mustering up a memorable comeback to defeat the Lions and claim the elusive crown.

And there was little doubt the Huskies would be recognized for their successes, including head coach Jay Spina, who was not only tapped by his colleagues as the league's mentor of the year, but also by USA Lacrosse as the state's coach of the year.

"It's big because I've been with USA Lacrosse since before I even started coaching (at the high school level) in Rhode Island," Spina said of the state-wide honor, specifically. "I've been part of their coaches association, their coaches pool, education program since when I started coaching club with Jeff Popham (former Barrington High head coach)."

The honors, like the championship, are the first Spina has received in his now 14 years at the helm of the Huskies. Twice during that span, Spina and his staffs have had to reimagine the MHHS program, both times leading to periods of prosperity.

The first occurred when Spina actually took over the reins of MHHS permanently in time for the start of the 2013 season, following several fruitful years for the Huskies under the guidance of former head coach Scot Clark.

It would, though, become a bit of a tumultuous time for Clark and the program. The Huskies were coming off consecutive Division II titles in 2009 and 2010 before Clark was dealt a cancer diagnosis between the 2011 and 2012 seasons. It forced him to the sidelines, elevating Spina and another former MHHS aide, Mike Williams, to lead the team into what turned out to be a rebuilding period.

Much like would be done some 10 years later, the staff eventually made the difficult choice of looking to the future by giving meaningful minutes to freshmen rather than seniors. Spina credited the upperclassmen then, including Cam Rancourt and Keegan Hanley, for their selflessness

"We told those guys, if you're good enough to play as a freshman, you're playing. That's what changed the whole dynamic," Spina recollected. "So we struggled that first year, and then it got better. And then it got better and then we were in the championship game."

Spina, assisted by Ted Hanley, Keegan's dad, in those years, eventually helped guide the Huskies back near the top of the league. The run ended in 2019 with a trip to the D-II championship game where they lost to Middletown.

The program next faced a different, albeit another spot of serious bother with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. When the Huskies fell to the Islanders, their overall ranks numbered around 45 players. The Kickemuit Middle School team, for which Spina credits much of the growth in the program then and to this day, was regularly sending a quality group of players to the high school annually.

But that changed once the pandemic hit. Like they did in the mid-2010s, the staff had to retool the squad. The 2020 varsity campaign was canceled, then played a much shorter season in 2021. And the KMS program went on hiatus for a few seasons, sapping the feeder pipeline.

"We were in the upper ranks of Division II. We lost to Middletown, but then next year we probably would've won it. We had a team. And then because we had the middle school going, we had like 7 or 8 kids that were coming every year at that point. And we had it built up," Spina recalled. "But then COVID hits. We lose the (2020) season. The season that we have the next year is a minimal season. And the biggest impact is we lost KMS. We lost the KMS program for three years. And that really screwed us up. And what happened was we went from 40-something kids down to 17 that first year back. We had to beg, borrow and steal kids."

By 2022, the Huskies had bottomed out in D-II, finishing the season with a 0-12 record. The following spring, Mt. Hope dropped down to D-III, which is where its fortunes began to turn with the influx of freshmen that would eventually make up the championship 2026 class.

As they had almost a decade earlier, Spina made the arduous decision to tell the seniors in 2023 they would begin building for the future, give the younger kids more prominent roles. It wasn't an easy thing to do, especially because one of those soon-to-be grads at the time was Spina's son Riley. The KMS program was also revitalized with Steve Knapman becoming the head coach upon its return.

"Kids like (Charlie) Knapman, (Nathan) Carpenter, (Ben) Browne, Ethan (LaBollita), they all played. They got their butts kicked, learned some things, obviously, then the next year we went 8-6. Then the next year we were in the championship game. And then this year, man, we won it all," Spina said, naming the core group of seniors who saw significant time throughout their careers, culminating with the 2026 title.

Those freshmen finished with just a 2-12 record in 2023, but went 8-6 in 2024 and finished first in the 2024 regular season standings with a 14-3 mark before being upset by Narragansett in the D-III championship game.

Of the 2026 seniors, Spina continued, "They mean the world to me. Like, they mean the world. There is nothing that I wouldn't do for those kids. For four years, they gave me everything. And it wasn't easy because I can be ruthless. There was frustration at times, but I kept telling them, 'just follow the game plan.' They had lost their freshman year, but they were all on board. That class was on board with Charlie and Ethan, all of them. They were totally on board. It was like, let's just get them in, let's get them going, let's get them trained. That's where it all started."

Spina, along with current assistants James Olson and Zack Burke, that latter a freshmen at the time of the coach's first turn-around effort, believe the foundation set by those graduates can and will sustain.

The spoils of success also mean the Huskies are likely to be moved back up to Division II in 2027 as part of the upcoming Rhode Island Interscholastic League realignment. Mt. Hope, however, will be undeterred. The memory of and the lessons learned while winning the D-III title this past spring will spur them on.

Asked for a final reflection on the 2026 season and what it meant to him and his players, Spina added, "I think it's great. I think it's great for the kids. I think it's great for Mt. Hope. I think it's great for lacrosse."