Senior Spotlight: Moon’s opening scrimmage a highlight for Beddings’ lacrosse season

By: Bill Hartlep
Saturday, May 9, 2020 | 8:00 AM

Editor’s note: Each day, Trib HSSN will spotlight WPIAL spring athletes whose senior years were cut short by the coronavirus pandemic.

Alek Beddings’ senior highlight reel includes an impressive goal where he carries the ball for 40 yards, beats two defenders and scores from 10 yards out.

It’s also the only highlight.

The 17-second clip from a preseason scrimmage ends by listing Moon’s entire boys lacrosse schedule, with the word “canceled” next to each game.

By posting the short Hudl highlight, Beddings was able to find some humor in a tough situation for all high school scholar-athletes who had their spring seasons cut short by the coronavirus pandemic. The PIAA canceled the spring season before it got started.

“I’ve definitely missed spending time with my friends on the lacrosse team,” said Beddings, a senior headed to Arizona State in the fall. “We’ve spent five nights a week together every spring for the past eight years, as well as tournaments in the summer and fall.

“Not only would we practice together, but we would go out to eat after a lot of practices. I think of my lacrosse team as a family, and I’ve missed that family a lot.”

Beddings was an all-section and All-WPIAL selection on defense last season and had hoped to guide Moon back to the postseason. The Tigers earned the No. 4 seed in the WPIAL Class AA playoffs last season and lost to Freeport in the quarterfinals.

He had high expectations for a season the senior players had been awaiting for many years.

“I received all-section and All-WPIAL both my sophomore and junior seasons, and I would have loved to make it three consecutive years,” he said.

“As a team, I was hoping to win our section and possibly even win WPIALs. I have been playing with most of the senior lacrosse boys since fifth grade, and we always knew our best chance of winning WPIALs was our senior year.”

How have you been keeping busy during the coronavirus pandemic?

I’ve been playing a lot of piano and drums, but a lot of my time is spent watching movies or biking different trails in Moon.

Have you been doing any lacrosse activities?

It’s pretty hard with the fields and gyms being closed, but whenever I get a chance, I try to pass in my backyard with my sister and my dad.

How much practice time did you have before the shutdown?

Our team has been lifting together three times a week since November, and we started conditioning in January. We only had about a full week of outdoor practices and one scrimmage right before the shutdown.

What are your plans for next fall?

I plan on attending the Barrett Honors College at Arizona State University.

What do you plan to study?

Aerospace engineering.

Will you be playing lacrosse?

Arizona State has an MCLA (Men’s Collegiate Lacrosse Association) Division I team that I plan on playing for.

What do you like most about the sport?

I love how fast paced it is. There is never a boring moment in the game. There are always players sprinting as fast as they can, there are always hard hits, and it’s always high scoring.

What are some of the other activities you were involved with at Moon?

I am also a two-year letterman for the Moon cross country team. I am in the National Honor Society and an officer for the Spanish Club.

What was your reaction when you found out you wouldn’t be returning to school this spring?

School closing was pretty hard for me. I did not think it would play out the way it did. But along with school went the lacrosse season, and that definitely hit a lot harder. All my friends who are seniors on the team and I have been playing together for almost eight years, and we worked too hard and waited too long for it to end the way it did.

What has been your favorite show to binge watch?

I can’t stop watching “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.”

If you could have dinner with any three celebrities, who would they be?

I would like to have dinner with John Mulaney and Pete Davidson because I think they are very funny, especially when they are together. The third one would be Margot Robbie because she is my favorite actress.

Check out my senior season highlight pic.twitter.com/wcx8cd9mPC

— Alek Beddings (@a_w_beddi) April 9, 2020

Bill Hartlep is the TribLive sports editor. A Pittsburgh native and Point Park graduate, he joined the Trib in 2004, covering high school sports. He held various editing roles before assuming his current position in 2019. He can be reached at bhartlep@triblive.com.

Tags: Moon