Fox Lane Girls’ Lacrosse Team Loses at John Jay
vs. host John Jay.
By Monica D’Ippolito – The Fox Lane girls’ lacrosse team couldn’t capitalize on enough of its offensive opportunities last Wednesday evening and wound up falling to John Jay 13-6 on the road.
“We worked hard,” Foxes coach Bill Broggy said afterwards. “The kids played hard, they hustled. We played the entire 50 minutes, we just didn’t get enough possessions. And when we did, we didn’t make the best use of it. When they (the Indians) had the possessions, they made very good use of it. That was the difference.”
The Indians won the draw controls by a 12-6 margin, but, most notably, Fox Lane seemed to struggle within its offensive sets. Four of the Foxes’ six goals came via free-position opportunities, although John Jay goalie Abby Silverstein did make some huge saves, especially in the first half.
“I think we do have to work on some of our shot selections,” Fox Lane’s Lindsay West said. “The goalie did such a great job. She’s such a great goalie, props to her, but we definitely do need to work on some shot selection. I think that if we’d done better in that area it would have increased our chances of coming back earlier, which would have increased our chances of winning this game.”
The Foxes came out strong, winning possession on the opening draw, but couldn’t get on the scoreboard. After regaining possession off an excellent ride, Fox Lane still couldn’t get the ball into the back of the net, missing on an opportunity from the second hash mark.
John Jay finally held possession three minutes after the opening draw and capitalized on its first shot on goal. But the Foxes quickly responded, with West tying the game at 1-1 off a free position from the center hash.
After John Jay scored two consecutive goals, the Foxes’ Bridget Connors answered with just under 13 minutes to play in the opening half, cutting the John Jay lead to 3-2. But the Indians ended the half on a 3-0 run, giving themselves a comfortable four-goal cushion entering halftime.
The second half began just like the first had, with Fox Lane winning the opening draw control. This time, though, the Foxes eventually scored as West finished off a feed from Connors in a semi-transition with 21:43 to play.
Alison Moky then added to the strong start for the Foxes, scoring on a free position at the center hash nearly a minute later to narrow the deficit even more.
“I was very pleased with how hard we played,” said Broggy. “I think we still have a lot of work to do — we need to be a little more crisp, we need to move a little better without the ball — but other than that, the fact that we’re playing hard, that’s the most important thing.”
After the Moky goal, John Jay all but put the outcome out of doubt, scoring the game’s next five goals over the following 11 minutes. It took until 9:36 was left to play before West finished on a free position to finally get Fox Lane back on the board again and put an end to the Indians’ big run.
“We just turned the ball over too many times and we can’t,” Broggy said. “We turned the ball over a lot and they won a lot of the draws, and this game is all about possessions. They made the most of their possessions and we didn’t. We try to win the game between the 30’s and we didn’t today.”
Keely Connors put in another goal for Fox Lane to cut the Indians’ lead to 11-6, but the margin was still too large, especially when the Indians later added two more insurance goals.
West finished with three goals, Bridget Connors wound up with a goal and an assist, while Moky and Keely Connors recorded a goal each. Hallie Vernon made seven saves for the Foxes in net.
“In the beginning, I think we started out a lot better,” said West. “But I guess toward the middle, when John Jay started scoring a bunch in a row, we kind of lost it. But I think at the end we got it back and, even though the score didn’t turn out how we wanted it to, we still tried really hard and we fought for it. So hopefully next time we play them, we come out on top.”
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