Girls Lacrosse: Fox Lane Falls to Yorktown in Championship Game

After Fox Lane won the Section 1 Class B championship a year ago at home against Yorktown, the rematch this season was the most anticipated one, with Yorktown being the host. 

The game didn’t disappoint and lived up to the hype as No. 2 Yorktown (16-3), led by four goals each from senior Lindsay Scott, who also added an assist, and junior Stefanie Ranagan, defeated No. 1 Fox Lane (18-1) in an exciting back and forth duel to win the championship 16-15, Wednesday afternoon.

“It was the same situation as last year, except we are on our home field now,” said Scott, who will play at the University of North Carolina next year. “We didn’t want to go out like the seniors last year. We saw how painful it was for them and we didn’t want to feel like that. We worked so hard from day one, even before day one, to get to this point.”

Helping get Fox Lane to this point was senior Lindsay Toppe and junior Sammy Jo Tracy. Toppe registered a game high seven goals and Tracy accumulated four goals and an assist.

“We know each other so well,” Tracy said. “It’s just second nature. I know when I’m coming up the field with both feet that I have Lindsay to help me, give me a break and score a goal.”

Scoring the goal that tied the game at 9-9 with 27 seconds before halftime was Toppe.

“We did a great job for the most part, utilizing our possessions,” Toppe said. “We had some turnovers and bad passes that led to their goals but overall we really did a good job of running our game. We really did run our offense and our defense. We didn’t change it up because of who we were playing.”

Fox Lane started off the second half by continuing to run its offense when Kate Burbank scored 51 seconds into the second half to put the Foxes up 10-9. Yorktown though answered back, scoring seven of the game’s next nine goals.

Goals by Katy Cartelli, Nikki Fioretti, Bianca Raniolo, and two goals apiece from Ranagan and Aileen Kurpis put the Huskers up 16-12 with 8:02 left in the contest.

“We did a great job on the draws throughout the game,” Yorktown coach Ellen Mager said. “If you can go 50-50 with Fox Lane on the draws (YHS won the draws 17-16), you have a shot to be in the game.”

Besides the draws, another reason why the Huskers were successful was because of the decisions that they made for the first 17 minutes of the second half.

“That allowed us to get a little bit of a cushion,” Mager said. “Fortunately, we had that cushion down the stretch because we weren’t as careful with the ball as we should have been.”

Fox Lane fought back with two goals by Burbank and Tracy. Tracy’s came with 6:18 left in the game, cutting Yorktown’s lead to two, 16-14.

Fox Lane came down the field with 1:40 remaining, deep in Yorktown territory but the Huskers' Marissa Makar was able to get possession of the ball back for Yorktown, essentially sealing the game for the host.

“I knew I had to get the ball back because it was going to be harder to stop them without possession of the ball,” Makar said.

Toppe, who will play at Cornell University next year, did get the ball back one more time to score her final goal of her storied Fox Lane career, with three seconds to go in the game.

“She scored over 400 goals in her career, so it’s going to be a big void,” Fox Lane coach Bill Broggy said. “But we are trying to build a program. We are working on that. Our JV team was quite successful this year, we have some good young players coming up for next season.”

As for Yorktown, since Section 1 has a bye this year in the regional tournament, the Huskers will play the winner of Region 2-Region 9 at 4 p.m. June 4 at Fox Lane High School for the regional championship.

STAT CITY

Fox Lane

Lindsay Toppe (seven goals), Sammy Jo Tracy (four goals, one assist), Kate Burbank (three goals), Aly Dowey (one goal), Sydney Stern (one assist), Kendall Marianacci (10 saves).

Yorktown

Lindsay Scott (four goals, one assist), Stefanie Ranagan (four goals), Nikki Fioretti (three goals, one assist), Aileen Kurpis (three goals, one assist), Bianca Raniolo (one goal, four assists), Katy Cartelli (one goal, one assist), Katie Frederick (eight saves).