John Jay and Fox Lane Lacrosse Teams Look to Repeat Last Season's Success

John Jay, which finished 18-2 and won the Section 1 Class B championship last season, opens the season hosting Yorktown on Saturday, April 2 at 7 p.m.

“We have a lot of younger guys we are trying to teach our system to,” John Jay coach Tim Schurr said. “It’s a little bit of a challenge. We start a week later this year. We have a tough schedule. Opening up with Yorktown is not ideal but we are going to play the game.”

Senior attackmen Mike Lupinacci, Brendan Morris, Mike Daniello and Billy Pray are all returnees who bring plenty of experience and athleticism to the field. Daniello is a four-year varsity player and the other three are three-year varsity players.

John Jay’s midfield will be out two key players as senior Jimmy Morris, Brendan’s twin brother, and sophomore Tommy Beck, are unable to play at the present time because of injury.

Luckily, John Jay has plenty of depth at this position. Key offensive middies for the Indians are seniors Forrest Walter, Jake Weil and Evan Chen.

“All three of those guys are very, very talented,” Schurr said. “They can get to the goal. Two of them in particular, Forrest and Jake, really have a knack for freeing their hands and getting into guys bodies so they wind up controlling the situation very nicely.”

Key defensive middies for the Indians are seniors Jack Stewart and Jared Feldman. These two emerged last year as they brought energy to the team and were really able to buy into the Indians’ concept of team defense.

Key players on defense are the athletic seniors Alex Lanza and Trevor Caviola and sophomore Jack Lambert.

“All of those guys are going to wind up playing in college,” Schurr said. “They play very well together. We should be pretty tough defensively.”

Playing goalie for John Jay will either be senior Kevin Duffy or junior Tom Branca.

Fox Lane

Last year Fox Lane enjoyed a solid season, winning its league with a 6-1 record and finishing the regular season 10-6 overall. This season, the Foxes hope to repeat as league champs and take home a sectional crown in what is a rugged Class B, said senior co-captain and midfielder Sam Robinson.

“We are going to be in a slightly tougher league than last season,” Robinson said. “With that in mind, we have pretty good expectations for ourselves and we definitely are hoping to win both the league and the section.”

Leading the attack are seniors Dylan Faitell, George Lodge (co-captain), Josh Wollman and sophomore Zach Wolosoff. This is Wolosoff's first year on the varsity team, but he has been impressive so far in the preseason, according to Robinson.

“Our attack is very good at working with the middies and feeding the shooters,” Robinson said. “They have a very good sense of the offense.”

The team's key midfielders are seniors Robinson, Joe Corsi (co-captain), John Horner (co-captain), Graham Werner, Matt Krouch and junior Nick Grasso.

Robinson said that the Foxes’ strengths at midfield are its speed, athleticism and ability to dodge to initiate the offense.

“We are all comfortable shooting from the outside as well as well as dodging and feeding attackmen,” Robinson said.

Keying the Foxes' solid defensive unit is junior Anthony Grasso, seniors Oliver Silzer, Matt Harris, Collin Proctor and sophomore Christian Magnan, a long-stick middie who is in his second year on the varsity squad.

Each of the Fox Lane defensemen have good stick skills and an effective home defensive system, according to Robinson.

Backing them up in goal is senior co-captain Cameron Stephens, who will play at Ohio State University next season.

“He is a really good quarterback of the defense,” Robinson said. “He lets everyone know where they should be. He’s a phenomenal goalie.”

Fox Lane will open its season when it hosts Bronxville at noon on Saturday, April 2.