Sports
Sports of All Sorts: Spring Season Comes Up Quickly For Lacrosse Teams
Fox Lane's boys team played its first game Saturday, while Horace Greeley held a three-way scrimmage over the weekend.
It's been said that life is a marathon, not a sprint.
The same is not true for the spring season. It is the shortest of the three seasons in terms of duration – and in terms of preparation time. Which means there's not a lot of time to get ready.
Fox Lane's boys' lacrosse team played its season opener on Saturday, just three weeks after the official start of practice.
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A week earlier, the Foxes were one of six teams that competed in the second annual Red/Gray Tournament at Somers.
The Foxes came away from that event knowing their defense was ahead of the offense.
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"It's that way right now, but I don't know if it will remain that way as we go through the season," Fox Lane Coach Chris Vazzano said.
That certainly proved to be the case in the Foxes' opener – a 5-4 overtime loss to Ossining. Ossining pulled out the win 21 seconds into overtime after the Foxes, who had earlier trailed 3-0, forced the extra session on a goal with 1:13 remaining in regulation.
There was an interesting game within a game as both goaltenders – Fox Lane's Cameron Stephens and Ossining's Greg Bardwell – each excelled. Stephens finished with 15 saves, while Bardwell had 17 saves.
Bardwell, a returning starter, is an established star. Stephens, a junior, is a rising one. Last year, he was the backup to three-year starter Luke Robinson, who is now a freshman on the men's lacrosse team at Ithaca College.
"I know I have big shoes to fill but I think I'm ready," Stephens said.
Horace Greeley, which opens the season on Thursday with a home game against Clarkstown South, tuned up by participating in a three-way scrimmage with White Plains and host Yorktown this past weekend.
Hunter Bastian is the leader of Greeley's defense, which lost three defensive standouts from last year in Derek Katchis, Ben Litwak and Jake Jessup. Attackman Nate Becker leads an offense that lost standouts Jordan Fried, Burke Anderson and Jason Kerstein from a team that went 10-8 a year ago. Also back are top scorers Alex Cohen and Danny Leventhal.
