Fox Lane cruises in home opener to stay undefeated

Michaela Kaltsas makes her move for the Foxes. JIM MACLEAN PHOTOS

Madyson Greene carries through midfield on transition.

Dylan New scores one of her seven goals against Byram Hills. 

.By JIM MACLEAN 

It’s been a perfect start to the season for the Fox Lane girls varsity lacrosse team as the Foxes improved to 4-0 with a dominant performance in the home opener Monday against rival Byram Hills.

A pair of veteran captains took control April 6 as junior captain Dylan New scored seven goals and senior captain Michaela Kaltsas scored six goals to lead the Foxes to a 17-1 victory.

With New and Kaltsas leading the way right from the start, the Foxes jumped out to a 6-1 lead in the first quarter and extended it to 10-1 at the half. It was never in doubt as the Foxes improved to 4-0 overall after opening the season with impressive wins on the road at Horace Greeley, Farmingdale and Guilderlands.

“Definitely a great start, nice with a young team to build that kind of momentum already,” said Kaltsas after the win. “You have to play aggressively and keep working hard against every team. Dylan and I have been playing together a long time, it’s nice to have a solid group with a lot of new young players as well and we’re all playing together. We’re 4-0, beat Greeley and won a couple of tough games. Now, we just have to keep building.”

Fox Lane lost a lot of talented starters from last year to graduation, and the roster is very young overall. Seniors Cora Moore and Kaltsas are the two returning veterans on attack and every opposing defense is focused on stopping them, and that meant New had to step up into a bigger role on the offense this season. She certainly did against Byram Hills as she scored the first three goals of the game and had six goals by halftime. She finished with a career-high seven goals and also added an assist.

“No, and I didn’t even realize I had seven until my coach just told me,” admitted New. “We’re just trying to get everybody involved and we all look for each other. We’re a young team, but first game against Greeley we fought and we won, then Farmingdale we were down and fought and we won. Against Guilderlands and today, everything was clicking and it felt great.”

Kaltsas had four goals in the first half and finished with six goals overall and an assist. Moore didn’t even have to score a goal as the Foxes star midfielder contributed in other ways with three assists and eight draw controls.

Taylor Webb scored a pair of goals and assisted on two others, while her sister Hadley Webb scored her first varsity goal. Phoebe Skinner also scored a goal for the Foxes.

On defense and at midfield, Isabel Valenzuela, Madyson Greene, Phoebe Fisher, Olyvia Wong, and Ava Oliva all contributed to the stat book with draw controls and ground balls. Molly Rodriguez made five saves in goal to record the win.

The Foxes also cruised to a 14-4 victory on the road upstate against Guilderlands after opening the season with two comeback wins. Overall, a good way to start the season with a roster that had a lot of question marks and newcomers, and coach Jaime Williams is excited with what he sees from his squad to date.

“A good start and we played some big games,” explained Williams. “We have a lot of different weapons, any day you can have Cora on, Michaela on, and today Dylan stepped up big. It’s nice when we get all of them involved. Overall, we have just five returning starters from last year and this team has gelled pretty quickly. A bunch of new pieces, the way they’re playing early on we’re excited, but we have a lot more work to do.”