Hot shooting Hornets sting Fox Lane girls on the court

Cora Moore drives baseline for Fox Lane. Dylan New makes her move to the hoop. Amanda Mazzuca hits a jump shot for the Foxes. Riley New shoots in the lane for the Foxes against Lakeland. JIM MACLEAN PHOTOS

By JIM MACLEAN 

One team was red hot, and the other went ice cold. Unfortunately for the Fox Lane girls varsity basketball team, the Foxes were the team that couldn’t get a shot to fall as they hosted Lakeland on Saturday, Jan. 10, and the Hornets couldn’t miss down the stretch as they pulled away to hand Fox Lane a 55-43 setback.

Fox Lane actually took the lead in the third quarter, but Lakeland sank 21 of 24 free throws and nailed five three-pointers to take control and close out the victory on the road.

“We took the lead and I thought we had it, but we went ice cold again and Lakeland hit everything,” said Fox Lane coach Kris Matts. “They stepped up when they needed to. Their role players hit threes, they made free throws, and when that happens it’s difficult to claw your way back, but you need to score with the basketball and we had a tough time putting it in. We’ve got to figure out a way to score, and unfortunately today just wasn’t our day.”

Lakeland came out of fire at the start as the Hornets built a 15-9 lead in the first quarter. Fox Lane trailed by eight in the second quarter, but Nora Dooley came in and scored a pair of baskets and Cora Moore hit a 3-pointer to spark the Foxes, and Dylan New scored the final bucket of the half to cut the Lakeland lead down to 28-25 at halftime.

The Foxes carried the momentum over into the third quarter as Morgan Clinton scored and Riley New then scored to give Fox Lane a 29-28 lead, but the Hornets answered with a 7-0 run to regain the lead. Amanda Mazzuca scored for the Foxes, and Dylan New then hit a 3-pointer to cut the lead down to one at 35-34, but the Hornets answered once again with a 7-0 run to take charge.

Another 7-0 run put Lakeland up 47-36 early in the fourth quarter. Fox Lane had a 6-0 run to answer behind a pair of baskets from Riley New and one from Amanda Mazzuca, but the Hornets were able to ice the victory by hitting seven of eight free throws down the stretch when the Foxes started to foul to try and get possession to cut into the lead.

In the end, Lakeland had two big stars as Liliana Aguirre scored 20 points and Riley Waters finished with 19 points to lead the Hornets to the victory.

Moore led Fox Lane as she finished in double figures with 10 points. Riley New scored 8 points for the Foxes, while Clinton, Dooley and Amanda Mazzuca each scored six points. Dylan New finished with 5 points, and Kam Boniello rounded out the scoring with 2 points for the Foxes.

“The girls played so intensely the entire game and I’m proud of them all,” Matts said. “We’ve been great defensively, we got stops and a lot of good looks, but they just weren’t going in for us today. Some people got into the rotation and didn’t back away. Nora Dooley played great, she’s one of the best shooters on the team, but she hesitates. Amanda Mazzuca is like a defensive maniac, she usually doesn’t like to shoot, but today she was hitting them. They shoot with confidence like that, they can help us more.”

With the loss to Lakeland, Fox Lane fell to 5-6 overall after a busy week as the Foxes also cruised to a 50-29 win over Eastchester and fell to Ossining on the road by a score of 57-34 in another game where the Foxes just could not get the shots to fall.

“Whoever gets us on the day our shots start going in, they are going to be very unfortunate,” Matts added. “I’ll be very excited to see it.”

Coach Matts hopes that day will be Friday, Jan. 16, as the Foxes drive down the road to face Horace Greeley. It will be back-to-back games for the Fox Lane girls and boys teams against the rival Quakers.