By Jim Stout
MaxPreps.com
BEDFORD, N.Y. --- Contrary to conventional wisdom, being affluent and in the middle of Westchester County and having a splendid outdoor athletic facility does not insure success in scholastic lacrosse.
Sometimes you have to work at it, even if it means building and rebuilding your program from the bottom up. Even if it means having one of your star players going off to college to play football.
Such is the case at Fox Lane High, which is situated in a picturesque bedroom community 30 miles north of New York City and sits among some of the County's most spectacular horse farms.
Fox Lane reached the Section I, Class B semifinals on Tuesday but the road has not been an easy one. Nor will the road be easy on Thursday to Lincolndale, where the third-seeded Foxes will play No. 2 Somers.
Fox Lane (10-9) blew its quarterfinal game open with a five-goal third quarter, getting scores from five different players en route to a 10-5 whipping of No. 6 Harrison.
Though the Foxes are seeded prominently in Section I, they will be heavy underdogs at Somers. Fox Lane lost during the regular season at Somers by 12-5, and has also suffered defeats of 16-3 to No. 1 John Jay and 11-7 to No. 4 Hendrick Hudson.
At the same time, though, Fox Lane has scored wins over Class A tournament opponents such as Horace Greeley and Mahopac, and over Class C contender Putnam Valley.
Having a top face-off guy such as University of New Hampshire football recruit Mickey Mangieri certainly helps. So does having UMass-Amherst lacrosse recruit Jay Lucas.
Mangieri went 15-3 on faceoffs against Harrison (7-9) while Lucas scored three times, including twice in the second quarter, when Fox Lane built a 4-1 halftime lead. It led 9-1 after three quarters.
"To be honest, the beginning of the season was very rough," said Fox Lane coach Chris Vazzano, the former Cortland State player who has been working feverishly to try to bring his team on par with the other Sectional powers.
"Even before the start of the year, I had to sit down with these guys and tell them that we'd be in for a rocky road if we continued to practice the way we did.
"To the guys credit, though, they were able to step it up and come to practice every day and work hard," Vazzano added.
"Granted, we had our ups and downs. We had some games where we didn't come to play, like our (10-2) loss to Scarsdale. But we had some quality wins. We beat programs that we haven't beaten in the past. Maybe a team like Mahopac had a rough season but you have to start somewhere when you're in a situation such as ours. You have to start by beating some of these teams before you can move forward."
The Fox Lane lacrosse program gained a much-needed boost several years ago, when its main outdoor athletic stadium was renovated with high-grade synthetic turf. The stadium is now worthy of a Sectional I championship event.
Baseball continues to be a popular and successful sport at Fox Lane, so it's not a given that all the top athletes in town will come running out for lacrosse, as they do in some areas of Westchester.
But there are plenty of athletes to go around on Route 172 in Bedford, and Vazzano and his staff are helping cultivate lacrosse players of future as well.
In addition to Mangieri and Lucas, goalie Angelo Luppino will be going to play lacrosse at RPI next season while defender/long stick midfielder Tyler Lovas is headed for Middlebury.
"It's nice that the baseball team is winning and that the lacrosse team is also winning," Vazzano said.
"We have some people in the middle school on our lacrosse staff who are working with the modified (7th and 8th grade) program. We actually had to make cuts for the first time this year so the interest is growing. We do a Middle School program at night during the off-season to help build the numbers and develop the skills. So we're tapping into that resource.
"Baseball is still strong and so are some of the other sports and we miss some kids going off to private school," Vazzano added.
"But hopefully with the growth of the program and with the facility, we have a home now, and the addition of some other fields, we're going to keep those kids home, like a John Jay does. Hopefully in the future we will be getting stronger. I thought this was going to be a lot rougher of a season, to be honest, but these guys pulled it together."
Harrison was able to keep Lucas scoreless and under wraps in the first quarter, and was thus able to come away with a mere 2-1 deficit, despite being badly outplayed. The goaltending of junior Bryan Cipolla (15 saves for the game) helped considerably.
Lucas scored twice in the second period to make it 4-1, then netted a behind-the-back tally as part of a five-goal third quarter for Fox Lane, when five different players scored for the Foxes.
"Our whole game plan was to stop Lucas," Cipolla said. "He has amazing speed, and any time he gets his hands free he gets off a real good shot."
And when Lucas gets his shot, Fox Lane has a shot as well.
Jim Stout is the MaxPreps.com Media Manager for the East Region. He may be reached at 203-563-2297 or at j.stout@jmstout.org.
