Foxes prowl to top of rankings
At the beginning of the week the Fox Chapel Area Foxes were the top-ranked boys lacrosse team in the WPIAL rankings, according to www.laxpower.com, an on-line lacrosse website dedicated to covering high school and college lacrosse nationwide.
Such a ranking prior to Wednesday’s game against Pine-Richland and tomorrow’s game at Peters Township is impressive enough.
Although it’s still very early in the season and the Foxes have just a 2-0 record, it’s still pretty heady stuff.
But when one considers the Foxes have not had a winning record since 2008 prior to coach Chris McCrady taking over the program last season and even an embarrassing 1-12-1 record just three years ago, the 2-0 start is even more impressive.
“I coached a lot of these kids from the time they were in fourth grade up,” said McCrady, a one time goaltender for Michigan State. “I coached the rec team, an organization called ‘Pittsburgh Youth Lacrosse.’ I started to coach when many of our players were in fourth grade (2008), then followed the players every year.”
The list of players who have been with McCrady for seven years includes 6foot-4, 240-pound defender Chris Gibbons and fellow captain Dave Schaffner, a pair of seniors who technically were in the fifth grade when they began their McCrady mentorship, junior attacker Tucker Root and his classmate, Levi McCrady, the coach’s son.
The younger McCrady leads the team with 10 goals scored with his long-range shooting ability while Root, a very accurate shooter, is second with seven goals. This dynamic scoring duo helped the Foxes score 25 goals in their first two games of the season, a 17-5 victory against Central Catholic on March 23 and an 8-5 triumph against Franklin Regional two days later.
Coach McCrady looked at the victory against the Panthers as a good sign.
“It was a game we won in 2014 that put us in the right direction and allowed us to go to the [WPIAL] playoffs for the first time ever,” the coach said.
“It was a game we had to win because our division is so competitive. I’m not sure either team played their best, but anytime you win a section game, it’s a great thing.”
The Foxes defeated Franklin Regional, 8-7, in the third game of the 2014 season, Fox Chapel’s first victory against a Division 1 team in three years, en route to a 13-4 season and playoff berth.
Another milestone in the development of Fox Chapel lacrosse came when Andrew Casile graduated to play for Thiel this year. Now a freshman midfielder, he scored four goals and four assists in his first seven games for the NCAA Division III Tomcats.
McCrady is quick to deflect praise for the team’s accomplishments, however. He would rather bestow it upon his assistant coaches, Cam Thompson, a longtime assistant to McCrady who brought multiple offensive sets to Fox Chapel, Andrew Dixon, who works with the defense, and fellow Shady Side Academy grad Jay Deal.
“I’ve learned so much from these young guys. I graduated college 20 years ago. These guys are mature from a coaching perspective but they are still young guys,” McCrady said.
In addition to the four veteran players, other key contributors to the Foxes this season include senior goalie Dan Dicimo, junior Andy Ream, who had scored six goals in the first two games, defensive midfielder Ben Freedland, who also is an outstanding hockey player, junior midfielder Matt Hardiman, a second-year starter who had two goals coming into the Pine-Richland game, and attackers Jake Kronman and Jake Chasjon.
Fox Chapel also figures to improve with the return of defender Ryan Quinn from injury. Ream’s brother Chris replaced him for the first two games of the season and, according to his head coach, did “a great job in Ryan’s absence.”