Fox Chapel girls in quest for first trip to final

Tri-State Sports & News Service

Fox Chapel has never played in the WPIAL Division I/Class 3A girls lacrosse championship match since the PIAA officially began recognizing the sport in 2004.

This, however, might finally be the year the Foxes break through.

Fox Chapel opened the season with eight consecutive victories, including a signature win against perennial contender Peters Township March 30. The Foxes are averaging 18.4 goals per game and have eclipsed 20 on three occasions.

“It’s definitely been a good start and I think it’s the team we’ve been able to put together,” Fox Chapel coach Katie Lundberg said. “This is a group of girls that works really hard. They’ve been playing lacrosse together for many years, which is something that we’ve not seen in the past.”

Fox Chapel is built around senior midfielder Megan McCrady, a Georgetown recruit who was allWPIAL and an all-American as a junior last season. The team also brought back junior all-section midfielder Kate Goodwin to help keep the pressure on.

“Having Megan has been extremely helpful because, ever since her freshman year, she’s played not only at a high level of lacrosse, but a high level of competitiveness,” Lundberg said. “I think that we’re just now starting to see this in the Pittsburgh area as the sport is growing, but she just kind of put that element into it that we’re not just playing because it’s something fun to do, but because we love the sport.”

Though Fox Chapel is off to a perfect start, the team has only played one team, Peters Township, that qualified for the 2016 WPIAL playoffs in the highest classification. The Foxes do, however, have wins against Latrobe and Hempfield, both of which lost in the first round of the Division II/Class 2A tournament a year ago.

And there are still quite a few obstacles to get past in the regular season before Fox Chapel can begin to look at a championship run. The Foxes will take on Section 2 rival Shady Side Academy Monday in the first of their two meetings and has a date with Upper St. Clair slated for Thursday.

Class 3A Boys

Seneca Valley might be off to one of the best starts in school history, but the Raiders aren’t about to get overconfident this early in the season.

“The big change for us this year has been the schedule is backloaded relative to the years prior, so we’re playing a little bit lesser competition earlier in the year,” Seneca Valley coach Peter Tumbas said. “To be honest, our record is a bit of a mirage.”

Seneca Valley opened the season 6-2 including a win against District 12 Methacton in its opener. But the Raiders had their five-game winning streak snapped last week in a 14-1 loss to Upper St. Clair and things don’t get any easier from there.

Not only have they not played the meat of their Class 3A Section 3 slate, which includes North Allegheny and Pine-Richland, they also have dates with Bethel Park, Moon and Quaker Valley, all of which could make the WPIAL playoffs.

With most of the key section games being played later this season, Seneca Valley has had a rare opportunity to work out the kinks and be more prepared when those teams come calling.

“We did make a point to schedule some of those games early because we knew we were going to be very young on offense,” Tumbas said. “We needed to have more experience if we’re to make a postseason run and we were fortunate that the scheduling with our section games worked out this year.”