RADNOR — Somedays, the lacrosse is nuanced, complicated even. Other days, it’s plain as day.
Tuesday was one of the latter days for Radnor’s Kessy Cox.
If Pennridge was going to keep giving the left-handed attackman all the space he wanted in their District 1 Class 3A quarterfinal, then he was going to punish them. With his shot, with his passing vision, with his connection with fellow attackman Owen Knight, he was going to put up numbers the Rams couldn’t catch up to.
Cox collected three goals and four assists in the game’s first 17 minutes, four of them scoring hookups with Knight that Pennridge had no answer for in the Raptors’ 18-4 win.
“I think just keep doing what’s working,” Cox said. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
It wasn’t just the two of them. Cox finished with four and four, getting a blow late in the second quarter when his stick broke in half and he had to do some emergency maintenance. (That particular shaft perished on its first day of work, after Cox snapped a shaft in practice Monday.) Knight had four goals and three assists for fourth-seeded Radnor (16-4).
There were hockey assists aplenty – Logan Montrella off the opening faceoff to Knight to Cox seven seconds in; goalie Johnny Webb on a 70-yard outlet that Knight hollered for and then fed to Cox on the doorstep.
Cox’s bond with Knight, with whom he’s played since fourth grade, is particularly potent. They’re a study in contrasts – Cox the lanky Villanova commit; Knight a short and speedy righty bound for Drexel – but the synergy is impressive.
“We’ve been working on that skip pass all year in practice,” Cox said. “He knows where I’m going to be, and he throws without even looking. It’s really hard for the defense if we have a fast break because they have to rotate over. They have to pick and choose, but they can’t guard both of them.”
Radnor set the tone early with two goals on the rush from defensive middies in the first 2:40 of the game, Tucker Graham and Tyler Vitale potting goals. Graham would get a second in the second quarter, when Sawyer Smith scored twice, including a top-corner rocket from 20 yards. Nate Lucchesi, who had a goal and an assist, set that up.
Montrella, drafted into the starting faceoff role in early May, supplied a boost with a 10-for-16 performance at the X. He also buried a goal when left all alone at 6:55 of the second to make it 10-2 six seconds after Graham’s second goal.
“Logan’s playing great right now,” Cox said. “He’s doing everything we ask of him. He’s creating fast breaks, he’s making the right play. He’s definitely matured a lot as a player and is making the right play. He scored a nice goal when they gave it to him.”
No. 5 Pennridge (16-4) couldn’t solve Johnny Webb, who made nine saves in his three quarters of work. The long windups from 15 yards are meet and drink to the LIU commit, even if his sprawling leg saves look anything but routine.
Radnor jumped out to a 5-0 lead before Frankie Fanelli found Matt Kriney on a well-worked play out of a timeout 6½ minutes in. Rocco Fanelli took a behind-the-cage Matt Seiler feed man-up early in the third. Seiler set up Rocco Fanelli in the third quarter, then Seiler buried a lovely shot fake, something the Rams did far too little of, off a behind-the-back feed from LSM Andrew Horsensky.
