Tucker Wilkinson started the lacrosse program at Fox Creek five years ago before returning to his hometown in West Virginia and leaving the program in the hands of Jake Torres.
On Friday night, Wilkinson returned to Fox Creek with his current team, the Linsly Cadets, to play the Predators and see how the program has changed.
“It's just something that wasn't in this area,” Wilkinson said. “And it's a fantastic sport. The amount of opportunities these kids get from playing this sport. I mean, it's just endless because it's growing so fast at the college level.”
Fox Creek fell to Linsly 13-2 after taking a dominant 12-2 win against Trinity Collegiate on Thursday. The Predators are off to their best start in program history after building the program up throughout the last five years.
Wilkinson said he never stopped keeping track of how the team was doing even after leaving to coach at Linsly.
“When it started out it was such a struggle and all of a sudden now you're seeing these teams are gobbling up wins,” he said. “They had a dominant performance just the other night. Honestly, I knew he was the perfect guy for the job and he's doing just tremendous things for us. So it's been awesome.”
After being canceled in its first year because of the pandemic, Fox Creek finished with two wins in 2021, five in 2022 and finished 2023 with a program-high seven wins.
This year the Predators are off to a 5-4 start with three more games to go in the season
Despite a majority of the roster being new to the program, Torres said he’s proud of where the group is at right now.
“They're winning because of that ability to not give up, to try to improve, and to embrace and take goals in a team,” he said. “And so I'm really proud of that aspect and that you're seeing success in the field as well.”
Wilkinson and Torres said developing the program and getting students involved has been an uphill battle, but once they start playing, students are hooked.
While lacrosse is a popular sport in the northeast United States, South Carolina is starting to catch up as it grows throughout the state at the high school level. Just this year, Fox Creek added girls' lacrosse to its roster of sports.
With records of lacrosse stretching back to the 17th century, it's known as the oldest team sport, according to USA Lacrosse.
It all comes down to the culture it teaches through patience as players learn how to work as a team, Torres said.
“Lacrosse is a sport that was built around family,” he said. “It's a Native American sport that grew from the Iroquois Nation, and what they did was they used it as a way to settle disputes and grow their family up. And it was a family thing. It's something you got as a child and you grew it up. So, that kind of understanding of what the sport is, we tell these boys, it's small goals. It's building families. It's building networks. It doesn't have to be a win every season. It's about improving just one percent each day in some aspect of the game, catching, passing, scoring, defending. So, that's all it is.”
Wilkinson said Torres is contributing to expanding the sport the North Augusta and Aiken through his coaching at Fox Creek.
“Its grown tremendously,” he said. “And we're starting to see kind of a trickle of that with it growing in Aiken and then also apparently there's a whole rec league that's growing up, too. That's part of his continued efforts and what he's bringing. They’re bringing wins and they're bringing a lot of positive impact on the community, and people are seeing how great this game is, so its been wonderful.”
Fox Creek will face region opponent Aiken high school at home on March 21 as the Predators look to finish their season on a high note.
