RC Girls Laxers Start 2-0 Wildcats Cruise Past Fluvanna, Covenant
The Rockbridge County High School girls lacrosse team started the season with two decisive home wins, cruising past Fluvanna County 25-1 on Tuesday of last week before beating The Covenant School 17-3 on Thursday.
In the cold and windy opener against Fluvanna, 11 different players scored for the Wildcats. Senior attacker Lola Mulitalo led RC with six goals, and junior midfielder Anna Nye paced the Wildcats with five assists and 16 draw controls. Also stepping up was junior midfielder Emma McKnight with seven draw controls.
RC head coach Susan Nye said the Wildcats’ defense “was solid, with some new players in the mix.” The eighth-year RC coach said two of those defenders, freshmen Grace Jensen and sophomore EJ Clement,“are fast and aggressive and have great stick skills.” Playing in goal was sophomore Ellie McKnight, who “is showing tremendous progress,” said Nye.
RC 17, Covenant 3
Building up a large lead early, the Wildcats earned a 17-3 home win over The Covenant School on Thursday night in Lexington.
The Wildcats made no doubt that they wanted the win against one of only two teams to defeat them last year. When RC and Covenant met last March in Charlottesville, Covenant capitalized on RC yellow cards and eked out a 12-11 win. Covenant went on to win its fourth consecutive Virginia Independent Schools Athletic Association (VISAA) Division II state championship last year.
On Thursday, the Wildcats got their offense moving from the start, taking a 7-1 lead after the first quarter, with Anna Nye scoring three goals and Mulitalo contributing two. RC then built up a double digit lead in the second quarter, taking a 12-1 advantage into halftime.
The Eagles (0-2) managed to score a pair of goals in the fourth quarter, but RC’s Emma McKnight scored the final goal of the game, as the Wildcats concluded a strong first week of the season.
Pleased with how her team played, Coach Nye said, “The level of intensity, we’ve been working on that, to fight for everything. That was definitely evident on the ground balls, defense, even our movement on the passes. Everything was just more aggressive.”
Coach Nye acknowledged that Covenant is a tough opponent, “but we’re just a different team this year.”
Lola Mulitalo and Anna Nye led the Wildcats with five goals each, while junior midfielder Emma McKnight paced RC with three assists. Coach Nye also praised Emma Johnson and Adrianna Grue for contributing to the offense and “taking on a larger attacking role this season. Both are juniors, they are quick and they are showing great shot placement.”
Anna Nye led RC with 10 draw controls, surpassing 400 draw controls for her career. Joining the draw control team was junior Laura Ingram, a transfer from Knoxville Catholic High School in Tennessee. Defensively, Clement, Nye and senior Nadia Gaydos led the Wildcats with three ground balls each.
McKnight played the first half in goal for RC before junior Elle Werner replaced her for the second half.
Optimistic about the season after the first week, Coach Nye said, “2026 is off to a great start. There is something special about the 2026 team. A number of these players began their lacrosse careers with LexLax Lightning [youth lacrosse programmer] as kindergarteners and firstgraders. This team is next level with their grit and drive.”
The Wildcats graduated seven players last year, led by all-state selections Josie Cadwell and Emily Humphreys. The Wildcats have a strong group returning and will look to their four cocaptains for leadership: seniors Mulitalo and Gaydos and juniors Anna Nye and Braelyn Polly, a defender. Muiltalo, Gaydos and Nye were all-state first-team selections last year. Mulitalo, who owns the alltime points record for the Wildcats, was the Region 4D player of the year as a sophomore, and Nye was the regional player of the year last year. All four cocaptains have committed to playing lacrosse at the collegiate level.
WILDCAT JUNIOR attacker Emma Johnson takes the ball down the field while a pair of Fluvanna County players try to catch up. (Stephanie Mikels Blevins photo)
SENIOR ATTACKER Lola Mulitalo, who led the Wildcats with six goals, keeps the ball in her stick while Fluvanna County’s Savannah Petersen guards her. (Stephanie Mikels Blevins photo)
This year, the Wildcats have three seniors, two 11 juniors, seven sophomores and three freshmen.
Coach Nye said the Wildcats’ goals are to win their sixth consecutive Region 4D title and their first Class 4 state title. Her assistant coaches, both returning, are Sammy Moore and Haiden Lancaster.
The Wildcats were scheduled to play at three-time defending state champion Western Albemarle last night in Crozet. The Wildcats lost to Western Albemarle in the state championship game the last two years, falling 14-4 last year and finishing the season with a 15-3 record, including a 12-10 loss to Western in the season opener last March. It was the Wildcats’ fifth consecutive state tournament defeat to Western. The story on last night’s game will be in next week’s newspaper.
RC will play host to Christiansburg on Monday, with the varsity game only at 6 p.m.
