Lacrosse
Favorite athlete: Saquon Barkley
Favorite team: Philadelphia Eagles
Favorite memory competing in sports: When we went into double overtime against Pennsbury junior year. Even though it ended in a tie game, the back and forth was so exciting.
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: This year, at practice, I stole the ball from my friend while we were cleaning up the balls and she decided to pants me, and we all died laughing because it was so unexpected
Music on playlist: I honestly love everything, but pregame I listen to rap. But if I’m just driving or listening to music, some of my favorites are Eminem, Sza, and Bruno Mars
Future plans: I haven’t decided on a college yet, but I know I’m going to study something in business
Words to live by: “Life goes by way too fast to be unhappy with the way you’re living it.”
One goal before turning 30: I really want to travel to Italy or Greece at some point in my life
One thing people don’t know about you: My absolute favorite flavor of ice cream is bubble gum with the bubble gum pieces in it.
By Mary Jane Souder
Alexa McCabe – with the ball in her lacrosse stick - is capable of creating something that borders on magic. At least that’s the way it undoubtedly feels to opponents trying to stop the gifted Wissahickon senior, who makes scoring goals look oh so easy.
As a freshman, McCabe burst onto the scene and served immediate notice that she was a special talent, scoring 73 goals on a squad that already had a prolific goal scorer in Emma Baker, who had 90 goals that
season.
By the time she was a sophomore, McCabe was named a captain, a rare honor given to someone so young.
“We recognized early on that she’s a kid other kids will gravitate towards and will feed off her energy,” Wissahickon coach Chuck Wurzbach said. “When we made the decision to name her a captain, she took to it from the beginning. She is a true leader on the field – she doesn’t have a problem being firm, but she’s also very enthusiastic and positive towards others.”
Ask the three-year captain the secret to her remarkable goal-scoring success, and she has an immediate answer.
“I have to credit my teammates,” McCabe said. “My thing is cutting. I’ve always been a cutter. Freshman year – Lex Hopkins and Emma Baker were feeding me the ball non-stop.
“They had so much trust in me. Freshman year taught me a higher level of lacrosse – how to trust people. I never was used to being fed with a defender on me. In middle school, you’re wide open.”
What is lost in all of McCabe’s remarkable accomplishments is the fact that she did all of this while enduring unimaginable setbacks, twice undergoing knee surgery.
The most recent – last June for a torn MPFL - sidelined McCabe for six months. She received clearance to return to action just in time for the start of her final high school season.
“The fact that she keeps coming back is a testament to her fortitude but also what the team means to her,” Wurzbach said. “She’s an inspiration to all of us in terms of her pure determination.”
Back to the beginning
McCabe got her first taste of lacrosse when she was five years old with Wiss Lax.
“I grew up in North Penn School District, but they didn’t have a township program, so I always did Wiss Lax,” McCabe said. “I’ve known Chuck (Wurzbach), and since I started playing, he’s been my coach. I know all
the girls from the team and that definitely helps because we’ve all grown up together.”
The Wissahickon senior did try other sports.
“Soccer lasted maybe until first or second grade, but then I picked up cross country and track in middle school and track in high school,” McCabe said. “Cross country and track got me into insane shape for my seasons, and it taught me a ton of grit and how to mentally prep and push through stressful, competitive, or painful situations since the whole sport of running is a head game. For a while, I was thinking of maybe going to a small school, maybe D3, and doing both.”
From the outset, lacrosse was McCabe’s passion, and it wasn’t long she was competing on the club circuit, most recently with NXT Lacrosse Club.
“I love the competitive nature of lacrosse,” McCabe said. “There are so many technical aspects of it.
“My problem with soccer was that the ball was never yours. It was always just out there, but lacrosse – it’s never ending the amount you can learn with it. There are so many tricks, so many shots. There’s so much to improve upon all the time, which is why I loved it.”
The Wiss senior has worked tirelessly at her sport.
“I always did lots of wall ball growing up - Chuck had competitions for who could get the most reps in a week,” she said. “That helped me to have a great handle on the ball which makes it easier to catch any kind of pass thrown at me.
“I think I also I learned how to time my cuts by using my speed and starting farther back and waiting for my defender to turn their head.”
With a major portion of her senior season remaining, McCabe is nearing the 250-goal mark with a realistic chance of reaching the 300-goal mark.
“She has very quick hands,” Wurzbach said. “As a result of that – when she has two steps, she can score. That’s all she needs. Catch, one, two, and the ball is out of her stick, and it’s usually in the back of the net.
“The one thing I will say she has gotten much better at is her shooting percentages are really high. She’s scoring on 70 percent of her shots. One of the reasons why we’ve been successful so far is that it doesn’t take a lot. It makes me look much better as a coach.”
Although she is a threat to score every time she touches the ball, McCabe is anything but one dimensional on the lacrosse field.
“I can’t tell you how many times she’s running, and she’s looking – is there somebody else that has a better opportunity when we’re coming down in transition,” Wurzbach said. “Rarely is she getting the ball and running down through six or seven people. She’s looking to move the ball, and she distributes.
“We continually have five or six or seven goal scorers in a game. It’s because she recognizes that the success of the team - her success is based on the success of the entire team and vice versa, and the team has all bought into that mindset. It’s a unit
“They do really enjoy each other. It’s fun. We get into the circle before the game, and they’re smiling and they’re laughing before they walk on the field. Just very free, this team right now is happy to be amongst each other. It’s just a good group, and she helps set the tone.”
For McCabe, lacrosse is an outlet.
“I’ve grown up and I’m the kid that needs to be running around, I need to be active all the time,” she said. “Lacrosse and track and cross country too and sports in general have done that for me.
“The girls – it’s like a relief, it’s like a breath of fresh air to be around them. My teammates are always laughing, they’re always calming me down. Even when I wasn’t playing, I still felt like such a part of the team. They were always there for me. They were like my best friends.”
Bumps in the road
It’s safe to say McCabe would be playing at a high collegiate level had it not been for knee issues that began innocently enough in eighth grade at a birthday party held at an ice skating rink.
“My kneecap dislocated on the ice,” she said. “The ambulance had to come, they took me to the hospital, and they relocated it.
“The first time it happened in lacrosse – I think it was summer after freshman year. I had just finished freshman year of lacrosse. I went to a showcase, and a girl hit me. My kneecap just slipped right out of place. I was lucky enough – one of the dads was an orthopedic surgeon, so he could put it back. I was so thankful for that.”
McCabe’s first surgery on her right kneecap was in September of sophomore year.
“After my sophomore year surgery, I was definitely nervous getting back into it,” she said. “It had never happened in lacrosse until that previous summer, so I was scared. At that point my head was a mess.
“(Club) is so competitive to the point where I’m an attacker, and I was not getting shots off. I couldn’t shoot. I was such a head case. It was so frustrating. Two weeks into my sophomore season, a girl hit me, and it dislocated again.”
It didn’t prevent McCabe from scoring 54 goals.
Then, last year, she dislocated the kneecap of her left knee. She acknowledges that her body type has played a role in her knee issues.
“My whole body composition is just prone to it, so basically the groove that holds my kneecap is super shallow, so there’s no wedge to keep it over my knee,” she said. “I’m double-jointed -so my legs bend a lot more than they should be bending.
“My problem for a while was I was too flexible, so my PTs and trainers would have me literally work out and say – ‘Don’t stretch. Go and sit down so everything will tighten.’ My hips are rotated differently. I’m just tall and double jointed.”
As a junior, McCabe scored 73 goals despite missing the final four of five games of the season.
“She was at 199 (goals) when she got hurt,” Wurzbach said. “We all made an agreement – her parents, myself and Lex – we had a game 10 days later against William Tennent. I said, ‘I will get you your 200 and then you’re never going back in for the rest of the season.’”
So, McCabe got her 200th goal, and in August of 2024, she had surgery number two and was sidelined until the start of her final high school season.
“It was tough,” she said. “It screwed up my whole recruiting process.
“I definitely wish college scouts could come to high school games, but the reality is – they don’t.”
If they did, they would see a gifted player who gives no indication of the setbacks she’s endured.
“She still out there, she still hustles up and down the field,” Wurzbach said. “She’s scoring goals, and teams all know who she is, so it’s not like she’s hiding on the field. Sometimes they try to face guard her – it doesn’t work.”
Looking ahead
Despite her setbacks, McCabe has not ruled out continuing her lacrosse career at the next level as a walk-on or on the club circuit. Right now, her top two schools are the University of Miami and the University of Georgia with academics her top consideration.
Turns out McCabe also excels in the classroom. She scored 1480 on her SATs and boasted a GPA of 4.98 after her junior year, With four AP classes this year, the Wiss senior - an officer in the National Honor Society - is once again in the neighborhood of 5.0.
“Academics have always been really important to me,” said McCabe, who is also actively involved in Wissahickon’s MiniTHON. “Even during recruiting I was like – I don’t want to go to a school that doesn’t have great academics. Even if they’re D1, I’d rather go and get a great education.
“I’m definitely waiting to see how this season goes. Georgia’s got a great club team. It’s the top in the nation, and that’s exciting. I’ve heard it’s a bunch of girls who are in the same boat as me. Girls that went D1 or
were going to go D1, and they got hurt and they decided it was not for them, not that level of intensity, and they transferred.”
But that’s a decision for another day.
“I’m excited for college,” she said. “I think it will be fun just going and being in a new place, but I still haven’t really adjusted to the fact that lacrosse is going to be done.
“Since I started club, the goal and the life plan was –‘Obviously, I’m going to commit to a school. Lacrosse isn’t going to be done until I’m 22-23 years old.’ Then this year club ended junior summer. I was like – ‘Wait this is it. I’m done after this.’ It’s 14 years – it’s crazy.”
“It’s really tough,” Wurzbach said. “Because I know she did have dreams of playing in college, but all of this has made it difficult. She didn’t get recruited then because every time she as going through her recruiting season, she was injured.
“She’s just a very nice kid, works hard. On the field, she is constantly supporting her teammates, stays positive, comes into the circle and if we’re struggling at something, she’ll talk to the team about it. But she is the rudder of the boat, and the kids see it.”
