Devon Felix scored more than 100 goals during her career at Holy Family. [Stephen Pellegrino Photography]Her playing days are over.
But Devon Felix has a long career in lacrosse ahead of her.
Felix was a senior on the Holy Family University women’s lacrosse team and on Saturday she played her final game for the Tigers.
The Lower Moreland graduate and Huntingdon Valley native didn’t just have a good season, she enjoyed a historic one, scoring more than 100 career goals last week. On the season, she finished with 40 goals and 45 points to help the Tigers, who finished 3-14.
“I’ve had some good seasons, but this was definitely the best one,” said Felix, a midfielder. “I think this was my best one, it’s the first one where I was the leading scorer on the team. We’ve had some better seasons as a team, but for me, this was my most productive one.”
Felix might be done playing, but there’s a good chance she’ll long be standing on the sidelines as a coach. She coaches a club team during the summer, but she’s also going to graduate with a degree in biology and secondary education.
The plan is to get a job at a high school teaching the science class, and if she does that, she’ll be looking around to coach a lacrosse team, possibly as an assistant.
“I think coaching and teaching are a lot alike,” said Felix, who also played soccer in high school. “I’ve wanted to be a teacher for a while. I thought about teaching either math or science, I like them both, but after a while, I really liked biology.
“Coaching is teaching. It’s about making things easy to understand and helping people understand concepts. You just have to work with the students or the players and make sure they understand everything. I think they have a lot in common.
“Maybe some day I’d want to coach in college, but for now I want to do younger teams. I think they’re too close to my age to coach soccer.”
Felix has had a chance to help students on the field during her days coaching club teams, but this semester she had a chance to work with students at Archbishop Ryan High School, where she serves as a student-teacher and will even work as a long-term substitute teacher throughout the rest of the school year. For her, it’s been the perfect way to get her start.
“I love the kids at Archbishop Ryan,” Felix said. “I love everything about the school. They’ve been great. The kids are great, it’s a lot of fun being there.”
Almost as much fun as her season at Holy Family has been.
While she wishes the team would have more wins on the year, and she really would have enjoyed helping the Tigers make the tournament, this has been a great season for her.
She became the ninth player in program history to reach the century mark and she’s now among the top 10 scorers in both goals and points in school history.
She saved her best for the end of the season. She was named the Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference Women’s Lacrosse Player of the Week for the week ending April 21 when she poured in 13 goals and led the Tigers to two straight victories, a 15-13 triumph over Chestnut Hill and a 17-7 win over Felician, when she scored seven goals, including her career 99th tally.
Then she scored four goals, including her 100th, on Tuesday in a loss to Dominican. The game wasn’t perfect because the setback kept the Tigers from qualifying for the postseason tournament, but there was a reason to celebrate.
“It was great because my family was there and my teammates, this wasn’t an accomplishment by me, it was an accomplishment by us,” Felix said. “Nobody can score without help. This was a combination of everyone working together. They weren’t just happy for me, they were happy for us because we did this together.
“It’s bittersweet because we’ve had such a great time here together. I loved playing here. I loved playing with this team. I’ve learned a lot.”
And she’s looking forward to passing that on to the next generation of lacrosse players.
In fact, she’s already done it.
This summer, while Felix is looking to find the perfect teaching job, she will continue coaching for the Ultimate Lacrosse team based out of Valley Forge. There, she hopes to do for players what her coaches did for her.
“I had great coaches everywhere,” Felix said. “The coaches at Holy Family taught me so much. I became more skilled here. The coaches and my teammates here made me a better player.
“I’m really glad I came to Holy Family. It was a great school and I’m definitely going to miss it. The school’s athletic community is so close. I’ve made a lot of friends here. It was a great school for me, but I’m excited.”
