Nobody likes a two-mile run, but when the Toll Gate girls’ soccer team laced up for their annual preseason tradition, Emily Fox never complained. It was a chance to win something. “I was probably the most competitive person on the team,” Fox said. “We do a two-mile run every year, a hell week type thing. I was always really competitive with that. I wanted to win.” Whether she was on the field or the ice – or the makeshift path for a preseason two-mile run – that competitive fire served Fox very well. Fox was a standout athlete for four years and, in what turned out to be a tremendous senior year at Toll Gate, she earned second-team AllState honors in soccer and a first-team All-State nod in hockey. It was a year to remember. “I’ll definitely have my favorite memories from this year,” Fox said. “I had a lot of fun.” All the success wasn’t unexpected. Fox was a key player for Toll Gate soccer as a junior and an emerging star for a rapidly improving Warwick girls’ hockey co-op team that winter. With the potential for more in 2012-13, Fox delivered. On the soccer field, the Titans rebounded from a three-win campaign in 2011 to win five games and grab a playoff spot this year. Fox was a catalyst, regularly creating scoring chances from her spot on the wing. “Toll Gate soccer has always been so big,” Fox said. “I’ve never been ■
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T.J. Boyajian never seriously considered hanging up his shoulder pads, but there was a moment when the thought crossed his mind. He had just finished a long summer of American Legion baseball, and he knew baseball was his future. He would soon commit to play at the Community College of Rhode Island. Football was slowly moving to the back burner. “To be honest, I came in out of shape,” Boyajian said. “At the beginning of the year, I was really planning on focusing on baseball.” Then a funny thing happened. Boyajian got on the field with his teammates, and as memories of their Thanksgiving win over Pilgrim came rushing back, he realized that something special was brewing. That moment when football started drifting? It left as quickly as it came. “As soon as I got into the pads and I got out there, I was like, ‘How could I miss this?’” Boyajian said. He was thrilled that he didn’t. Boyajian became one of the best players in the state and the ‘Canes made good on their potential by putting together their best season since 2008. For Boyajian, it was the most special part of a great senior year. He battled injuries in the spring, but still shined for the Vets baseball team. He leaves Vets with a tremendous athletic career in the rearview mirror. “It was more than I could ask for,” he said. ■
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