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Donovan Chaney knew the game was over. The Cicero North-Syracuse attack watched from the other side of the field as West Genesee secured an 18-7 win. It was the Northstars’ fifth straight Class A Semifinals exit.

Chaney, then a junior, knew the game’s magnitude and felt he’d have to step up to lead C-NS’ young offense. He ended the game with a team-high two goals and one assist, but it was no match for the Wildcats.

“That was a tough day,” C-NS boys lacrosse head coach Chuck Wilbur said. “We didn’t see the ball a ton. They had an incredible faceoff guy. So when we did see the ball, we had to convert. We were trying to get the ball in (Chaney’s) stick quite a bit, even though he had one of the better defenders on him.”

Although Chaney’s committed to play at Le Moyne following the 2026 season, there’s still a goal he’s hungry to accomplish. After recording a team-high 41 goals and 31 assists in 2025, his focus in his final campaign is to finally break the Northstars’ haunting streak.

“For my past three years, we’ve lost all three of them,” Chaney said. “We’ve been trying to get over that hump, and just haven’t been able to yet.”

After a quiet bus ride back from the season-ending loss versus West Genesee, Wilbur pulled Chaney and senior Dominick D’Avirro into his office to announce they’d serve as co-captains the following year. He told them to try to make something different happen.

Chaney first joined C-NS’ lacrosse program as an eighth grader on its junior varsity team. By freshman year, he started on varsity. Coming from a football family, Chaney originally planned to focus on football. But Wilbur pushed Chaney into lacrosse from football because of his physicality. He took it as a sign to pursue the sport.

“I saw something there,” Wilbur said. “I saw a kid who wasn’t afraid of contact. I saw a kid who wasn’t afraid of failure.”

Wilbur said Chaney’s learned how to win, but more importantly, how to lose. It will likely serve him well with the Dolphins, who, after transitioning from Division II to Division I in 2023, have regressed from 17-1 to 9-6 in 2025.

Chaney has helped increase his teammates’ work ethic during morning weightlifts and weekend practices to break C-NS’ streak.

“Everyone’s pulling their weight in some parts of it, so you can’t take a day off, because no one else is,” teammate Jack Puttman said.

In December 2025, when C-NS had a snow day, the team still wanted to practice. They rented a turf field for an hour and ended up staying for three.

At that moment, Chaney was the first to ask teammates to show up or even come early for scheduled practices. He’s also always willing to help them get there.

“He will offer anyone a ride,” Puttman said. “If you live completely out of the way, he’s still gonna go pick you up.”

After years of playing together, Puttman can sense how Chaney will perform before they even step on the field. The duo goes to the gym before games and spends about 20 minutes playing wall ball.

Last year, before the semifinal against West Genesee, Puttman felt something was different.

“As he puts his headphones on and starts to play wall ball, it’s like he wants to kill the wall,” Puttman said.

Despite Chaney’s efforts, the Northstars’ loss was a familiar feeling.

But now, Chaney pictures surpassing the semifinals, and when the final whistle blows in the championship in a few months, he envisions a different ending than the one C-NS has known for half a decade.

“Throwing up the gloves, running over to the goalie in sectional finals and finally winning.”

Published on February 3, 2026 at 10:51 pm
Contact Georgia: gphudson@syr.edu