Alyssa Karalekas never intended to play lacrosse — so there is no shortage of sincere modesty in her tone when she looks back on a high school career that culminated with her becoming perhaps the most accomplished girls’ lacrosse player in the history of East Providence High School.

Karalekas was recently named All-Academic by USA Lacrosse, one of the highest honors bestowed upon a student-athlete, and is given to a player “who exhibits exemplary lacrosse skills, good sportsmanship on the field, and represents high standards of academic achievement in the classroom.”

“It feels like a major accomplishment to me,” she said in a recent interview. “I never thought I would ever get this. I feel like it shows my work ethic.”

Karalekas was a soccer player as far back as she could remember. But when she took up lacrosse as a spring sport her freshman year, she found that her innate speed and knowledge of how to move around the pitch translated quite nicely.

“I’m naturally really fast. I just like to run around,” she said. “I just had to catch my stick up to my feet, basically.”

As fate would have it, her very first game seeing playing time was in the 2023 state championship game against fellow East Providence school, Bay View, in which the Townies ultimately lost 9-8 after four overtimes.

“That was where I scored my first goal too,” she said. “I didn’t even know what I was doing. It was really surreal.”

Over the course of her high school career, Karalekas would go on to score a lot more goals; more than anyone in the history of the school, in fact. Her senior season she tallied 66 goals, and amassed 173 goals throughout all four years.

Karalekas attributes a lot of her early growth in the sport to Kenna Wigginton, a Townie graduate of 2024 who now plays at Tiffin University in Ohio.
“She took me under her wing and she taught me a lot,” Karalekas said. “I would go to the field and practice all the time and that's how I really got into the sport.”

The summer of her junior year, Karalekas tried out for and made the Revlax club team out of Massachusetts. There she met Meg Reddy, a coach who saw her potential and helped further develop her skills. The club team allowed her to travel and compete alongside some of the most talented lacrosse players in New England.

That season, Karalekas would lead the team that went undefeated all the way to a D-III championship.

“We just had a great team,” she said. “Everyone was really athletic, too, because there were a lot of soccer players. Everyone was really fast.”

That season, Karalekas was named the state’s D-III Player of the Year, Second Team All-State, First Team All-Division, All-Academic (which she did three times in her tenure), and was the MVP of the title game, scoring all seven of the team’s goals.

Following the magical undefeated season, the Townies lost more than 10 seniors to graduation. Despite a rebuilding season with a lot of freshmen on the team, they nonetheless battled to the semifinals, ultimately losing to Toll Gate. Still, Karalekas earned First Team, All-State honors in her final season.

A champion in the classroom as well

Karalekas finished fourth overall in the Class of 2026 academically. She completed eight AP classes along the way to being named an AP Scholar (and a seal of bi-literacy for Spanish), and earned an academic scholarship to Wellesley College in Massachusetts. She plans to play for the school’s D-III lacrosse team among competition such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Salve Regina, and the United States Coast Guard Academy.

Karalekas said that she had received offers to play D-I lacrosse for Delaware State University and Lindenwood University in Missouri, but she felt it was more prudent to go to a school more renowned for their academic program. Wellesley is the alma mater of Madeleine Albright, Nora Ephron, and Hillary Clinton, among other famous women.

“I wanted to go somewhere more academic-based because I had a really good financial package and I feel like it would do me better than going to a mid-major, D-I school,” she said. “I wanted to continue playing, but get a good education too.”

Karalekas said she plans to study political science and psychology. She said she was grateful to the social studies department at the high school, which she feels are among the best teachers at the school.

“Alyssa Karalekas is an outstanding athlete and student,” said Nicholas Boyce, a social studies teacher and the head coach of the girls’ lacrosse team. “During the last three seasons I have coached her, I have seen her grow into a fantastic lacrosse player. Alyssa is great when it comes to handling the ball on the field as well as excelling academically in the classroom. When I think of what a student-athlete aims to be, I think of Alyssa Karalekas.”

Asked what advice she would give fellow student-athletes, Karalekas drew from her own experience.

“I feel like you should try new things. Get involved in different clubs because you don't really know what you like until you try it,” she said. “Like, I didn't know I would end up playing lacrosse. I played soccer my whole life. You can just pick things up. But it's also important to take challenging classes.”