We transition to a new sponsor for the FLN Polls this season!  Prospects Lacrosse Inc. is sponsoring a new event for Florida school teams on an invitational basis as a showcase for college coaches to attend.  The Florida event is scheduled for May 23rd-24th in Vero Beach. LINK   No change at the top this week.  SA gliding, PV riding . . . to Baltimore.  Where they gave a great showing against nationally-ranked Gilman, and were twisted into a pretzel by nationally-ranked Boys’ Latin.  SA is about to wade into their own out-of-state gauntlet on Wednesday as Academy New Church of Pa. comes to town.  Academy lost one game last year, by one goal to Malvern Prep, and anyone who knows Pennsylvania knows what that means.  They follow with Vandergrift of Texas, the traditional home game with Boys’ Latin and then Bergen Catholic of NJ. No rest for the Top Dogs as PV’s schedule is still full of meat on the bone. One of the fun things for me is that while I do my writings I can watch some great college action and as I do this Cornell and Penn State are playing a doozy in the Charlotte area and, lo and behold, who is in the stands but our road warriors, the Immokalee Indians!  We mentioned their trip before and they knew about Lenoir-Rhyne – Limestone (which ended with the upset of #1!) and the Syracuse-Virginia Tech women’s game, but did not know about the nightcap!  Talk about lucking out . . .  

As I was tweeting @CornellLacrosse wins it w/8 sec left off the face! Final @CornellLacrosse 18 @PennMensLax 17 Great Game for the boys to see! @FloridaLX @LaxNorthfl @LacrosseNaples @TheCrownLax @Indians_IHS @tampalaxreport pic.twitter.com/gdwy5dtZbr

— Immokalee Boys Lacrosse (@IHSIndiansLax) March 8, 2020

  The kids got quite the extra thrill!  And I got to watch most of it on the big screen.  LSN broadcast this one so it will be available on-demand, so if you didn’t catch it and need something to watch during the dog days of summer, you could do a lot worse than pull this one up. There’s definitely some movement in the Class 1A polls, but not as much in Class 2A, as the teams have not faced each other yet, if at all until the playoffs.  This is kind of the issue with this year, as Class 1A is the focal point of week to week matchups. The Class 1A poll got difficult this week, as that old bugaboo of A beats B, B beats C and C beats A cropped up again . . . I’m looking at you Benjamin, King’s and AH-P . . . thanks a lot!   It’s getting near time for the annual trek of top national programs to our state and the list is getting longer! Boys’ Latin, McDonogh, Academy Church, Bergen Catholic, Gilman, Bullis, Canisius, Gonzaga, Friends (Md.), Shipley (Pa.) . . . on and on and that doesn’t count the Georgia teams that already visited. It makes for great games to see. As we get the full schedules we’ll tweet them out.   Key Scores From The Week   Monday, March 2nd Maclay 19-3 over Buchholz Oak Hall 16-2 over St. Augustine Tuesday, March 3rd Steinbrenner 20-10 over Mitchell Benjamin 9-5 over St. Edward’s Berkeley Prep 10-9 over Tampa Jesuit Martin County 12-9 over Merritt Island Creekside 19-5 over Nease American Heritage-Plantation 9-8 over King’s Academy Bartram Trail 14-11 over Bolles Chiles 8-4 over Lincoln Wednesday, March 4th Gulliver Prep 10-8 over Columbus Alonso 17-11 over Sickles Newsome 10-5 over Lakeland Thursday, March 5th Gilman 12-10 over Ponte Vedra St. Augustine 8-7 over Bolles Oviedo 8-6 over Hagerty Plant 11-10 over Cardinal Mooney Friday, March 6th Creekside 7-6 over Oak Hall Saint Andrew’s 14-5 over SJP II Western 12-10 over Stoneman Douglas Lake Highland 12-11 over St. Thomas Aquinas Maclay 25-14 over Fleming Island Community School Naples 10-4 over Bishop Verot Lake Mary 10-6 over Lake Brantley King’s Academy 8-5 over Oxbridge Benjamin 10-5 over American Heritage-Plantation Saturday, March 7th Saint Andrew’s 13-3 over Gulliver Prep Boca Raton 10-8 over Belen Jesuit Boys’ Latin 25-6 over Ponte Vedra Bishop Moore 13-5 over Berkeley Prep Fleming Island 19-7 over Chiles   The Underdog Upset of The Week   The season might prove me wrong on this but I took note of St. Stephens Episcopal’s win over Out-of-Door Academy, 9-5 on Friday.  Last year the regular season matchup went to ODA by 10 goals and to reverse that in one year is quite the win for them! At first glance Matanzas knocking off Seminole was a bit of an upset but then I saw they played an OT game last year, so St. Stephens Episcopal gets the nod.   We’re starting to get that time of the year where some schools are wondering about why a great record has not gotten them ranked yet and the answer to that is almost always the same . . . Strength of Schedule. Play some tough teams or I’m not going to be impressed by your record.  There are times where I am late to the party, because the schedule on paper looked worse than it turned out.  And sometimes I overrate a schedule because the teams do not show up when they should. Wellington is one such team this year. They have started 6-0, against weak competition, but tomorrow night Jupiter comes to town for a district matchup and more. We’ll see how up to the challenge they are.  Go back about 5 years and there were some good teams and talent coming through there.  Head Coach Johnny Hernandez has big plans for the program, including the possibility of hosting a Final Four in their new high school stadium down the line. Good luck to you and the boys tomorrow!   One thing I like to dabble with in some spare time is cooking. It seems that more and more college students (pay attention high school players, that’s coming whether you play at the next level or not, and if you DON’T pay attention next week I’m dong a feature on how to do laundry, so you’re probably better off this week) are staying in apartment complexes instead of dorms and that means sometimes cooking for yourself because Chipotle gets old after 4x a week for the whole semester. Nothing beats Wok cooking if you get it right.  Fairly easy to use AND easy to clean up. I’ve watched some of this guy’s videos and this is a nice introduction to a skill that a) is handy and b) you can impress that girl of your dreams doing this . . . not QUITE as good as playing a guitar but pretty close.     I received a wok as a wedding gift in 1994 and it’s still like brand new now . . . and NOT because I don’t use it. Good luck!  

Remember what I said about that crazy OT winner for American Heritage-Plantation on Tuesday?  Well here it is! IMG_1294 (1) Hope it opens as easily for you as it did for me!

  And of course, our other major sponsor . . . Last week an old college buddy of mine was in town and I took him there at 7:00pm, only to find a HUGE line at the door due to an FAU Sorority event! When you’re in the area, take a shot! INSTAGRAM LINK   Alright, here we go this week.  Have to rush this a little because the Dow Futures are down 1,000 points overnight as the price of oil crashed last night with the collapse of OPEC-Russian production cut negotiations.  Oil is down ANOTHER 30% TONIGHT and trading at about $32.50 a barrel.  If that holds you will see regular gas under $2 a gallon at the pump! Man, look at this week . . . Cooking lessons, market news and a great dessert place, all in 100 words . . .   Seems like the proper song to lead us into the Polls might well be something Drivin’ related!  If memory serves, this is the first real Country-Pop crossover to hit #1 on the Pop charts:   https://youtu.be/7iSrsIVujXc    

Prospects Lacrosse Inc. Class 2A Top 15 for the week ending 2/29/20

  1) Ponte Vedra – back home this week, hope they got to have crab cakes at least once 2) Jupiter – right now the only team I’ve seen in Class 2A that can make it interesting for them 3) Creekside – Thursday at Maclay should be fun 4) St. Thomas Aquinas – fell to a resurgent LHP team on the road by one 5) Lake Mary – took care of then #6 Lake Brantley 6)  HB Plant – big Cardinal Mooney win and plenty of good games left 7)  Lake Brantley – not a bad loss, but needs to win these peer games 8) Newsome – treading water until the schedule kicks in 9) Gulf Coast – playing well but next year they need to kick it up in scheduling 10t) Winter Park – Bishop Moore loss looking better and better 10t) West Orange – next week’s schedule doesn’t offer much help 12) Riverview-Sarasota – I know, this is looking a lot like last week . . . 13) Boca Raton – nice Belen Jesuit win keeps them ranked 14) Fleming Island – Maclay loss was a little ugly, is the defense a problem after giving up 25 goals? 15t) Alonso – time to give them a nod, now take it from there! 15t) West Florida – 8-0 start but with their schedule they can’t afford a loss Also Considered:  Western, Columbus, Oviedo, Windermere, Viera, Steinbrenner, Stoneman Douglas, Hagerty, Wellington and Martin County We’ll discuss other teams that are getting close but not yet in the thinking, and why.  

The Prospects Lacrosse 2020 FLN Preseason Class 1A Poll

  1) Saint Andrew’s – now comes different challenges 2) King’s Academy – one goal shy of running the Top 5 gauntlet, very impressive against Oxbridge 3) Benjamin – biggest jump of the week after handling AH-Plantation and St. Edward’s 4) Bishop Moore – very impressive 2nd half shutout of Berkeley Prep 5) American Heritage-Plantation – plenty of time AND opponents to climb back up 6) Lake Highland Prep – big win over STA, it’s been a while since I could say that, primed for upward advancement with SIX Top 10 teams still to play! 7) Maclay – big Fleming Island win gets them some movement.  Creekside next week and last game versus Ponte Vedra are the only good games left. 8) Oxbridge – Pine Crest win and two tough losses This is where it gets tough, no one is winning the games against the teams above them or the schedule isn’t there yet 9) Calvary Christian – still undefeated and a couple of solid wins already, still plenty of work to do, such as Tuesday’s road trip to my Hobart buddy 10) Melbourne Central Catholic – on hold for another week 11) Oak Hall – can’t penalize then for a one goal road loss to Creekside, should run the table until the final game test 12) Pine Crest – big test Tuesday . . . why the 4:30 start? 13) Berkeley Prep – 24 minutes away from a big jump but BM just handled them 14) St. Edward’s – another school that needs a big win.  So many close calls over the last few years. 15t) Cardinal Mooney – can they get healthy in time for a run? 15t) Tampa Jesuit – hanging in, also needs a big win 16) All Saints Academy – As long as you stay undefeated I’ll acknowledge it Also Considered:  Montverde Academy, Belen Jesuit, Canterbury, Gulliver Prep, St. Stephens Episcopal   Have a great week at the games! #TAFTAG – Take A Friend To A Game #LacrossePutMyButtInThisSeat! #LayOffTheRefs!