Florida Lacrosse Showcase joins the fold.  To be fair to them, I’m still the only one choosing the schools so aim your vindictiveness to me, not the Showcase!

The Florida Lax Showcase Web Link

This is a day late for those who did not see the tweet yesterday, but for a good cause . . .

Inside Lacrosse is putting together their High School Preview edition and they’ve asked me to write an article on the effect on the lacrosse community of the Stoneman tragedy and that pretty much occupied my time as far as original content was concerned the last two days.

The article is close to completion and I have a few people left to review it with for factual accuracy.

We touched on the situation last week in the Preseason Poll and I assure you that the article submitted to Inside Lacrosse will be informative to all our readers.

Meanwhile, the season has started elsewhere and we need to keep up with that.

First, here’s the Preseason Poll as our starting point . . .

The Florida Lacrosse Showcase High School Top 25 for the Preseason!

#1A – St. Thomas Aquinas – the champs get the top spot until they lose it

#1B – Stonemen Douglas – no, they don’t actually have the horses for this but getting through last week is as big an accomplishment as anyone else will face this season.  We’ll worry about their true ranking after they start playing

#3 – Ponte Vedra – reloading for a run back to what they missed last year

#4 – Jupiter – underclassmen got their training under fire last season, will they finally get to the summit?

#5 – Bishop Moore – expectations are finally high, can they cope with it

#6 – Oxbridge – another big first round playoff win

#7 – Benjamin – tough to start higher due to the graduations but always seems to make me look penurious

#8 – Saint Andrew’s – maybe the lack of expectations from all of us might work in their favor this year.  A complete mystery to me.

#9 – Lake Highland Prep – surprise run to the finals but Coach Vander Meulen has huge shoes to fill

#10 – Lake Mary – the program is starting to feel Top 10 every year

#11 – Oak Hall – another team that needs to prove something this year, the talent is certainly there

#12 – Saint Edward’s – quietly building for the long run

#13 – Berkeley Prep – great season last year but a bit of a coaching hiccup in the offseason will be possibly an issue

#14 – Tampa Jesuit – a great regular season and a first round district dud.

#15 – Bolles – another sneaky good year.  Final eight run and took Lake Mary down to the wire

#16 – Hagerty – great regular season but schedule starts them here

#17 – Newsome – heck of a year, another that needs to up the schedule

#18 – Nease – another sneaky good team, with last year’s biggest surprise with the Jupiter road win.  Tough district foe make it’s hard to place higher to start.

#19 – West Orange – another team that has to get a better schedule

#20 – Barron Collier – lost a lot but has been solid for years

#21 – Pine Crest – I’m hearing others tell me they are ready to reassert themselves

#22 (t) – Gulliver Prep – throw a blanket over the next two

#22 (t) – Belen Jesuit – covered by the above blanket

#24 –  Saint John Paul II – another one that a number of coaches are talking up to me

#25 – Riverview-Sarasota – get’s the nod over Cardinal Mooney due to last year’s results

Just outside the Top 25

HB Plant

American Heritage/Plantation

Buchholz

Boone

Cardinal Mooney

Maclay

Some of the key results of the week:

Monday

Ponte Vedra 10-3 over Hagerty

Tuesday

American Heritage-Delray 17-11 over St. Edward’s

Bishop Moore 18-0 over Boone

Bartram Trail 14-4 over Bolles

Cardinal Mooney 12-9 over Plant on the road

SJP II 18-4 over Jensen Beach (more for the ceremony at halftime and my first game in person)

Merritt Island 17-5 over Vero Beach (take a bow School Board, you’ve managed to destroy a pretty good program)

Wednesday

John I Leonard 13-2 over Coral Springs Charter (not for the Poll but for the historical impact)

Lake Mary 9-8 over Lake Highland Prep on the road in a rematch of last year’s FHSAA semifinal

Thursday

Nease 13-7 over Bartram Trail on the road

Jupiter 18-1 over SJP II (the performance of the week)

Plant 12-5 over Steinbrenner

Friday

Saint Andrew’s 12-7 over Boca Raton on the road

St. Thomas Aquinas 13-6 over Lake Highland on the road in a rematch of last year’s FHSAA final

Lake Mary 9-7 over Boone

ODA Sarasota 15-11 over Riverview-Sarasota

Oxbridge 6-4 over Bishop Moore

Saturday

Steinbrenner 13-8 over Berkeley Prep on the road

Tampa Jesuit 13-5 over Barron Collier

and in a result that, if you are new to my Poll, does not factor into ranking, Ponte Vedra 11-10 in OT over IMG

A caveat for now to my readers . . .

Given the delay in LaxPower getting up and running for the season and Inside Lacrosse and MaxPreps trying to fill the void it seems none of them have complete schedules, although they are catching up rapidly.  If I miss a game result or an upcoming scheduled game . . . BE PATIENT for the first few weeks.

Actually pretty stunned I found a way to use a Guns N’ Roses song

This Week’s Key Games That Can Influence the Poll

Monday

None I see

Tuesday

Boca Raton hosts Jupiter

First Academy hosts Bishop Moore

Steinbrenner hosts ODA-Sarasota

Wednesday

American Heritage-Plantation hosts St. Thomas Aquinas

Lake Highland hosts Ponte Vedra

Maclay hosts Oak Hall

Riverside-Sarasota hosts Cardinal Mooney

Thursday

Stoneman is scheduled to host Jupiter . . . we’ll see

Friday

Plant hosts Newsome

Hagerty hosts Merritt Island

Tampa Jesuit hosts Berkeley Prep

Nease hosts Ponte Vedra

Saturday

Belen Jesuit hosts Barron Collier

Gulliver hosts St. Edward’s

Saint John Paul II hosts Benjamin

Looking back it’s kind of hard to see an Upset of the week . . .

In retrospect John I Leonard’s win doesn’t seem like an upset now.

Steinbrenner not really either.

Anyone want to email me at the web site with a nomination?

While writing the IL article yesterday I noticed that TCM was playing the old musical Seven Brides For Seven Brothers

Talk about a movie that DOES NOT HOLD UP to today’s social mores?

THIS one is IT . . .

Don’t be fooled by the trailer.

Six of the 7 brothers (Howard Keel of Dallas fame is the oldest whose marriage starts all this off)  KIDNAP their intended Brides, starting at the 3:08 mark of this clip!

People of my age will notice 21-year old Julie Newmar of 1960’s Batman fame, playing the one kidnapped woman who actually ends up vamping for the role (look up vamping if you don’t know it . . . ).

And Russ Tamblyn is one of the brothers . . . he’ll end up famous later for the role of the leader of the Jets in West Side Story.

Frankly the ending is pretty stupid, but so what?

A good lesson in how courtship is NOT supposed to work . . .

It’s still early in the season so you can’t expect too much movement but we did have some Top 25 teams go down to defeat and we have to make adjustments.

I’ll leave Stoneman out this week and we’ll wait for game results to come in.

For those who live and die by the LaxPower RPI you might want to put that away for a few weeks until more games are played.

They’ve got Gainesville #1 over STA and Oxbridge . . .

Just a little bit outside . . .

https://youtu.be/Jdv2Wp9MzY0

But I can at least consider Gainesville . . .

Okay, as like the last few years I need some sort of ‘bumper’ music to introduce this week’s Top 25 . . .

And I have one question for the readers . . .

Who Wants To Walk With FLN?

This Week’s Florida Lacrosse Showcase Top 25 Media Poll!

#1 – St. Thomas Aquinas

#2 – Ponte Vedra

#3 – Jupiter

#4 – Oxbridge

#5 – Lake Mary

#6 – Bishop Moore

#7 – Benjamin

#8 – Saint Andrew’s

#9 – Lake Highland Prep

#10 – Oak Hall

#11 – Tampa Jesuit

#12 – Nease

#13 – Cardinal Mooney

#14 – West Orange

#15 – Hagerty

#16 – HB Plant

#17 – Pine Crest

#18 – Newsome

#19 – Gulliver Prep

#20 – Belen Jesuit

#21 – American Heritage-Plantation

#22 – ODA Sarasota

#23 – Merritt Island

#24 –  Barron Collier

#25 – Buchholz

Just outside the Top 25

Saint John Paul II, Riverview-Sarasota, Berkeley Prep, Maclay, Saint Edward’s, Lake Brantley, Creekside, Winter Park, Sickles, Steinbrenner, Canterbury, Boca Raton

As always, get out to a game this week!  And bring a NEW FAN!

See you tonight on the Palm Beach Atlantic Sailfish home game broadcast with broadcast partner Wells Dusenbury!

7:00pm

Watch HERE