By Seth Austin I have had the absolute privilege of witnessing many of our Florida boys compete at recruiting camps and showcases of all kinds.  Regional showcases such as New England 150 and Peak and school specific showcases offer targeted exposure.  I’ve seen the elite, invitation only showcases such as Maverik Showtime, Nike Blue Chip and Adrenaline Black Card.  I’ve been to the great events run by the Corrigans such as the Under Armour series, Coach Cottle’s team tournaments in Maryland and upper end club team tournaments like Gait Cup, Hotbeds, Tri-State and Champ Camp.  Recently, the first summer school specific recruiting event, the National High School Lacrosse Showcase, was held in Baltimore with great success.  Lake Highland Prep and St. Andrew’s will be competing in this year’s version July 10-13. If you are an aspiring college player, particularly from a non-hotbed area, you have to follow the guidance of your coaches and attend as many of these events as makes sense for you.  They are all very worthwhile. Given the above, the Prep School Lacrosse Showcase (PSLS) was the best one day event I have ever seen.  Period.  If you get invited, like some of the above, you have to go. It has to be considered as elite as any as 1684 applications were submitted for 384 spots.  For the coaches who have to prudently manage their time in the summer, all 384 were uncommitted. I know the young men who played on June 1 at Brunswick School in Greenwich received plenty of interest from a number of schools.  I’ve never seen so many coaches in one place for such a long period of time.  Usually you will see clusters here and there and the majority will attend an all-star game. The picture below is a sample of the quantity of college coaches in attendance.  This was the crew at 8:00 am on remote field #1.  Most of the coaches were on fields 3 and 4, and all of the players rotated through the different fields.  If you look way at the end on the top of the photo, that’s Bryant coach Mike Pressler.

The Florida participants were (including a couple who moved away but we know where they grew up), in alphabetical order, as follows: Owen Anderson, Midfield, 2016, Martin County Tristan Cade, Defense, 2017, St. Andrew’s Parker Giarratana, Attack, 2015, Boca Raton

                Alex Heatzig, Defense, 2015, St. Andrew’s

                Nick Iznaga, Attack, 2017, St. Andrew’s

  Keith Mahler, Midfield, 2015, St. Andrew’s

Nick McCabe, Midfield, 2016, Boca Raton Raul Mendy, Defense, 2015, University School Alex Newhouse, Midfield/FOGO, 2015, St. Andrew’s (shown above in the feature photo) Conlan O’Hara, Defense/LSM, 2016, St. Andrew’s Trevor Pelletier, Attack, 2016, Gulliver Prep Hunter Ramsay, Defense, 2016, Calvary Christian Wyatt Rancourt, Midfield, 2015, Lawrenceville (NJ).  Wyatt lives in Orlando. Ethan Randell, Goalie, 2017, Oxbridge (shown above with a nice point blank save) Zach Ranta, Midfield, 2016, Oxbridge

  Grant Schultz, Attack, 2015, St. Anne’s-Belfield.  Grant grew up in Delray Beach and played for the Riptide. Grant will PG at Exeter next year.   Andrew Small, Midfield, 2015, Deerfield High, IL.  Andrew was a Parkland Redhawk and attended St. Thomas Aquinas before he moved to the mostly frozen tundra. Colton Stanger, Attack, 2015, Spanish River William Stricker, Midfield, 2016, Bishop Moore Cameron Thompson, Attack, 2016, Benjamin Mike Loveday covered the event for StudentSports.com and was impressed with Wyatt and Grant in this article.  Mike admitted he missed many, and I can tell you for certain our Florida boys were all skilled enough to play at the next level. For the record, these schools sent coaches to the Showcase (I decided to use a spreadsheet to count the total): 1 Alderson Broaddus University 2 Amherst College 3 Arcadia University 4 Assumption College 5 Babson College 6 Bard College 7 Bates College 8 Boston University 9 Bowdoin College 10 Brown University 11 Bryant University 12 Clark University 13 Colby College 14 Colgate University 15 College of the Holy Cross 16 Connecticut College 17 Cornell University 18 Curry College 19 Dartmouth College 20 Denison University 21 Dickinson College 22 Drew University 23 Duke University 24 Eastern University 25 Elizabethtown College 26 Elmhurst College 27 Emmanuel College 28 Fairfield University 29 Florida Institute of Tech 30 Franklin & Marshall 31 Furman University 32 Georgetown University 33 Gettysburg College 34 Gordon College 35 Hamilton College 36 Harvard University 37 Haverford College 38 High Point University 39 Hobart 40 Hofstra University 41 Ithaca College 42 Johns Hopkins University 43 Kalamazoo College 44 Kenyon College 45 Lafayette College 46 Loyola University 47 Lynchburg College 48 Lynn University 49 Manhattan College 50 Manhattanville College 51 Mass Maritime Academy 52 Mercer University 53 Messiah College 54 Middlebury College 55 Mount Saint Mary College 56 Nazareth College 57 Nichols College 58 Oberlin College 59 Ohio Wesleyan University 60 Pace University 61 Princeton University 62 Providence College 63 Robert Morris University 64 Rogers Williams 65 Rollins 66 RPI 67 Rutgers University 68 Sacred Heart 69 Saint Joseph’s University 70 Siena College 71 Skidmore College 72 St. John’s University 73 St. Lawrence University 74 Stevens Institute of Technology 75 Stony Brook University 76 Swarthmore College 77 Syracuse University 78 Trinity College 79 Tufts University 80 U.S. Military Academy 81 U.S. Naval Academy 82 UMASS 83 Union College 84 University of Delaware 85 University of Hartford 86 University of Maryland 87 University of Michigan 88 University of New England 89 University of Richmond 90 University of Scranton 91 University of Vermont 92 University of Virginia 93 UPenn 94 Vassar College 95 Washington & Lee 96 Washington College 97 Wentworth Institute of Tech 98 Wesleyan University 99 Western New England University 100 Wheaton College 101 Williams College 102 Wittenberg University