Above photo by Gary McCullough at St. Augustine.com There are no bye’s this year in the road to the FHSAA State Championships.  With a total of 32 districts the brackets breakdown pretty straight forward.  So let’s take a look at the upcoming 2014 FHSAA Season here as we break down the four brackets. The North Bracket consists of Districts 1-8, below is a look at District 7 and District 8.  The winner of these two districts will play each other in the first round and then go onto play the winner of the District 5 vs. 6 match up in the Regionals. District 7

St. Augustine H.S. is defending their District Title in 2014, the Jackets have a new Head Coach and coaching staff and are a very senior team this year. The Yellow Jackets will be leaning on four seniors to do the heavy lifting this year.  Goalie Joey Vaughn, Defensemen Ethan Shugart and Alex Gonzalez, and middie Austin Kubart.  They will be leading a good looking group of junior middie featuing Alex Burgos, Craig Chaney, and Griffin Loughlin.  Look for Griffin to spend some time with the attack unit as well. St. Augustine will have their hands full to get past Matanzas this season.  Head Coach Jeff Goren enters his second season with plenty of young talent returning.  They came up one goal short last season to win the district and they are returning goalie Matt Gutierrez. Matt started all 15 games in cage last season as a freshmen.  Last year’s leading scorer was also a freshman, Gunner Parson, and he is coming back with an extra year of experience under his belt. At midfield, sophomore Jake Cohill and senior Kristian Kane are both solid two-way middies.    Rudy Wohlfarth should have a strong junior season at close D or LSM.

Menendez is young this season featuring sixteen players who are either freshmen or sophomores.  They will need solid leadership from their two captains.  Senior middie, Nick Argitis (Saint Leo) who has led the team in ground balls, goals scored, assists and total points since his freshman year and on the defensive end of the field they will look to senior Daniel Chambers (Catawba). Flagler Palm Coast finished last in this district last year, but this district is so close that FPC lost three games to defending champion, St. Augustine by a total of three goals.  Once in OT.  So don’t count any of these teams out. Seniors Alec Noble, Jon Zeloskowski and Sophomore Mike Forte are solid returning scorers and seniors Adison Felton and Keenan Ordonez will add depth.  When asked about the losses to St. Augustine Coach Ryan Andrews said, “ I think our guys want that back. All three times.” This season the Bulldogs are raising awareness and charity for Prostate Cancer Awareness.  “A portion of all our fundraising will be donated to the Florida Hospital Flagler Prostate Cancer “Man-to-Man” survivor and support group. So far this fall we were able to raise close to $1000.” District 8

Lake Mary will be stronger than ever and should move out of this district.  This will be the most experienced team the Rams have put on the field in three years.  In fact, head coach Gary Robinson commented that this is the first team in three years with more upperclassmen than underclassmen. They will be starting a standout senior in Josh Marmetsche.  Marmetschke is a strong middie and a strong All American candidate.  Alec Quint and Chris Masten will join him to form a strong midfield unit and senior defender Evan Griffiths will round out a talented class of seniors.  The entire defense is full of three year starters for the Rams and they will be a very experienced squad. Junior goalie Chandler Harrison had a fantastic sophomore outing and junior middie Kurt Sisco are two stars of a very talented junior class at Lake Mary. The Rams have a strong out of district schedule which includes Tampa Jesuit, Jupiter, Centennial (GA), and St. Andrews.  For the last several years they have been in the central bracket and been knocked out of the play offs by either Lake Brantley or Lake Highland Prep.  They don’t have those teams to contend with this year but as strong as Districts 5 and 6 look we’re not sure it got any easier at all!

Seminole High School has been quietly building a strong program.  They will have a new coach this season in former Bishop Moore Catholic standout and Salisbury All American Mike Von Kamecke.  Von Kamecke was at Trinity Prep last year and made the move over during the off season. He will have some very talented players to work with including junior attackman Ryan Ormorod and junior Josh Williamson at LSM, a recent commit to Mercer.  Junior Alex Proly is a solid middie for Seminole. Mike Hopkins has recently taken over as head coach at Winter Springs HS and they will look to improve on an 8-8 2013 season.  Father Lopez Catholic School in Daytona Beach round out District 8.