If you are a young player in the southern United States, the sky is the limit, and our Under Armour South team put us forever on the map with its performance last weekend at Towson University.
Face it, this whole lax thing is about relationships, teammates, a great education, family, memories and you name it. At every stage in a young athlete’s advancement, you meet new teammates, build new relationships and expand your lax family. At the college level, you expand you network well beyond our state line. At FLN, we are ardent fans of our Florida kids and we hope you are, too.
The South team which won three straight games to qualify for the semi-finals only to fall in overtime to eventual (and defending) champion Baltimore at the Under Armour All-American Underclassman games featured 19 Floridians and 5 non-Floridians. FLN feels we have no choice but grant these five gentlemen honorary Floridian status.
Okay, we’ll add the coaches, too. Chris Spaulding of Lake Highland Prep and Danny Loftus of Jupiter were joined on the staff by Alex Poole of Coppell High School in Texas and Mark Goldsmith of Guilford Northwest High School in North Carolina.
We almost had Baltimore and they know it. We were up 7-3 in the second half. We had shots to win. It just did not work out, but Baltimore knows it had a fight. Jared Bernhardt (Maryland) of Lake Brantley and AJ Ferraro of Majorie Stoneman Douglas were elected to the all tournament team. AJ was hit in the leg stopping a shot on goal late in the second quarter and only returned briefly in the second half. Baltimore was lucky AJ was held out for precautionary reasons. We are glad to report the Navy commit is fine. FLN is sure the Baltimore contingent will embrace these two and others heading to play in Maryland in the years ahead.
All of our guys were excellent. All of them. All tournament. We are beyond proud of this crew.
So take a look at some photos, starting with Griff Caligiuri’s strip of Hopkins commit Cole Williams after a time out by Baltimore with the game tied, late in the fourth quarter.
Nothing like a yard sale with the game on the line. Griff, like all the Lake Highland players (and Coach Spaulding) played in the National High School Lacrosse Showcase in between the Under Armour games. We don’t know how they had anything left in the tank.
Next, a tribute to all of the players:
All-Tournament Selection Jared Bernhardt of Lake Brantley is headed to MarylandAll-Tournament Selection AJ Ferraro of Marjorie Stoneman Douglas (Navy)
The rest of the photos are in numerical order, starting with Crosby Matthews from the Lovett School in Atlanta. Crosby was a bull at the face-off X all weekend.
Crosby MatthewsAlec Cumella of St. Thomas Aquinas was a terror in the middle of the field and created his own yard sale Saturday morning against Midwest.Colin Hayek of Oxbridge AcademyAddison Lutes of St. Andrew’s played midfield and attackConnor Mullen of St. Mark’s School of Texas (Colgate)LSM Cal Pearce of The Lovett SchoolMarc-Antoine Pion-Fregeau of IMG (Harvard)Logan Taucher of Ponte Vedra (Air Force)
Okay, check out this sequence of Reid Thedford of Lake Highland Prep scoring:
Cameron Thompson of The Benjamin SchoolAlexander Tumminello of St. Thomas Aquinas (Maryland)Viper Scheele of JupiterConnor Alexander of Jupiter (Duke)Jackson Colling of Lake Highland PrepStephen Chase of Maclay (Notre Dame)Zach Crotty of JupiterDon Eidson of Lake Highland Prep (Delaware)Hayden Lovett of Broughton High School in North Carolina (High Point)Miles Silva of Ponte Vedra (Army)Eric Applegate of Ponte Vedra (Jacksonville)Will Russ of The Lovett School
Well done, coaches and players!
Nothing like a yard sale with the game on the line. Griff, like all the Lake Highland players (and Coach Spaulding) played in the National High School Lacrosse Showcase in between the Under Armour games. We don’t know how they had anything left in the tank.
Next, a tribute to all of the players:
