District Championships On the Line for 44 Teams Tonight – We Preview All 22 Games
Written by Lee Roggenburg on . Posted in Uncategorized.
It’s a big night tonight with 22 Championship games being played throughout the entire state. Follow all of the action on Twitter @FloridaLX. We’ll send out updates and if you are at a game you can send updates with our handle @FloridaLX in the tweet and we’ll retweet them.
District 1 – Stephen Chase, Teddy Transou and the rest of the Maclay Marauders take on Chiles tonight for the District 1 Championship. Maclay is a heavy favorite here having won the regular season match
ups 9-1 and 16-2.
District 3 – Episcopal Jacksonville (7-8) plays Stanton Prep (7-5). Episcopal won the regular season match up 12-3 and should pull this one off tonight.
District 4 – Rescheduled from last night Providence and Fletcher fight it out tonight. Providence is 14-4 including a ten game win streak. They put 26 up on Fletcher early in the season. You’ve got to think Fletcher remembers that.
District 6 – It’s PV vs Creekside for District 6. PV is going to be tough to stop and has their eyes on yet another final four appearance.
District 9 – Wekiva has an upset on their mind. They lost to LB 10-3 in the first go around this season but they are bringing an impressive 11-3 record into the final. It’s been a tumultuous year for the Patriots, but this would be one of the biggest upsets in Central Florida Lacrosse history.
District 10 – Hagerty vs Oviedo – Oviedo pulled it out on a late Dakota Dunmire goal in the regular season. It’s a tall order to do that to Hagerty twice. Both teams have had some great games this season. This will be a great game tonight.
District 11 – Lake Highland vs Bishop Moore. Obviously LHP is a heavy favorite but Bishop Moore is a very good lacrosse team. LHP cannot fall asleep on the Hornets. BMC scored a respectable 7 goals in a 14-7 loss during the regular season.
District 12 – Timber Creek and Boone had been in the same district until the 2012 realignment. Timber Creek holds an edge in the two teams’ history winning six of the last eight meetings. But Timber Creek is not counting on history to pull them through tonight. “We are ready for one of the State’s most evenly matched District Championships,” TC Coach Brian Davis said, “With the exception of about 8 minutes our regular season meeting was
dead even.” Boone head coach, Elliott Whitten, is looking forward to renewing, “an old district rivalry, should be exciting.” Timber Creek won the regular season match up 13-7.
District 13 – In our season preview we thought that TFA was poised to win their first District Championship but Dr. Phillips has been improving steadily all season. They are not going to hand it over easily. TFA pulled out a one goal win in the regular season game and this one should be just as close.
District 15 – Tampa Jesuit is 12-5 coming into this championship game with Plant. They had the tougher schedule and beat Plant 14-5 during the regular season. But that is the only blemish on Plant’s 12-1 record and a winning can become a habit. Jesuit is the favorite here but an upset would not be shocking. Keep your eyes on this game tonight.
District 16 – Newsome and Wharton are both 12-2 and both are looking for their first FHSAA District Championship. These two teams, along with District 15’s Plant HS, are the cream of the crop of the Hillsboro County teams who joined FHSAA this season. Both of these teams normally score lots of goals but managed to hold each other to a 10-8 defensive struggle in the last match up. That looks like two evenly matched teams who really know one another. This will be fun.
District 19 – Vero Beach vs Jensen Beach. JB won the regular season match up 9-6 over Vero. But that means very little in this District. These guys all beat up each other this season and we’re not about to make a pick in this game. Look for Lee’s more in depth preview, maybe he’ll go out on a limb.
District 21 – Oxbridge (14-3) looks for their first District Championship tonight against The King’s Academy (10-7.) Oxbridge may be a bit of a surprise to some, but we have been following this story since they hired Stan Ross in 2012 and we are not surprised to see this program find success. Lee picked them as a team on the rise in his pre-seaon top ten here. It’s going to be a good game as Oxbridge won by three in the regular season and TKA knocked off Cardinal Newman by one in the semi-final.
District 22 – Jeff Goldberg will be looking for his 400th career victory as the upset minded American Heritage Stallions take on stand out goalie Logan Masta and his Welling Wolverine teammates. This is an uphill battle for American Heritage but with an Oporto on both sides of the ball (Patrick for
Wellington and Thomas for American Heritage,) Goldberg looking for 400, and Wellington looking to defend a Championship we will not be surprised at anything that happens tonight.
District 23 – Is this the year Boca gets it done? Or have reports of St. Andrew’s demise been greatly exaggerated. We are way too smart to try and make this call. So, maybe Lee will do it. Check out his full preview here.
District 24 – Pine Crest and Stoneman Douglass have both had very solid seasons. Pine Crest is 9-7 and won the regular season meeting by 1 goal and Stoneman is 10-5. Pine Crest clearly played the tougher schedule but Douglass is riding a nine game winning steak into this game. This is a very good, solid match up tonight and should be contested all the way to the end. We’ll be surprised if the margin is more than two or three goals.
District 25 – Cardinal Mooney is the seasoned FHSAA play off veteran in this district and won the regular season match up 15-3. We think that Coach
Clayton Wight and his Cougars will be playing again next week.
District 26 – Bishop Verot vs Canterbury Ft. Meyers . BV is a heavy favorite in this one.
District 27 Gulf Coast vs Naples. Gulf Coast won 20-6 last time they met. Things get more interesting for Gulf Coast next week.
District 28 – Barron Collier vs Community School of Naples – CSN is going to be a little overmatched in this one. We are looking for the Gulf Coast vs BC match up in the next round.
District 30 – Cypress Bay vs Archbishop McCarthy – You’ve got to give the advantage Cypress Bay but Archbishop McCarthy was the underdog last year when they won this game in an OT thriller. So maybe lighting strikes twice.
District 32 – Miami Palmetto vs Coral Reef. Miami Palmetto won the regular season match up 9-3. Coral Reef exploded for 21 goals in the semi final game against Coral Shores.