See Districts 1 & 2, See Districts 3 & 4, See Districts 5 & 6, see Districts 7 & 8, See Districts 9 & 10, See Districts 11 & 12, See Districts 13 & 14.  See District 15.  See District 19.  See District 20. See District 23.  See District 24.   District 17   The story of District 17 last season was the ability of Viera to accomplish in the District final what they couldn’t do in the regular season and that was to beat Merritt Island.  After dropping 12-9 and 13-12 decisions during the regular season Viera was able to turn the tide in District by a final of 20-14 to gain entry to the FHSAA playoff, where they had a tough matchup with Melbourne Central Catholic, losing 18-5, a similar result to their regular season meeting.  Both Viera and Merritt Island put up 7-2 conference records and they comfortably led the way in the District.  Holy Trinity was able to notch a victory over Merritt in the regular season and looks to build on their 7-7 record while Rockledge and Satellite look to improve their programs too.   Viera Head Coach Brain Gabak has stepped up the schedule and added a road game with Vero Beach and a home tilt against Hagerty to go with MCC.  The offense showed the ability to score but the team also yielded 12 or more goals six times last season. Coach Gabak wrote the following:  “I am looking for strong performances from our attackmen Connor Neff, Layne Miller and Ty Wallace. We have 2 new faces from out of state, Rob Rider from Long Island, NY (from the highly-regarded Ward Melville program) and Griffin Syverson from Kansas. Both should be big contributors this season. As far as defense, we are counting on the entire unit starting with our goalie Ryan Morgan, long poles Austin Crawford, Cameron Smithwick and Jaxon Lenk. We are depending on both Jonathan Cassario and Casey Michel showing up big at the faceoff x and Austin Spears flying around at the LSM position.  

  Merritt Island and Rockledge should be our main competitors within the district this year however every single team is growing and improving so we don’t expect any easy ones. “   Merritt Island Head Coach Albert Dolente’s Mustangs went 16-3 last season and his team put up significant goal totals, scoring 277 goals in 19 games but against the better teams on the schedule the defense showed some give too so that will be a focal point this year. Hagerty and First Academy have been added to the schedule this season.   Holy Trinity Episcopal showed an inconsistent offense, putting up nice numbers against their weaker opponents but against the better competition struggled to do so, with the exception of putting up 14 each Merritt game.  But they also scored 4 or less 5 times so the team will search for more this season.  Coach Mike Leary increased the scheduled games to 17 this season, including a trip to JoJo Marasco’s Windermere Prep and a District 25 west coast swing to ODA Sarasota and St. Stephen’s Episcopal.     Rockledge Head Coach Doug Kuhblank leads his program into their third season as a varsity, coming off 5-6 and 8-9 records in his first two seasons.  The team seeks to increase their offensive output as they only reached double digits in 6 of their 15 games. The defense struggled against the better teams but showed good results otherwise. Coach Kuhblank wrote to us:  “This is only our third year with a team.  We started with a Varsity team that had 8 total freshmen, 4 of which were the only ones with experience. 5 sophomores with only 2 experienced and the rest were juniors and seniors that never played.  These players are now Juniors and Seniors that all show great promise for the upcoming season.  These players include my goalie, Kyle Forbes, defensemen Sam Callahan, Clay Shields and Ryan Spraklin.  The attack line will be our strongest so far including Daniel Kuhblank and Matt Dillion.  Our top middies are Austin Snyder, Nick Choppe and Trey Figueroa.  

  As far as the teams to beat in my district, I don’t think we can look past any of them this season, it is the strongest district in the county.  We were fortunate enough to get into the district playoffs last season with a triple overtime win against Satellite.  I would say every team is the one to beat for us.  We will always have something to prove. No one has made a commitment but I know there are some colleges looking at my junior goalie, Kyle Forbes.  He is a great player and great young-man that has friends throughout the county on every team.   He has great relationships with every coach in the county as well.  We are very blessed to have him as a part of our team.  We have 48 players this season between JV and Varsity. As a team we held a canned food drive that filled 5 full size pickup trucks in a 7 hour period one Sunday in October.  The food went to the Rockledge High food pantry that helps to feed families of students who need help.  This will become a regular charitable cause that we will continue to build. We are playing out of county for the first time as a team.  We will be going against Lake Nona on Friday Feb. 13. in hopes to prepare us for the teams in our district.”   Satellite Beach Coach Doug Faircloth’s team also showed a similar results pattern, struggling to score against the better schools but handling the weaker teams on the schedule.  We’ll be adding Coach Faircloth’s comments later today.