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 17.  See District 19.  See District 20. See District 23.  See District 24.   District 18   The story of District 18 last season was simply the dominance of Melbourne Central Catholic, a team that finished in our Media Poll at #13 postseason, after rising as high as #7 during the season.  MCC went 15-4 through the season, and advanced past the first round of the FHSAA bracket before falling to eventual state runner-up Benjamin 14-6.  A terrific season for MCC and they welcome new head coach Eric Hall to lead the program.  Melbourne High finished second in the District but they did not put up a challenge to MCC.  West Shore, Sebastian River and Eau Gallie rounded up the district but all had losing regular season records.  The outlook for the season is pretty much the same as a number of MCC’s top players return for another shot at a playoff run.   MCC is led by junior middie Quinn Lowdermilk, who scored 31 goals last season and junior attackman Garrett Arnold, a 43 goal scorer last season.  Senior Trip McGinty put up 13 goals at midfield and Max Erdman chipped in 23 goals.  All the roster will need to contribute as two of the most prolific players in the state in Dylan Lowdermilk and Zach Fleis graduated, along with their incredible 167 goals between them.  

  Melbourne High Head Coach Mark Fields joins the program that finished 9-8 last season, a nice record to build on, but the two losses to MCC showed that the program will have work to do to close the gap.  They did take District 17 champion Viera to double OT and played Merritt Island very tough so there is definitely something going on that is positive.     Coach Fields wrote the following to us: Melbourne High School 2015 lacrosse is characterized by a group of young men who have pure passion for the sport. Since the end of last season and during a long search for a coach to continue Bill Payne’s great work, senior captains Luke Mullins, Reid Pitten and Marshall Wohl regularly gathered the team at a local elementary school to scrimmage and work on individual skills.  The energy from this exclusively player-led effort led to an extremely large turnout for the team this season and a balanced distribution of skilled players across all four grades. As lacrosse continues to grow in Brevard county and based on last year’s effort, this seasons challenges include strong programs at Viera, Rockledge, Merritt Island and MCC.”   West Shore coach Dan O’Halloran looks to build on the momentum he built as his Wildcats improved to 6-10 from a 2-win season in 2013.  His team returns all but two starters from last year and the starting attack is intact, led by senior Chris Melchori.  Noah Murphy, the face-off specialist, has started since 8^th grade and is considered a strength of the team.  Joining him at midfield are senior Jack Nevins and rising stars John Hogan and Nick Moore will be adding offensive punch.  That’s a good thing since the Wildcats need to improve on their offensive output, having topped 7 goals only 4 times last season.  

  Coach O’Halloran is looking forward to moving up the standings and has set his goal of getting to the District finals this year.  Since Coach O’Halloran grew up a few minutes away from me on Long Island I’ll be paying particularly close attention to his team’s progress!   Sebastian River Coach Sean Stinger looks to improve both sides of the field after struggling through a 3-11 season that saw the offense reach double digits only 5 times while the defensive side did not hold any opponent to less than 8 goals.  Leading the team will be senior attackman Jon Hurst, who scored 29 goals last season and senior defender Clark Oujevolk.       (from VeroNews.com)   Coach Stinger noted that the team will be very young this year as the school has established a feeder youth program this year and that a number of freshmen will play a role for the team this year, so the future is certainly looking brighter for the school.   Eau Gallie coach Steven Vilgats’ Commodores have struggled as a program but looks to 7 seniors to help lead them up.  They look to Aaron Larson on attack and long pole Charles Nicholas Edwards to step into leadership roles, as they need to help replace Trevor Ludwig, who has moved on to UCF.  

  (from Daily World)