Chase Jones was an eighteen year old baseball player at UNC when he got devastating news.  He had brain cancer.  Chase was treated at a Children’s Hospital and learned the realities of battling childhood cancer first hand. After his successful battle he and his teammates became motivated to help other young people with cancer and began shaving their heads and raising money.  “I realized that we could give any athlete in any sport a platform to help out children with cancer.”  Chase is now eight years cancer free and upon graduation he began Vs. Cancer.  The charity is now two years old and Tampa is one of over 150 teams who have gotten involved with Vs. Cancer.  While Chase loves to tell people that he is now cancer free it’s a reminder to him that there are many many kids out there who are not.  The event at University of Tampa on Saturday raised over $10,000 to help kids with cancer “right here in Tampa.” Vs. Cancer is easy for teams to get involved with. They have a great website and solid infrastructure that makes the fundraising component easy for teams to get started.  The fact that half of the money stays close to home is very motivating.  “Our model at every event we do around the country is that half of the proceeds got to National Childhood Cancer Research and half goes back to a local Children’s Hospital”, Tampa General Children’s Hospital in this case.  The mens’ and womens’ attack units from University of Tampa Lacrosse visited the Tampa General Children’s Hospital recently and you can read about that here. To learn how your team can help out visit vs-cancer.org.

Check out the photo gallery with over 200 photos from Saturday Florida Southern The first game we saw Florida Southern play they looked like they might be in a little trouble.  It started at the face off X were they were dominated the entire game.  It looked like they would really be missing  Dan Krispinsky who graduated after last season.  Florida Southern has a proven attack unit of Dane Sorensen,  Cody Dyer and Grant VanOverbeke.  It’s a talented tough group, but they got little possession time in this game and didn’t take great care of the rock when they did get it. It was a classic fall ball game.  They looked a little sloppy, weren’t patient on EMO opportunities taking ill advised shots, and got out hustled by Tech.

They looked like a different team when they came out to play Tampa.  On face offs we saw much better wing play which led to two early possesions and the attack unit was able to get in a good groove early.  Grant VanOverbeke provided one of the best plays of the day when he scored the game winner over Tampa.  He picked up a ground ball and got knocked to the ground.  Keeping the the ball alive in his stick, he found his feet, made a great inside roll to the cage, and finished with a nice short bounce shot while also drawing a flag to really put Tampa on their heels with short time left in the game.  Together with Dane Sorensen, who led the NCAA DII with 4.2 goals per game last season and Cody Dyer they looked solid and in great shape the rest of the after noon.  The Mocs got consistent work at the face off X from Mandarin High School’s Blake Weil and Andrew Fisher (who also scored an impressive goal against Tampa) combined with solid middie play from Brendan Mykle-Winkler, Joe Caridi, and Ryan Wright created a lot of opportunities for the attack unit.  Jacksonville’s Joel Brown was a bright spot for FSC as well.  He covered the wings on face offs, played good defense, and really pushed the transition game for the Mocs.

We spoke with Head Coach Marty Ward after the championship game and asked him about the improvement throughout the day.  “We talked about this at the beginning of fall ball.  Championships are about finishing. Our motto this year is ‘be different.’ We want to be different than the teams before us.  We’ve had three teams go to the conference championship in four years and haven’t come out with a win yet.  So being different means winning a championship. This is just a little step on our journey.  It’s a first step and the guys started believing in themselves.  They realized, hey, were in pretty good shape.  We can run. So let’s run.”   About Joel Brown he said, “we recruited him out of the JLC club when Pat Harnett was running that and we liked him.  He had some savvy and was real raw. He’s been developing over the past couple of years and we’ve seen a great turn for him this fall, a lot of progress.”   Defenisvily Coach Ward liked what he saw. “We’ve got two seniors in Clinton Sorrel and Trenell Boggins that are both really great leaders,  they’re both captains for us.  They lead by example and they really command the defense when they’re out there.  Dom Scarfo is a guy who red shirted last year with an injury and he is back and really filling a great role for us.  Dusten Peterson, a freshmen, is a good solid get for us.  He was highly recruited out of high school and we were lucky enough to nab him out of Alberta Canada and he has been playing really well for us.” Florida Tech

Anyone who takes Florida Tech lightly this year will be doing so at their own peril.  The Panthers have ten seniors on the roster this year which is the first senior class in the team’s history. The class includes seven of the original recruits. It is the most talented and motivated Tech team we have seen.  We spoke with Florida Tech Head Coach Ryan McAleavey before the first game today and he was even more upbeat and positive than usual.  “We are SO ready to play today,” He said.  “We are sick of playing ourselves everyday.” They certainly looked ready from the opening face off. The attack unit of  Daniel Errett, Brian Bacarella, and Zach Wynne make a very impressive group.  Big 6’3″ Charlie Morrisette came in on the EMO and made his presence known a few times.  He is a very solid attackman who worked off the bench today. They moved constantly, played with patience, and finished when they found the opportunities.  The starting midfield features a couple of top Florida products.  Boone High School’s Andrew Conley, part of the original FIT recruiting class, continues to play an important role in the offense.  He was teamed up on a line with Austen Zugelter, sophomore from Vero Beach and Nick Wynne.  The three midfielders showed they are not afraid to shoot.  They controlled the ball, never let it die in their sticks, hit the allies, and shot.

In their first outing of the day against Florida Southern long and often successful possession along with the fact that sophomore F/O Travis Wunder was dominant at the X from the opening whistle prevented The Mocs from every really getting their offense working.  Andrew Conley was never completely healthy last season and looks to be back with a vengeance this year.  He is 100% healthy, bigger, stronger, and faster than he has ever been.  He’s also part of the most talented midfield line they’ve ever had at FIT. It was awesome to see Frank Schornagle playing D middie and running hard on the transition.  Schornalge is out of University High School in Orlando and headed over to FIT as an undersized middie from a program than had not produced too many college players.  He is not undersized anymore.  He was impressive out there and should be an impactful role player for a very improved Panthers program. Coach McAleavey spoke about those seven original recruits after the games.  “Those guys…every year they just got better and better and more confident and now they’re playing at the level where they believe in themselves.  All the harping and all of the teaching is starting to pay off and more so the confidence they have. And we’ve got a few new guys who came in and they have added a lot of confidence because the seniors don’t feel that they have to do it all.  We got Dan Errett the UMASS transfer and Zach Wynne from West Virginia.  Those guys are good lacrosse players.” Coach McAleavey also feels that Zugelter can be even better than he showed on Saturday.  He has had a great fall and promises to be a strong force in the SSC this spring.

Tampa Tampa may have ended up playing in the consolation game on Saturday but I wouldn’t count them out of the SSC championship run by a long shot.  The Spartans beat Rollins 9-2 in an early game and then played USF.  Their big test came against Florida Southern in an early afternoon game.  FSC bounced back from a poor outing against Florida Tech and looked great.  While the spartans came up one goal short they looked pretty good doing it.   Junior Chris Vetter filled in for the injured Jake Rooney at attack. He, along with Canadian Mike Morris and SSC Player of the Year Conor Whipple made for a stout and talented attack unit.  Obviously, Rooney will be back in the starting line up when he returns.  But Vetter is way too good to keep on the bench all season.  I imagine we’ll see all four of those guys involved in the offense in some way this spring.

Jupiter’s Daniel Soviero, a freshman, has clearly impressed this fall.  He was running with the first line midfield along with Matthew Bilak and Dwyer’s Robert Calhoun.  Returning starter MJ Lorenzo (St. Andrews) was out with an injury.  Stephen Reall (St. Andrews,) and Chance Smith also saw quite a bit of time on the midfield.  Nick Ferreiro (Holy Trinity) did a nice job at the F/O X along with senior Trevor Calleja.  Marty Heyn, Charles Cummins, and Nick Balzano saw the bulk of the time on defense.  Tampa saw quite a few goalies get some time including Boca High graduate and Delaware transfer Nick “Fuzzy” Martin.  Tampa should have some good competition at that position with a deep pool of talent. Junior Andrew Failla started 16 games last year and would be the presumed starter this season. In the most competitive game of the day for Tampa, the Florida Southern game, they looked fresh and fast and deadly on the transition.  They were more successful on the unsettled transition than long offensive possessions.  They also have what has got to be the deepest bench in the SSC if not DII lacrosse.  Their roster features a number 1 and a number 97 and I don’t think there are any unassigned numbers in between.  They split the squad into two teams but still had more than enough guys coming on and off the field to look fresh even during the long hot day. Rollins

The deep bench for Tampa was way too much for Rollins to compete with in the only game we got to see Rollins play on Saturday.  Unfortunately, by the time we got to see the Tars play they had a pretty good size group of players with ice and bandages applied and the short bench made it tough.  Although we didn’t get to see them at their best, we did see some bright spots.  Keenan Crosby (Ponte Vedra) was matched up on Vetter for quite a bit of the game and he did a great job on a guy we think is going to do a bunch of scoring this spring.  Cardinal Mooney’s Trey LaPorta did most of the heavy lifting at the F/O X for the Tars and did a nice job.  Rollins features 24 freshmen and sophomores on their roster and only five seniors, so they are a young group that has a good chance to get a lot better by spring.  The midfield group that started the game we watched consisted of two sophomores and a freshman. We also know that Rollins has some very talented players that were out of the game we watched including Will Diamond (St. Andrews) and Austin Sopp (Lk Brantley). Don’t forget to check out the gallery with over 200 photos! Our Take Aways from the day;

1. Vs-Cancer.org is a very cool organization and founder Chase Jones is a remarkable young man.  The program is easy to start up and he has developed some slick infrastructure that let’s student athletes focus on the getting the word out and playing their sport.  The administrative component is well automated.  If your program is looking for a great charitable organization to raise money for a worthy cause check them out. 2. It’s fall ball! Don’t get too crazy.  Saint Leo wasn’t there and neither was Lynn. (We really wish they were) Saint Leo will no doubt be in the mix this year. 3. The “mystery transfer” will appear on probably all of these teams before spring.  Christmas is right around the corner and Santa Claus usually brings these coaches shooters, FOGO’s, goalies, middies, and stud defenders every year.  So the rosters we watched on Saturday will probably have some adjustments before conference play begins this spring. 4. Florida Tech was really the story of the weekend.  They still don’t have the depth that FSC or Tampa does, but one game a week is much different that an all day tournament format.  We’ll see if they have enough. 5.  We have a bunch of great Florida products out there playing in the Sunshine State Conference.  This is high level lacrosse.  If you are a hot prospect and you aren’t sending your resume to our Sunshine State Schools you are making a mistake. Photo Gallery