Above – Lake County and Apopka players use fall ball opportunity to polish up their ground ball technique.

The Orlando Lacrosse Fall League kicked off this past weekend in Lake Mary.  The growth of the sport was obvious as teams from Lake County to Indian River County filled from 9:00 in the morning until 5:00 in the evening.  A total of 19 clubs are playing this fall with eleven team fielding both JV and Varsity programs. The East Lake Mary Boulevard Athletic Fields may not feature acres of pristine MLL quality bermuda grass or field turf, but they were in great shape despite having been inundated with hours and hours of steady rainfall in the past 24 hours.   While it’s always tough to for most teams to field rosters for fall ball programs due to other sports and activities, all of the game we saw feature teams with full benches and solid rosters.  Some of the play was a little rusty, but that is what fall ball is all about.

One team that didn’t look rusty was the Dr. Phillips entry.  The young team that made it all the way to the Elite 8 last season has the bulk of talent returning this year plus a young freshman named Mikey genf20 hgh true or false clains Birkman.  Yes, Birkman. As in the nephew of legendary Salisbury head coach Jim Birkman.  We’ll be interested in watching that group develop throughout the fall, but that youngster is certainly a newcomer to watch this year. We also enjoyed watching the Avalon Venom from Timber Creek.  That group is returning the bulk of it’s starting attack unit with Nate Gillan, Steven Torres, and Marco Montero.  They looked crisp and flowed like a group that has been playing together for a long time. It was great to see a team from Lyman High School out there.   Lyman is one of Orlando’s old teams which actually has several alumni in the college coaching ranks.  (See – “Half of NCAA Men’s Lacrosse Coaches in Georgia Have Ties to 2005 Lyman HS Team.”) The parents we spoke with are excited about the future of the sport at Lyman and it seems that Coach Rozier is getting the guys to do the first step to bringing that program back which is to show up and play.  Good for them.  Teams from Merrit Island as well as Rockledge are participating in the league as well, another great sign pointing toward more parity around the state in the future. We suspect that the level of play will be even higher next weekend.  The ‘Noles are playing at NC State and the Gators are off.  It seems a lot of Central Florida’s top lacrosse players are big time football fans and the FSU/Clemson game claimed a large number of players this weekend.