While watching two top ranked college basketball teams play an incredibly fast paced, high quality game, an NBA scout was asked “Which players do you like?”  His response was simply “I’d take any of ’em.” The St. Andrew’s and Vero Beach boys would have earned the same comment last night in what was another early season terrific FHSAA match-up, won by SA 11-8.  Every shot and every ground ball was contested.  Turnovers caused by good defensive play were numerous.  The play was clean and while this is not a normal comment when the focus is on the players, FLN wants to send a shout out to the referees for calling a good game.  The quality of Florida’s officials continues to improve along with our players. Alex Newhouse of St. Andrew’s (shown above) won the opening face-off and moments later senior Ben Kennedy scored the first of his three goals to give the Scots a quick 1-0 lead.  Vero’s Cole O’Brien promptly tied the score and from there St. Andrew’s went ahead 6-4 at the half.    In the second half, Vero came back to lead 8-7 before SA’s Zach Schwartz knotted the score again.  SA went on to add three for the final margin.  Schwarz led SA with four goals and one assist, Addison Lutes and  Kennedy both tallied three goals, Jake Legates had one goal and two assists, freshman Nick Iznaga was credited with two assists in his first varsity game and senior Nate Low had an assist to complete the scoring.  While we do not have numbers for Newhouse, it is safe to say he had a very good night as Vero simply did not have an answer for him.  Jacob Sami also had success for SA at the face-off X.  Connor Poetzinger had a solid game in goal. For Vero Beach, the scoring was as follows: Cole O’Brien, 2 goals Winton Roschach, 1 and 1 Bennett O’Brien, 1 and 1 Zach Funk, 1 and 1 Chris Britton 1 goal Austin Dupuis, 1 goal Ticer Pfeifer, 1 goal Kevin Heckman, 1 assist, 5 ground balls Brad Heckman, 4 saves FLN spent some time with a gracious Vero Beach head coach Jon Moriarity after the game and came away impressed.  He cares about his players and appreciates the opportunity to continue the growth of the sport built on the tremendous success of Vero’s girls’ team.  In a short period of time, Vero Beach’s boys’ team has become a very good program on his watch.  

FLN depends upon members of each team’s organizing group to provide content.  We are continually upgrading our site and look forward to being better every day and every year.  If you would like to be a FLN contributor, please send an email to brian@floridalacrossenews.com. Thanks to J. Patrick Rice of jprimages.com for submitting photos and Vernon Roschach for providing Vero’s statistics.