Team Florida Defeats Lacrosse Club of Orlando for Third Place at the Tournament of Champions
Written by Lee Roggenburg on . Posted in Uncategorized.
Back to Page 1
The T.O.C. consolation game featured a match-up of Team Florida, with a long history at the top of the heap here in Florida, vs. The Lacrosse Club of Orlando, a fairly new group in their first year. The game started off with very even, solid play at both ends of the field for several minutes until St. Andrew’s Jay Wheeler broke the ice giving Team Flo a 1-0 lead.
Hagerty’s Erik Marshall took advantage of an Orlando EMO opportunity to even things back up at 1-1. But Nick Slavins (Lake Nona), came right back off the face off and took Team Florida back to a 2-1 lead.
Cole Lindquist kept the scoring up and the game close, tying the game with a nifty move off of the right post.
Team Florida scored two more before the end of the half, with Jake Rooney scoring an EMO goal off of the ol’ hidden ball trick. A flag with only seconds left in the half insured that Team Florida would start the second half with a 4-2 lead and an extra man opportunity.
Rooney converted the EMO again off the hidden ball trick and gives Team Florida a 5-2 lead but LCO answers with 2 of their own. Including a nice shot by Bishop Moore’s Joey McMahon (U of Tampa) bringing LCO back to within one.
Suddenly Jake Rooney seemed to remember that he is the best attackman in the state and took over the game. With several goals by Rooney (we lost count, to be honest) and one by Andy Wheeler the score was 11-4. Grant Hughes added a pair of late goals for LCO, but Jake Rooney was the story of the second half leading Team Florida to an 11-6 victory.
Although Team Florida didn’t win the title of the country’s top club team, they did retain the title of the top club in Florida. However, the Lacrosse Club of Orlando proved that they belong in the Elite group of teams. It was a great accomplishment for Florida to have two teams in the final four of one of the country’s most prestigious club tournaments.
FCA went on to defeat Krunch in the title game. In fact, FCA reached the title game in four divisions and won two of the national titles, Elite and U15. For more info on the tournament visit www.laxtoc.com.
Back to first page