Above – Sweetlax National Elite Team features Jared Bernhardt, Connor Alexander, Zach Crotty, and Jack Staab.  An improbable 4 goal run in the last two minutes set them up for an overtime victory for the T.O.C. National Championship. Our recap focuses on our Florida Teams.  For a great complete writeup on the tournament check out Casey Vock’s article at 3D Rising. The U11 Tampa Tarpons made the semi finals, out lasting the Pasco Lions, FCA South Florida, and Palm Beach Revolution as the last Florida team standing.  In the semi final round they faced Edge Elite of Ontario.  Edge brings great teams in every age bracket they compete in and U11 was no different.  They out ran the Tarpons with a high level transition game that resulted in an 11-2 win for Edge.  Edge would go on to drop the championship game to Team Igloo of New York. The Tarpons would take fourth place after losing the consolation game to a tough Rising Sons team from Pennsylvania.  Palm Beach Revolution took 5th place and FCA South Florida wound up 9th. Overall it was a solid showing for our young teams in a deep national level tournament. In the U13 Division Madlax National took the championship with Florida 8th grader, Zeb Fuller, in the goal. Palm Beach Revolution 2019 was the highest finishing Florida team in the U13 division.  They took 5th place with PB 2020 and Team Florida getting 12th and 13th respectively.  The host Pasco Lions finished 20th. Revolution 2019 defeated 3D NE All Stars and then got past C2C Georgia to win the 5th place bracket on Wednesday. Tampa’s West Florida Elite made the final eight in the U 15 Division.  Their 4-0 record on day 1 earned a bye in the first round of elimination.  West Florida looked unstoppable as they controlled Ontario’s Grand River Ironman 6-2.  They then trounced True Lacrosse PA 10-1 and beat C2C GA 6-4.  They finished the day beating NJ Thunder 8-1.   WFL jumped on Atlanta Empire 12-1 in the next round to make the final 8.  The Grand River Ironmen were ready this time and ousted them 10-3.  California’s Brady Bunch beat them by the same score to take 5th place and West Florida became Florida’s high finisher in the U15 bracket with 6th place. The U15 division was won by Madlax Nat’l team which featured starting 6’4″ defender Danny Walsh from St. Ed’s. Florida Elite had a brutal draw on day 1 facing Six Nation’s Royal Reds in the first game.  They pulled off the upset winning 6-5.  They then faced the FCA National Team (finished 3rd,) SweetLax (finished 2nd,) and 419 Lacrosse of Ohio dropping all three games.  The Rising Stars of Mass put Florida Elite out of contention on Day 2.  But Elite finished strong with another win over Six Nations, a win over Texas’ Third Coast Lacrosse, and a victory over FCA Colorado to take 19th place. FCA SoFlo was Florida’s only team to qualify for the T.O.C. this year in the Rising Stars Division.   Florida had two players on the Brady’s Bunch Roster (Nate Gillan and Preston Hopkins of Timber Creek) and we had five players on the FCA National Team. Austin Guerrina, Colin Hayek, Zach Ranta, Danny Pagano, and Choo Kornitzer played on the FCA National team and made the finals. FCA SoFlo went 1-3 on day 1 with a win over Dynasty Lacrosse Academy of Colorado.  They lost to the Copperheads (GA), Resolute Lacrosse Ohio, and Team Atlanta.  They got another victory in the first round of elimination over Pride Lacrosse of Michigan but fell to Heat Lacrosse, also of Michigan, and wound up finishing 12th. The Elite Division was won by SweetLax which featured four of our Florida players.  Jared Bernhardt, Connor Alexander, Zach Crotty, and Jack Staab.  Sweetlax won in an amazing comeback scoring 4 goals in the final two minutes of the game and winning early in OT.  Casey Vock of 3d Rising has a great write up on the game here. West Florida Elite was the highest finishing Florida team reaching the final 8.  WFL had a 2-2 start on Day 1 of competition.  They had close victories over Alexandria VA (3-1) and Maryland’s Susquehanna Strippers (2-1) but lost to eventual champion Sweetlax (8-0) and Ontario’s Everest Academy (4-3).  WFL eliminated a chippy Grand River Ironman (ON) team in the first round of elimination 11-6 in a great offensive effort.  However, they would face eventual champion Sweetlax again in the next round and fall 10-3.  A loss to Team Total of Michigan found them with a 7th place finish for the tournament. Florida Elite dropped the first game of the tournament to eventual 2nd place Six Nations’ Red Royals 8-5.  They rebounded to win a pair of games against Michigan’s Team Total (5-4) and Third Coast of Texas (5-2.)  Elite lost the last game of day 1 to the Grand River Ironmen. They were beaten in the first round of elimination by Alexandria, VA by a score of 9-6.  That, however, set them up for some redemption when they got another crack at the Grand River Ironman and they came away with a 6-4 victory.  They built on that win and were able to control a very good Madlax National team to secure a 9th place finish.  The MadLax National Team features 12 players from Florida including Barron Collier standout defenseman Michael Nathan and goalie Zach Woods.