JU Women Close Fall Ball on a High Nite

Jacksonville, Florida – Coach Mindy McCord and her first-year Division I women’s lacrosse program wrapped up their Fall season with a pair of games against two southern programs. Savannah College (GA) and Central Florida, two programs that compete in the Southern Women’s Lacrosse League (SWLL), joined JU at the Lighthouse Lacrosse Foundation’s annual Fall Classic tournament at Ed Austin Park in Jacksonville Florida. The tournament helps raise awareness to Lighthouse, a 501 (c) 3 organization, and their mission to build lacrosse in troubled Duval County, which recently pulled their school lacrosse programs out of FHSAA district play citing lack of resources. Lighthouse has been hosting clinics and leagues for Jacksonville city children for several years and has been the recipient of both US Lacrosse grants and local business grants focused on benefiting kids.

JU handily won both contests as the team showed great development over their brief six-week Fall season which included two scrimmages with 3rd-year program Rollins College (Winter Park, Florida), and one scrimmage against 1st-year program University of Florida. About 100 fans attended the event that was open to the public.

Leading scorers over the two games were Sarah Michel (SO, Georgia/Milton) 7 goals/2 assists, Abbie Warnken (FR, Florida/Baron Collier) 5 goals, and Ellyn Spangenberg (FR, Florida/Oviedo), Stephanie Peterson (FR, Maryland/Broadneck) and Joce Jamison (FR, Maryland/Westminster) each with three goals. Nine dolphins tallied points over the two contests despite not playing with their leading attacker of the Fall Cassie Compasano (FR, New York/West Islip) who had an injury.

The defense and goal keeping units played very well on the day yielding just five goals combined in the two contests. Three goal keepers saw action including Tara Brock (JR, Florida/Winter Springs), Raleigh Collins (FR, Tennessee/Houston) and Karli Tobin (FR, New Jersey/Moorestown).

Earlier this Spring, Coach McCord commented on the JU program:

“We have had an excellent response from parents and community members and our team attitude is outstanding. We have a very difficult schedule right out of the gate this Spring and all of us are looking forward to the challenge. Both Matt (Kerwick) and I wanted to create top-level Division I programs from scratch and that requires us to play challenging opponents, watch a lot of video together as a team, and forge improvement each day. I don’t think these players could possibly grow any more on or off the field had they gone to another school. Each day we are demanding personal growth and focus forward in year number one. That is going to make us an exciting team to follow over the next few years and a strong family bond as a program.”

The lady Dolphin laxers are completing a final week of team practices at JU before returning to focusing on their individual skill workouts until the Spring season. JU will kick off the Spring with pre-season scrimmages at the Ancient City Winter Classic on January 9th and 10th in Ponte Vedra Beach. They open their regular season at home against University of Maryland-Baltimore County (UMBC) on February 6th at 11am in an exciting JU double-header, featuring the first regular season Division I games played by a Florida institution. The men’s team will face-off against perennial powerhouse and ACC-foe North Carolina (UNC) in the second game of opening day on February 6th.

JU is also working on a capital campaign for a lacrosse facility and has created a lacrosse booster organization called the Lacrosse Legacy Club (or LLC). To get involved in either the men’s or women’s programs as a member of the LLC, contact either Coach McCord (mmccord@ju.edu) or Coach Kerwick (mkerwic@ju.edu).

Season tickets are available by contacting Nikki Swanson at (904) 256-7444 or nswanso1@ju.edu.

Jacksonville Men Nearly Defeat All-Stars in Fall Ball Finale

Jacksonville, Florida – Jacksonville University unveiled the first Division I team in the history of Florida collegiate lacrosse on Saturday and the team of nearly all freshman came within a goal of upsetting a group of professional lacrosse players, including several Major League Lacrosse players and National Lacrosse League players. The Young Fins held a 1-goal advantage going into the fourth quarter before a late run by the All-Stars who narrowly escaped play with a 17-16 victory at the exhibition. Nearly 500 fans came out to watch the game which was free of charge and featured several behind the back goals and big plays on both sides of the ball.

Ryan Serville (Ontario/St. Mary’s) led Jacksonville with four goals from his attack position. The 6′3″ Canadian U-19 player stood tall against the huge All-Star defenseman who averaged 6′4″ and 245 pounds. “He (Serville) has great balance and soft hands. Every one of our stick checks he eluded or took, and even though he’s a bigger kid he kept his leverage and was crafty with his feet.” commented one of the All-Star defenseman.

Leading one of several strong JU midfield lines was Culver Bradley (Maryland/Huntingtown), Donovan Lange (Maryland/Northeast), Cam Mann (Connecticut/Salisbury School) proved to be a tough dodging threats, giving the All-Stars all they could handle. Nick Scalzo (New York/Webster Thomas) provided attack support with multiple goals and assists on the afternoon.

“What was most impressive about the JU team was how they did not back down against us,” commented NLL player and Boston Cannon Bryan Bendig. “We jumped out to a strong lead and next thing you know the score was tied. That took a lot of fight on their part. Most of us (All-Stars) feel that in a year or two they (Jacksonville University) will be a real force, but they have some good things going on now. It was a great game to play in and to watch.”

“Coach Kerwick told me before the game that he had a very deep midfield. They ran really well all game.”

The JU Men’s lacrosse program open their regular season at home against perennial powerhouse and ACC-foe North Carolina (UNC) on February 6th in a historic event that features a women’s game against University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC). The games will mark the first Division I lacrosse games played by a Florida Division I institution. Including the neighboring states South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, Jacksonville University will become the first Division I men’s and women’s programs in the deep south to compete in an NCAA regular season contest. A tremendous milestone for the sport of lacrosse and for JU.

In recognition of its leadership role in lacrosse, JU is also working on a capital campaign for a lacrosse facility and has created a lacrosse booster organization called the Lacrosse Legacy Club (or LLC). To get involved in either the men’s or women’s programs as a member of the LLC, contact either Coach McCord (mmccord@ju.edu) or Coach Kerwick (mkerwic@ju.edu).

Season tickets are available by contacting Nikki Swanson at (904) 256-7444 or nswanso1@ju.edu.

The Girls are Lumped with the Boys in Duval County

Jacksonville, Florida - Female student-athletes are being lumped and penalized based on their male sport counterparts shortcomings according to Duval County director of athletics Jon Fox in a meeting to explain why girls and boys lacrosse programs would be held out of district and FHSAA competition for the 2010 school season. According to Fox, the boys programs lacked support of organized officials and coaches, and could not compete with the Bolles school on a competitive level and therefore both the girls and the boys needed to take a step back and not compete with schools like Bolles at all for a period of two years.

Three of four girl’s lacrosse District One Finalists last year were Duval County schools, each with substantial winning records. Mandarin dropped a heart-breaking 1-goal decision in the championship game to Fleming Island.

He believes the move, which restricts the programs to participating against only Duval opponents whom he cited as less competitive, will make the lacrosse programs more competitive. The logic of this decision was tested by area coaches who noted that it would be tough to improve by not competing against better quality opponents.

No move was slated to move football out of FHSAA dispite Duval County football programs lack of competitive games with the Bolles School’s football program over the past decade. Duval schools have being outscored more than 500-100 over a 6-year span, an average score of 48-7 during that time.

As Mr. Fox explained, “Why would we want to play teams if we cannot be competitive.” Again, no move was made to move football, or girls and boys soccer (teams from Duval County are routinely ‘mercy ruled’ by non-county schools) from the ranks of district play. Only lacrosse.

The most disturbing element of the meeting came when Mr. Fox admitted that he made a mistake when he did not properly address the girls sport separately from the boys sport, causing the girls to reap the same consequences although not creating the same issues.

“We have never had an incident at a girls lacrosse game in Duval County, other than the county field liners never paint a safe, accurate field,” commented Jacksonville University coach Mindy McCord. “I have officiated games in Duval County for the past three years. I spend time after the games talking to the coaches and teams and helping them out. It is a very helpful community. The biggest issue we had was the fields never being painted correctly and that was a result of the county workers and not the coaches, players, officials and parents. It is a shame that so many girls will be left behind in their developmental process because of a few isolated incidences on the boys side. Even those incidences should have been handled at the time and not collectively slid to this level. You could make the same arguments for issues in other sports if you wanted to.”

One of the issues that was cited by Fox was a game two seasons ago that was played without officials. The decision was made by the coaches of the teams, one of whom was a Duval County coach. During that game, a young man was seriously injured. What AD Fox failed to mention was that there was no school game administrator present at the game. Normally, school administrators make the decisions to play or not to play in these situations as coaches are not seen to be objective.

This is also mandated in the county’s sports contract. A game administrator, who works full-time at the school, must be present for all county contests and would have made the decision to cancel the game due to lack of officials present.

No game administrator was present at that contest. Someone was nearly killed. Mr. Fox blames lacrosse’s lack of officials and a coach’s decision on the incident.

Obviously the assigner of officials was somewhat responsible for not having more games with enough officials. He is no longer assigning officials for the boys game. That change was made by the Florida Lacrosse Officials Association and it forced a split between the women’s and the men’s organizations to better organize both groups. There has not been a girl’s lacrosse game cancelled due to lack of officials since the sport became assigned officially four years ago.

Safety was also a primary reason cited. But the county holds the responsibility for accurately painting the fields and policing the coaches of all sports teams and neither has been done correctly since becoming an FHSAA sport two years ago in Duval County. There was a test that the district required all coaches to take. While there was never a girls rules test, they put an outdated boys rules test into the system. Wasn’t that supposed to be the answer to knowing ‘lacrosse’ before being permitted to coach the sport?

Meanwhile, other areas have thriving lacrosse programs throughout the State. Only Duval County has chosen to remove their teams from District consideration.

Mr. Fox claims that the school principles made the decision and there is absolutely nothing that can be done at this juncture.

The move is unfortunate for the boys and the girls. The girls of which seem to be innocent bystanders in the process, having their participation opportunities removed as a result of the so-called boys mistakes.

All other sports, which apparently are well-run, will continue as planned for the 2009-10 sport season. The girl’s programs plan on filing a complaint with the district administration.

REGISTRATION IS OPEN!

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And they’re OFFFF! Fall Ball Registration Opens 9/1 and Closes as Soon as the League is Full!

Jacksonville, Florida – First Coast Fall Ball registration is now open! People can register by going to tinyurl.com/firstcoastlax. This Fall will be a great experience with 5-weeks of lacrosse including two jamboree dates for the high schoolers and crazy-super-terrific instructional leagues for 1st-8th graders. We at First Coast Lax are always trying to build a better league. More affordable (got our own insurance last year so league members did not have to buy US Lax insurance), more options for kids (new player equipment option this year). The Fall Ball league is a business, but it is more of a passion and a chance for growth of the game than anything else. Check out the costs of other southern metro fall ball leagues: Check out metro Charlotte and Metro Atlanta’s Fall Ball costs.

But enough of being affordable and having ‘value’ for each participant. The stuff has to work regardless of the cost! And the beauty is, FCL is a great teaching league for kids and a great playing experience for the high schools who participate.

How exciting will it be to see all the teams playing lacrosse again! The first weekend is always a carnival atmosphere and this year we hope that more girls than ever are playing lacrosse and getting pumped! Remember, you can sign up for Fall Ball regardless of what team you play for in high school or youth league. Even if you have never played before. Some of the best college players did not pick-up sticks until 8th or 9th grade. There have been all-Americans who did not play until college (no kidding) and former Team USA coach Sue Heether did not play until college! How wild!

Tell your friends to get rolling! The high school league is already almost full. There are a few spots remaining for teams to come in. Middle and Elementary will fill up quickly. Please spread the word! Visit www.FirstCoastLax.com for more details. The website is a free way to keep track of local happenings!

Also, don’t forget about the local tournaments: Cradle for the Cure (9/13 in Flagler Beach benefitting the Komen Foundation) and The Wishbone (11/21-22 in Lake Mary).

Get out there and Play Lax! YOU have the POWER!

JU Braves Uncharted Waters for Lacrosse in Florida

Jacksonville, Florida – It seems like it was just yesterday that JU director of athletics Allan Verlander was announcing Florida’s first Division I tandem of lacrosse. There were many questions. Who will coach the team? Where will the teams play? Who will the teams play? Will JU be able to compete at the Division I level? And what is lacrosse?

Many of those early questions have been answered. JU named Mindy McCord Director of lacrosse and head women’s coach out of the gate. They conducted an exhaustive four-month search for their men’s coach before naming Team USA assistant coach Matt Kerwick their inaugural men’s coach. The school is building a new mulit-million dollar turf field-track stadium and installing new locker rooms for lacrosse. The programs put together some pretty impressive first year schedules, with the men opening with powerhouse UNC (#6), and facing other national favorites like Duke (#3), Hofstra (#10). The women open with established DI program UMBC (#40) , and other top-40 programs Louisville, Oregon, Johns Hopkins, and new cross-state rival Florida, who begins their first season of lacrosse two years after hiring their head coach, Mandy O’Leary.

If they will be competitive or not at the Division I level will have to be the question in a few years, but they have done all the right things to get themselves to that point thus far. Not the least of which was both program’s coordinated recruiting efforts. The men’s program will have forty men competing for playing time this Fall and the women’s will have thirty. That should provide them with plenty of good young players from which to build on as they try to establish themselves. Some of these players are very impressive and a few are previewed on the JUDolphins.com website.

http://www.judolphins.com/news/default/184/13509/ (women’s preview)
http://www.judolphins.com/mlacrosse/news/173/13506/ (men’s preview)

So, it looks like it should be exciting for JU. Most importantly, JU has answered the question to the campus at Jacksonville University “What is lacrosse?”

Coach Kerwick and Coach McCord have held several camps on campus. Almost 1,000 kids have attended camp at the university. Both the men’s and women’s program launched successful club programs last year. Several of those players will be competing for roster spots this Fall. Coach Kerwick founded a local club program (Team Fin/Finslax.com) to help the area’s boys learn the game under his tutelage. There have been numerous clinics and coaching visits with local coaches to build the sport. Both programs have done their fair share in building the sport and awareness of the sport on the First Coast.

With school starting in a couple weeks and Fall lacrosse also kicking off at the Division I level for the first time on the First Coast, it will be exciting to see the programs in person up close and personal. The JU Women are planning on scrimmaging during the First Coast Fall Ball season to show the local girls what college lacrosse looks like and most importantly, what they practice like. The more role models for local kids, the better!

Stay tuned for more updates about lax developments on the First Coast right here!

Organizing a Parent’s Club that Supports your Team Positively

St. Johns, Florida – Nothing can be more useful than a parents club. At the same time, nothing can be a greater distraction to a head coach and consequently his or her players. When I founded the Bartram Trail girls program five years ago, I chose not to have a parents club because I did not want to have a group of parents to ‘manage’. It was a new program. Most parents did not even know the rules or the expectations of the game. The kids were having fun. The director of athletics had someone to open the gate to the field and collect gate receipts. What else was there?

That philosophy may have worked for me, but it does not work for most coaches who want help running the gate, managing concessions, and providing support in the booth for play-by-play and/or scoreboard. Helping out with odds and ends.

Then there is the over-active parents boards. The parents who tell the coaches what to do and how to manage the program effectively. I know a highly experienced coach who once had a parent president tell her that she was not allowed to send group emails to her team unless they were cleared by the booster club first. And how about the parents who intervene on their child’s behalf in team matters….when their ‘child’ is a senior captain of the team! I have seen it all.

So where do you start? With a team ‘board member’ code of conduct. If parents want to be a part of the team board, they have to agree to the rules as stipulated by the head coach and hopefully the athletic administration. Sample rules include:

1) There is absolutely no dialogue with to take place between board members and the head coach over playing time (HUGE conflict of interest).
2) Board members must respect the on field decisions of the coach and support them without question when speaking with other parents involved with the team (insubordination).
3) Parent volunteers must arrive on time for assigned duties and are forbidden from using alcohol of tobacco products during the event. Parents may not arrive to their station following the consumption of alcohol (embarrassment and team liability).
4) Any program issues will be brought to the attention of the head coach first (chain of command/respect of the head coach) prior to addressing with athletic directors or principals.

And you can feel free to add and embellish these as much as you would like. Point is, the parents in the booster club, or your volunteer lax organization must agree to support you and the program. If they cannot do this, there is no point in having parents involved other than from the stands. If they complain about not having a snack bar, too bad. Sign the parent conduct paperwork for the program or keep quiet!

Most parents will agree to support the team positively. If this is the case, and I hope it is, then structure your parents based on what is important for your home and away contests. Here is an example of a simple way of doing it without having too many people involved (it does not require 12 parents to support a lax team).

* Snack Bar Supervisor – Stocks and assigns volunteer workers for the fund raising snack bar at each home game.
* Game Day Supervisor – Assigns volunteers for the gate, field set up, score keepers, and game announcer/music person.
* Team Meal Coordinator – Works with the coach on a budget for team meals and assigns which games will have team meals. Assigns volunteers for each team meal (if needed).
* Away Game Chaperone – If needed, this person provides extra ’security’ at away games and also watches over the team if needed. Also can coordinate a hotel rooming list and bed check if staying overnight.
* Team Fund Raiser – This person helps the head coach raise any funds for the program. Perhaps there is a goal of $2,000 to raise. This person outlines a couple of easy fundraisers, like the online Goal-a-Thon run by Team Jumper, and then provides the documentation needed to be successful.
* Team Program Supervisor – this person works WITH the Fund Raiser to assemble a team program that features advertisements and sponsorships of the program. Nowadays, anyone can produce these programs online and have Fed-Ex Kinkos or MediaWorks produce a game program for very little expense. $200 or less to produce with an advertiser income for the program of about $1,000. It is a great way to recognize your seniors and provide a roster for games each week.

Notice that there are always volunteers needed. If you have folks that agree to volunteer for small jobs, you will need to have someone there to manage them or at least make their life organized so the volunteers can manage themselves. All in all, if you have 4 or 5 ‘dedicated’ parents on your high school team and ‘4 or 5′ volunteers, you can make it through a season and have an excellent program.

At the end of the season, sit down and meet with your Parent’s Club and talk about what went well and what they would like to improve upon. Be sure to keep them at arms length and remain professional. It is tough to have ‘friendships’ with anyone who has an agenda outside of the team’s best interests and most parents feel that the team’s best interests are either their own or their child’s playing time/experience. Be careful and be professional at all times around parents. Be polite and be friendly but do not become a ‘buddy’.

One coach told me “I have yet to meet a parent who valued the program’s welfare over their kid’s own self-interest.”

Best of luck in your journey to build a successful parent’s club!

How Can I Begin Building My Team?

PLAYERS - In order to build a lacrosse team, you will need to recruit players to play. Not just anyone will do. Lacrosse is a game played by people who like to run around and are competitive. There are three main ways to recruit players to pick up sticks:

1) Go to existing athletic teams and seek out athletes who currently play Fall or Winter sports, or who have been cut by spring sports in the past. Having an athletic background is VERY helpful in being a high school lacrosse player.

Case study: Mel Hicks, Bartram Trail c/o 2008 – After being cut from the soccer team, Mel, who also played volleyball, was looking for something to do. She did not think she would be good enough to play high school lacrosse with no experience and already a junior. I spotted Mel in school and spoke with her. She was athletic, strong and fast and she had a good athletic attitude. She was PERFECT for the defense I wanted to run which was all about being athletic and strong. I was able to get her to sign up for Fall Ball and work with her to teach her the basics during Fall Ball. By the time the season rolled around, Mel had played in six high school games and the Wishbone tournament and she was pretty fired up! I continued to positively reinforce Mel at every moment in practices and games. Every time she did something well I was cheering her on! If she did something wrong, I taught her the correct way of doing it. As an athlete, she learned fast. Her stick skills were raw, but they improved enough for her to be effective as a defender. She went on to be an all-conference player in her first year playing and earned a Division I scholarship to Detroit where she started every game as a freshman. Her stick skills are very good now! It worked out for everyone!

If you can find 1 or 2 “Mel Hicks” each year, think of how strong your program will be in four years with four to eight bonafide ‘great athletes’ walking on your sidelines!

2) Market – Market – Market: Signs need to go up. These need to be where people pull into school as well as on the school’s boards and post locations. If you have certain freshman and sophomore teachers who support you, have them put the signs up in their class room. Be sure they know who to contact for more info, so they can help you in the recruitment process! Focus on how fast the game is! “Play Lacrosse: The Fastest Game on 2 Feet!” or “Lacrosse: America’s first sport is the fastest growing sport in the country! Find out why!” or “Athletes Wanted! Lacrosse is HERE for YOU!”. Also have daily announcements read each day or every other day. Make them short and sweet but build on the tag lines listed above. “Lacrosse – it’s more than a game! It’s a passion!”. Have a catch before school = Wearing your lax uniform, take signs and have a few top players on your team throw the ball around while a few team leaders speak to people about lacrosse. Hand out small pieces of paper with a slogan and “Play Lacrosse!” on it. Be sure your email or your coaching email is included. Get info out to kids via the school’s electronic newsletter, website, and any group emails that go back to parents. Host a “Play Lacrosse” night for new players. Have team members, coaches and supportive/educated parents there to help answer questions and get the new kids signed up for Fall Ball so they can get a season under their belt and some practices! A good marketing system at a large area high school could net 10-20 new interested players, of which perhaps 5-10 pan out!

3) You have friends? Get them to PLAY LACROSSE! You may already play lacrosse. But have you really convinced your friends to try the sport? Bring a friend to the “Play Lacrosse” meeting! Every player needs to bring a friend. If you have a team of 10 players and 10 friends start to play, you have a full team! High School kids want to do something social and this is a great way to make it more than a game. If you have 20 players on your team already, you have just added a JV team by word of mouth!

Overall, these three methods should raise you anywhere from 15+ new players this year alone. Imagine building from a talent pool of players each year that includes 15 returning players, 15 new high school players and our next category!

Feeder Programs:

The largest category for First Coast Lacrosse is the Feeder Program. The area’s current top players grew up in youth leagues that are near their neighborhoods. They learned basics there and at least figured out how to pass and catch before they made it to the high school level. Not to say that their playing will be a given. Youth lacrosse is bare-bones recreational in nature and many of the kids resist the structure of high school sports. But putting together a youth team at the middle schools that feed your high school and getting them involved in the First Coast Fall Ball league, or Spring leagues like Creeks Youth Lacrosse, Ponte Vedra Youth Lacrosse, Flagler Youth Lacrosse, or Clay County Youth Lacrosse, or the Summer BALL (Beaches Aloha Lacrosse League), you can put your high school program in a good position for success!

Plan a strategy. Here is one (there are many):

Combine your high school marketing with your middle school programs. Have lacrosse days at the area middle schools and bring your players and uniforms so the kids can see them play. Hand out information on First Coast Lax Fall Ball, which features ‘new player’ clinics and games. Have your players and coaches work with the area kids and teach them the sport on the five Fall Ball Sundays! Maintain email addresses and encourage the kids to enter a local Spring recreational league if possible. Your players and parents can help coach the team (Team Mom with the players coaching the team and earning volunteer hours). The Spring youth leagues are 7-v-7, so you don’t need many players to participate – perhaps 10-12! If half are rising Freshman, you just built 5-6 players with experience coming into your school AND they will tell their friends about the sport too!

It is a very exciting time for all the new programs on the First Coast! By starting a movement in your middle and late elementary school (call us – WE’LL HELP!) and by recruiting from within your school program, you can REALLY build a highly competitive team quickly. The above methods, when used by a determined coach or group of players/parents, can yield a JV and varsity program quickly! I guarantee that if you are a girls team, the boys team will THANK YOU (Title IX).

Coming SOON to TEAM BUILDING!: Organizing a parent’s club that supports your team positively; Building skills in your team; Fundraising for a successful Spring season; Goal Setting and Daily Practice Accountability!

What Dreams of October and November will be Realized in March and April?

St. Johns, Florida - The Fall is approaching and vacation is coming to an end. Soon school will be back in session and everyone will be fretting about books, and schedules and car pools. It always works this way. Talk to the moms this time of year and they will commit to nothing until they know what the carpools are going to be. It is as if there is nothing that can be done from August 14th-28th. 

So start your planning now for Fall Ball! If you want to play in college, start planning your tournament trips north. Or get your team ready for Wishbone and Ancient City. If you don’t play on a club team, make sure your high school teams attend these tournaments so you can be seen. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that not being seen is a good way to be recruited.

For Fall Ball, make sure your team gets registered quickly for the opening session. This year’s Fall Ball starts in Mid-October, which gives you plenty of time to get your teams together. Games are on Sundays – the perfect day to re-LAX (pun intended). For some teams, Fall Ball is a chance to re-tool, re-load, and seek out replacements. For others, it’s a chance to learn the game and figure out how to teach new players how to have fun playing the game. It’s great because you don’t have to worry about what your school district is going to do to put your team together and play. Fall Ball is happening! In fact, off-season leagues on the First Coast have been taking place since Laurel Pierpont’s winter camp/scrimmage league back in 2005. There were 25-30 girls from Nease and Episcopal who played at the river fields near Episcopal.

This year, as many as 400 girls are projected to be taking part in Fall Ball. And why not?

This is a big year for area lacrosse. This is really the 4th year of lacrosse happening throughout the area. It is year #3 of FHSAA lacrosse. There are kids who have played enough lacrosse, even on the area’s less talented teams, that catching the ball should be routine vs. an adventure!

Fall is the time to work with your team and get everyone on the same page. For those kids who play rec ball and not elite travel, this is your chance to improve your skills. Elite travel players have a chance to display what they learned while on the summer circuit. For all, it is a chance to build community and play/coach the sport in a low pressure, fun environment. Do we keep score? Yes, but it is all unofficial. Keeping score is counterproductive to those who want to improve their games. Sometimes you will do what is comfortable to try to get a ‘W’ rather than work to improve so your team can get ‘W’s’ in the spring when it counts.

Not much more time left! Start getting your teams together. Start recruiting new players from the hallways! Spread the joy of the game to as many people as you can! And get ready for First Coast Fall Ball!

2009 North Florida high school champions Bartram Trail had 40 players competing in 2008's First Coast Fall Ball season. With a couple months to go, it's never too early to start planning for the Fall season and consequently for success in the Spring!

50 First Coast Laxers to Compete at HEATWAVE this Weekend!

Ponte Vedra Beach, USA – In just five days Ponte Vedra Beach and St. Johns County will be facing a tremendous Heatwave of epic proportions! 24 High school club programs, seven middle school clubs, and three womens teams will compose a field of ladies teams that has never been larger than any other 7-v-7 in the south! And to think that it all started 4-years ago right here on the First Coast. This year, more than 50 participants from North Florida will be competing on one of a dozen different teams, including the North Florida Maniax, and Beaches Lax all-stars. Several area women will also be competing as will the North Florida Maniax and Beach Lax Middle School programs!

Early favorites for the Sawgrass Championship (the highest of the three championship brackets for the 2010-2013 age group) are Team Florida Girls 10 Black, Hotlanta FIRE, Copperheads 2010, and one of the two TFG 2011-12 teams. The wild part about this tournament is that there are three tournament champions for the high school level, a 3-v-3 championship team, and a Braveheart champion to boot. There will also be a winner in the HOT SHOT competition, a timed shooting-accuracy test that will test the mettle of the best sharp-shooters of the event.

Without Liz Connelly, what will happen to defending champion, Skull Crushers this year!? New uni’s??

The Middle School tourney will be a shootout with seven young teams gunning it out on the plush fields of Landrum Lax Park! The competitive level of the young ones is always astounding. Three years ago we did not have enough teams for a middle school division, so the middle school kids had to play at least one high school game. They were competitive back then! Now, many of the 2014’s are competing in their final Heatwave Championship as middle schoolers! That will make this event even more special for a lot of this year’s participants as nearly half are 2014’s at the MS level.

Adult teams are always a challenge. Trying to nail down women’s teams is like trying to nail jello to a wall and getting it to stick. It looks like we will have three women’s teams with the Cougars, the Skull Crushers, and the Dolphins all bringing a contingency. Maybe as JU grows their program we will develop a nice mix of players and continue to bring back the alums! There should be four or five womens teams attending the Heatwave, enjoying the beach, and having fun at night catching up with each other. The Cougars are early favorites for the tourney. We will see! I am excited because I get to officiate and Trina (a National official) may get to play! Hey T! Watch yo Shooting space! ahaahaaa!!

Weather is supposed to be perfect. 75 degrees at the start of each day and 85 degrees at the end. Scattered T-storms are possible more towards the late afternoon and early evening, so the participants should get a great look at the beach as well.

The Heatwave is a celebration. Can’t wait for it! Get psyched!