First, welcome back to Triple Crown Sports, which is FLN’s Weekly Media Poll Sponsor for the 2019 season!  Thank you to them and we will be keeping you up to date on their events for the coming year!  And believe me, there might be an interesting surprise or two coming . . .  Two weeks into the high school season and . . .HO-LEE COW . . .  That cow is bigger than Phil Rizzuto by a lot . . . okay, Red Sox fans hate that reference but Yankee fans will applaud . . . the Belen Head Coach will canonize me for that one.We have had a TON of early upheavalBishop Moore is struggling . . . Ponte Vedra is stomping . . . Saint Andrew’s is banged up . . . and Lake Highland is back, but not quite all the way yet . . . as their opener in Sarasota showed.Oxbridge finding a way to win games and Jupiter breaking in a new attack . . . St. Thomas handles Stoneman easily . . . and Sickles needs to heat up.  Creekside with the big win. And keep an eye on two teams I covered last year . . . it’s own mini-JHU/Syracuse rivalry on the sidelines; Windermere Prep and Calvary Christian (Ft. Laud.) . . . programs trending up.  Throw in the first Tewaaraton winner with a Western flavor too.  And Oviedo joins that path.But Sherman marched into Florida from Georgia and has taken the border war so far.  Lovett, Starrs Mill, et al . . . will Ponte Vedra halt the march against #1 in the Southeast Lambert?And Winter Park showed it was not just one and done.  Key Game Results Tuesday – Feb 19thPlant 14 – Sickles 2Newsome 10 – Steinbrenner 9Western 11 – Columbus 7Oviedo 9 – West Orange 8Riverview-Sarasota 13 – Lakewood Ranch 10Lake Highland Prep 20 – Buchholz 8Bishop Moore 12 – Lake Mary 4Wednesday – Feb 20thAmerican Heritage-Plantation 8 – St. Edward’s 5Thursday – Feb 21stNewsome 12 – Sickles 4Martin County 12 – Viera 10Lake Brantley 12 – Hagerty 8Nease 8 – Buchholz 7Friday – Feb 22ndAmerican Heritage-Plantation 15 – Pine Crest 9Merritt Island 12 – St. Augustine 1Cardinal Mooney 17 – Lake Highland 15Maclay 16 – Pensacola Catholic 7St. Thomas Aquinas 22 – Stoneman Douglas 9Jupiter 12 – Saint Andrew’s 9Benjamin 17 – The King’s Academy 8Canterbury 9 – Barron Collier 4Ponte Vedra 13 – Gulf Breeze 3Creekside 10 – Oak Hall 8Western 11 – Gulliver Prep 10Oxbridge 14 – Bishop Moore 10Winter Park 11 – West Orange 9Saturday – Feb 23rdChiles 16 – Pensacola Catholic 6Lake Highland Prep 17 – Jesuit of Tampa 8Riverview-Sarasota 15 – Sickles 8Creekside 13 – Bolles 7 I think we need a little interlude: Monday – Feb 25thBuchholz 12 – Forest High 3Tuesday – Feb 26thMaclay 18 – Buchholz 5First Academy 11 – Windermere Prep 10Ponte Vedra 19 – Nease 2Jupiter 14 – Western 6Lake Highland Prep 15 – Oviedo 8Hagerty 11 – Boone 6Wednesday Feb 27thMelbourne Central Catholic 12 – Merritt Island 4Ponte Vedra 16 – Fleming Island 1Thursday Feb 28thOak Hall 17 – Maclay 3Bolles 16 – Nease 8Oxbridge 14 – Saint Andrew’s 7Lake Mary 15 – Lake Brantley 6Friday – Mar 1stWiregrass Ranch 11 – Sickles 10Canterbury 5 – Fort Myers 3Coral Shores 10 – Key West 5Cardinal Mooney 13 – Riverview-Sarasota 6Lovett (Ga.) 9 – Lake Highland 8Winter Park 10 – Bishop Moore 9Saturday – Mar 2ndAmerican Heritage-Plantation 6 – The King’s Academy 3St. Edward’s 7 – Gulliver Prep 6Lovett (Ga.) 14 – Bishop Moore 10Boca Raton 11 – Saint John Paul II 6 It’s not just Florida High School either that is upside down . . .Just look at the this morning’s Inside Lacrosse Media D1 Poll:LINKTowson is #1 for the first time in their D1 historyHigh Point has ROAD wins over Duke and VirginiaOnly THREE of the Top 20 are still undefeatedAt #24 is the goal scoring machine in Geneva, NY . . .Oh and check out the save in the video on that story.  I thought it would be a long time before I saw a save like Kyle Bernlohr’s a few years back in OT of the NCAA title game but this one is pretty damn impressive. I can watch that one over and over.A note to our schools, parents, coaches and players . . .If you haven’t figured out by now how much I prefer using YouTube for highlights PLEASE DO SO . . . if you want to report or submit a clip to me load it to YouTube first and let me know where to get it.  I’d like to have some for each week!  The Underdog Upset Of The WeekHad a LOT to choose from.Winter Park was pretty darn good last season so the win over Bishop Moore is not quite there.Creekside was banged up last year and the win over Oak Hall is not quite there either.Merritt Island’s road win over St. Augustine is the runner up this week, with Oviedo’s win over West Orange a close third.What caught my eye this week was all the way south, as Coral Shores knocked off Key West 10-5.  Not that they were playing blow out games last year but it snapped a 7-game losing streak to the Conchs (is there a better nickname than Conchs . . . just think of the chants you can use with that!).  The Hurricanes are the CS nickname.This throws District 32 into an interesting district race since Coral Shores has already lost to Westminster Christian.  WC is nicknamed the Warriors . . . isn’t that a bit of a mixed message?  District member Florida Christian is the Patriots and Palmer Trinity is the Falcons.So, so far, Warriors take down Hurricanes, Hurricanes beat Conchs and the Patriots and Falcons already replayed Super Bowl LI . . .That was fun. Beyond The RankingsNow, as most of my readers know, I do not rank teams that are not eligible for the FHSAA Championship and all of you know that is why IMG never appears in this poll.There’s now another school that plays Independent this season and would merit ranking if they had joined a district and that is Admiral Farragut and they are off to a 5-0 start.  Now, to be fair, they have not yet gotten into the meat of their schedule so the early results are not revealing, with the exception of their most recent game, a 12-11 win over Berkeley Prep.But then you’ve got this to end the year: 

3/11	Highland Park (Dallas, TX)  Game Details: @ IMG Academy
3/12	Upper Arlington (Columbus, OH)  Game Details: @ IMG Academy
3/20	Gulliver Prep   Game Details: @ IMG Academy
3/22	@ Cardinal Mooney  Game Details: Sticks for Soldiers
3/23	Riverview   Game Details: Sticks for Soldiers
3/26	Out-of-Door Academy   Location: Admiral Farragut High School
3/28	St. Andrew’s Episcopal (Potomac, MD)  Location: Admiral Farragut
3/30	The First Academy   Location: Admiral Farragut High School
4/5	@ Oxbridge Academy   Location: Oxbridge Academy
4/6	@ Saint Andrew’s    Location: Saint Andrew’s High School
4/10	@ IMG Academy   Location: IMG Academy

That’s a legit schedule for anyone in the state. We’ll be monitoring, even if we don’t rank. And now, by popular demand . . . an EIGHTIES Interlude . . . you can overlook that it is a 2015 Live Performance of a 1984 song . . . https://youtu.be/SUODqmi5vdk ‘Get Your Butt to a Game’There are some very interesting games this week but it’s Friday that will REALLY be ‘Get Your Butt to a Game’ night:Lake Highland Prep at St. Thomas Aquinas. . . that one was a state title game a few years agoCardinal Mooney visits Saint Andrew’s. . . with respect to their home win over STA last year this is arguably the biggest game in Cardinal Mooney historyBishop Moore visits Benjamin. . . two seasons ago this game was where I first got a glimpse of what BM was building, and that proved accurate the following yearPonte Vedra plays Lambert (Ga.) at King Of The Spring in North Carolina. . . all that one will likely mean is who will be Inside Lacrosse’s #1 team in the Southeast, with apologies to JupiterAnd speaking of which, Jupiter visits Oxbridge Thursday night!Some sharp readers might wonder which of the 3 games in the area I’ll attend and that one is easy . . .The Red Devil is coming to Boca!And I will be chaperoning a group of parents to the hottest sensation in downtown Boca afterwards.I don’t know how many times I will shamelessly plug this, but I guarantee it won’t be the only time.7 years of doing FLN for free?  Here’s the price.  You won’t regret it.Open late! Referee Bashing 2019It didn’t take long.University School and South Plantation on Friday night.In the second half the referee stops the game and walks over to the stands to warn a parent.How many times do I have to say this?Here’s a new line . . . one day there will be a work stoppage by referees if parents, coaches and players don’t understand that the men and women in stripes are just as necessary to play a game as they are.  And it shouldn’t be difficult for parents to figure out which of the four that is not necessary to play the game.Let’s make this as easy as possible.Just about all of us teach our kids that Life is NOT FAIR and that you will have to face challenges that require you to just accept it and work your way through it.  But for some reason I see parents in the stands forget that Life is Not Fair EVEN at the Lacrosse game.When you are watching from the stands you have a NUMBER of advantages the refs DO NOT:You are SITTING in one placeYou are not running up and down the field . . . heck, you may even be sipping a latte while they try to grab a few sips of waterNo one gets between you and the sight of the play, at least if you are about 6 feet or higher above the field.In other words, you are watching the game in THREE dimensions while the refs are watching it in TWO . . . you have the advantage of seeing more than they can!You are not having trained athletes, mostly bigger than you and mostly faster than you, running across your line of sight and blocking you out for the split second that the item you saw occurred.Oh, and one more thing . . . if you didn’t attend LaxCon and sit in on the Referee Sessions (I ALWAYS attend those when I go) you have NO IDEA what the emphasis for the year is on interpretation . . . unless you bothered watching the YouTube video clip I put up every year.  Trust me, most of you don’t know about that.So, combine LIFE IS NOT FAIR with your ADVANTAGE and realize that the REFS WILL NOT SEE EVERYTHING YOU SEE and GIVE THEM A FRIGGIN’ BREAK.It’s kind of like drinking Decaf instead of Espresso . . . far better on the nerves. Okay, before we get to our first Triple Crown Sports / FLN Weekly poll we need both a last interlude and an introduction theme . . . Back by popular demand . . . Steven Wright!https://youtu.be/Z9ciHpT4WuMHe’s addictive. And to introduce this week’s Poll:Something for the younger readers . . . I guess . . . https://youtu.be/AOtHPA0bjpk 

Triple Crown Sports/FLN Weekly Top 25 Poll for the Week Ending 3/3/2019

 1) Jupiter – still undefeated2) Ponte Vedra – still loaded3) Oxbridge – road wins over SA and Bishop Moore are impressive4) Cardinal Mooney – managed to put up 17 on LHP while losing a LOT of faceoffs5) Benjamin – not really tested yet, Bishop Moore, Jupiter and Bullis (Md.) the next three6) Lake Highland Prep – impressive over Jesuit7)  St. Thomas Aquinas – also not tested yet but the going gets tough shortly8)  Winter Park – schedule is lighter the rest of the way versus the others here, they will pretty much need to run the table to keep here9) St. Andrew’s – injuries taking a toll, will need to start to beat the best opponents10) Plant – big road win to start the year11) Creekside – win over Oak Hall gets them real respect real early12) Jesuit of Tampa – let’s see if the LHP loss was one of those days13) American Heritage-Plantation – next week we really see after the solid road wins early14) Oak Hall – hammered Maclay after the Creekside loss15) Bishop Moore – can get right back into the Top 10 by winning this week and the last 3 games are poll-influencing16) Canterbury School – close call to a Fort Myers squad17) Newsome – early wins over Sickles and Steinbrenner, with Plant and Jesuit still to come18) Belen Jesuit – easy schedule to start but Saturday it isn’t19) Lake Mary – rebounded with a nice win over Lake Brantley20) Riverview-Sarasota – also handled Sickles and not a terrible score versus CM21) Melbourne Central Catholic – Merritt Island win was impressive22) Western – solid start to the year, Jupiter the only blemish23) St. Edward’s – plenty of games to make a statement24) First Academy – taking care of business but barely got by Windermere Prep25t) Providence School – nice start with wins over Gulf Breeze and St. Augustine but the schedule pretty much caps them25t) Out-of-Door Academy – tomorrow night tells me if I am jumping the gun here Also Considered:Fleming Island, Lake Brantley, Oviedo, Boca Raton, Stoneman Douglas, Gulliver Prep, King’s Academy, Gulf Coast, Steinbrenner, Montverde Academy, Martin County, Bolles Remember:#TAFTAG – Take A Friend To A Game!#LacrossePutMyButtInThisSeat#LayOffTheRefs!