District Lineup Changes Announced At Coaches Meeting

The lacrosse district coaches meeting held at J. W. Mitchell High School today saw many changes to the area districts in terms of lots of added teams and a few teams moved.

Hillsborough County Director of Athletics Lanness Robinson announced the changes to a room full of boys and girls lacrosse coaches from all parts of Tampa.

The biggest changes occurred in District 15, with the removal of Alonso, Freedom, and Wharton. However, added to that district are former club teams Wiregrass, Wesley Chapel, Mitchell, and Sunlake. Alonso was moved into District 16 while Freedom and Wharton were moved into District 14.

John Kuebrich, coach at Steinbrenner High School was excited for the changes. “This is great not only for the sport, but for the schools that are thinking about starting up” he said. “Scott Moore at Mitchell is a perfect example of how grassroots work makes results. Great younger kids will feed that high school and they’ll be a force very soon.”

Kurbrich continued, “Schools just need to put a little work in. It gives kids at schools options. Kids that aren’t football players.”

Also discussed at the meeting were details surrounding the transition from HALAX to the Hillsborough County School Board for the teams formerly under the HALAX umbrella. These public school teams will remain ‘pay-to-play’ with each athlete required to pay approximately $220 to cover 13 games. Schools are permitted to schedule an additional 5 games, but the costs associated with any additional games over the 13 would have to be covered by the school. With regard to district standings, only the initial district matchups will count towards end of the season standings.

Finally, host schools were announced for district playoff games. Berkeley Prep will host boys and Plant will host girls. Those games are scheduled for the week of April 16th.

*Academy of Holy Names replaces Jesuit for girls