Varsity Report | Lake Mary, LHP in lacrosse state finals; storm hits FHSAA beach volleyball
Centra Florida’s leading lacrosse programs — Lake Mary’s boys and Lake Highland Prep’s girls — will play Saturday lacrosse state championship games in Naples.
Defending state champ Lake Mary survived a frenzied final three minutes to defeat St. Thomas Aquinas 11-10 in a Class 2A semifinal on Thursday night. The Rams (23-1) will face Tampa Plant (19-3) in their 7:30 p.m. FHSAA final at the Paradise Coast Sports Complex.
LHP rolled to a 16-4 win against St. Stephens Episcopal (18-2) of Bradenton in a 1A semifinal on Friday to set up a noon showdown with American Heritage-Delray (21-1), the No. 1 seed. The Stallions overpowered Episcopal of Jacksonville, 17-3.
Lake Mary led 6-1 early and 11-7 with about three minutes remaining before Aquinas rallied.
“It was the most bizarre three minutes I can remember,” Rams coach Gary Robinson said. “Everything that could go wrong for us, did go wrong, with shots and calls not going our way. It was extremely stressful with everything on the line. I didn’t sleep too well after that.”
Caden Harshbarger, Luke Shale and Myles Guthrie each scored 2 goals in the win.
Plant ousted Winter Park (13-7) with a 7-2 semifinal win.
Lake Highland is in a girls final for the fifth time, and fourth in a row. The Highlanders played a near-perfect game Friday.
“We opened the game really strong and then turned it up in the third and fourth quarters,” LHP coach Chris Robinson said. “We played as a team and unselfishly.”
LHP beat American Heritage for the crown in 2022 and was runner-up to the Stallions in 2018, 2021 and 2023. This year the Highlanders have three more pieces to counter Heritage.
Junior standout Savannah Love transferred from Lake Mary. Leading scorer Sofia Grace Mazareigos played for Lake Highland as a freshman, then moved south for family reasons and played for Aquinas before returning to LHP as a senior. Junior Ayla Moffitt, second on the team in draws won, transferred from Celebration.
Beach volleyball
Hagerty’s girls beach volleyball team had to wait out stormy weather in Tallahassee before scoring a 3-0 victory against Punta Gorda Charlotte (13-4) in the first round of the state tournament at FSU.
Lightning and heavy winds knocked down power lines, traffic lights and trees in the morning.
“The campus looked like a disaster zone,” Hagerty coach Juanita Hitt said after her team’s victory. “We were in our hotel room when the storm went right by us. The power has been off since 7 a.m.”
Quarterfinal matches were moved from Friday to Saturday morning and a revised schedule posted by the FHSAA late Friday afternoon indicated that semifinals will be played at 11 a.m. Sunday, leading to a 2:30 p.m. state final. The tournament was originally scheduled to conclude Saturday afternoon.
Hagerty (16-1), the No. 8 seed, is set to play its quarterfinal at 11 a.m.
“It looks like the [Saturday] weather is going to be good,” Hitt said.
The Montverde Academy (18-3) was knocked out by Berkeley Prep (17-0) of Tampa in a Friday night game.
Varsity content editor Buddy Collings can be reached by email at bcollings@orlandosentinel.com.
