The University of Tampa lacrosse team won its exhibition game against Florida State University’s club team on Saturday, Oct. 14 by the score of 8-6.
Sophomore Mike Tyrrell scored the first goal for UT, while freshman M.J. Lorenzo had two goals. Additional goals came from sophomore Ryan Becker and juniors A.J. DeSimone, Kyle Hemrick, James McAuliffe and Jimmy Walsh.
A.J. Drivas scored a hattrick for FSU. In addition, goals were scored by Luke Donovan, Taylor Roop and Alex Viola.
Since this was the first game for the Spartans, albeit an exhibition, it was a pivotal win. Last season, the Seminoles were ranked in the top 10 club teams and had a record of 20- 2.“It gave the team a lot of confidence. It proved that we can compete at a high level even though we are a new team,” Head Coach Rory Whipple explained.
Senior Frank Lorono added, “It was the first test to see how well the team pulled together. Clearly, we did well, but we also saw what we have to improve on during practice.”
Since it is the team’s inaugural season, Whipple had a lot of work to do when building a squad. However, he was the perfect person to bring in to start the program here, as he has done so at other schools including both Bryant University and UT rival Florida Southern College. While at Bryant, he produced a 75-39 record in seven seasons. His teams were nationally ranked in Division II every season he was there, and 15 of his players earned All-America honors.
Whipple is the all-time winningest coach in NCAA Division II. In the 28 seasons of coaching collegiate lacrosse, he as a record of 228-174.
Although UT did not have a team prior to this year, recruiting athletes was not a challenge. “We went after a lot of transfer students from junior colleges and other four year colleges. Then we had a lot of freshmen interested.”
When tryouts began, there were 80 hopeful players. After the first cut, 60 remained. There will be one more cut before the season officially begins, so that the team will have around 50 players on the final roster.
When the season does get underway, UT will be part of the Deep South Conference rather than the Sunshine State Conference (the conference in which most other UT sports belong).
Since there are only five lacrosse teams in the SSC, it made sense to join the DSC. This ensures that the Spartans will have an additional four games in the regular season.
The four Florida schools in the DSC (Florida Southern College, Rollins College, Saint Leo University and UT) compete against each other to make it to the finals against the best of the North Carolina schools in the DSC (Catawba College, Mars Hill College, Wingate University and Lenoir-Rhyne University).
Whipple believes that the addition of lacrosse will do great things for UT as a whole.
While being introduced as the head coach of the program during a press conference on Feb. 18, he said, “It is an exciting sport. It is a spectator sport, and students can rally behind and get involved and show up and root our team on.”
Lacrosse is a sport that Larry Marfise, athletic director, is also eager to add. “We have been talking about adding sports since I came to Tampa,” Marfise said at the same press conference. “Lacrosse has always been on the forefront as one of the sports we’ve wanted to add.”
The season opener will be held on Feb. 10 at Pepin Stadium at 7 p.m. against Florida Southern.
The Moccasins have been a long time UT rival, and there is added competition to this game. Whipple left FSC in order to start the program at UT. Last season, the Mocs were the DSC runners-up.
“It’s going to be an exciting night. It’s our first game. We hope there’s going to be a lot of fans there to support us,” Lorono said.
Analisa Trstensky can be reached at atrstensky@spartans.ut.edu.