The Celebration Storm has been playing girls lacrosse for seven years now, with the boys program entering into its sixth. For the first time, the Storm now has an Osceola County opponent to take the field against… the Tohopekaliga Tigers.
Tohopekaliga is fielding boys and girls teams, coached by Rob Weilert and Courtney Ausherman. They clashed this week, with Celebration winning the girls game Wednesday, 26-0, and boys game Thursday, 17-3.
The trivia answer is that Vincent Lam scored the first goal in program history.
“Lots of positives though,” Weilert said. “One of the referees said he’s interested to see how we evolve. We’ve gotten better each practice. We have soccer guys out, we have other athletes out, but I think we’ve got a couple of bona-fide lacrosse players. I’m still learning their names, They probably needed to get on the field to see what doesn’t work.”
This time last month, Weilert was Poinciana’s athletic director, but took a position at Toho to get back in coaching; along with lacrosse he’ll be the Tigers’ girls weightlifting coach. He formed a bona-fide girls lifting program at Liberty before heading over to Poinciana; he led the Chargers to second place in the Orange Belt Conference behind powerhouse St. Cloud.
Celebration’s girls, on a string of four district championships, racked up a 17-7 win Thursday over Winter Springs.They’ll host Lake Wales and Winter Haven on Tuesday and Wednesday.
BASEBALL: GATEWAY OFF TO 2-0 START DESPITE JUST 4 RUNS. The Panthers, who fielded only a JV team last year, is back to varsity play and has won its first two games of the season, which began this week.
GHS defeated Celebration, 2-0, on Tuesday, then held off Liberty, 2-1, despite just four hits. Runners swiped eight bases and Ezekiel Baez struck out 10 over 6 2/3 innings …
… On Wednesday, Osceola trailed Cypress Creek 2-0 going into the bottom of the seventh but rallied for a 3-2 comeback win to open its season …
Other Thursday scores … Celebration 8, Wekiva 4; Kennesaw (Ga.) at Tohopekaliga, not reported.
Softball: Osceola 15, Tohopekaliga 0; St. Cloud 13, Okeechobee 5; Cornerstone Charter 3, Harmony 2 (9 inn); Liberty 18, Poinciana 0; Celebration at Gateway not reported.
FRIDAY SCHEDULE: There wasn’t one. No games were scheduled, likely due to the Rodeo Day holiday.
