#16 Mocs Fall in SSC Championship Game to #3 Rollins

WINTER PARK, Fla. – Playing in the Sunshine State Conference Championship game for the second-straight season, the 16^th-ranked Florida Southern men's lacrosse team fell Sunday afternoon 13-7 to the top-seeded and No. 3 Tars of Rollins College in Winter Park. The Tars used an explosive second quarter to build a lead they would never relinquish as Rollins College captured the 2023 SSC Championship, the first non-Tampa champion in the history of the league.
 
The loss drops Florida Southern's record to 13-5 overall while Rollins improves to 15-1.
 
The Moccasins were led by a quartet of players who were named to the SSC All-Tournament team following the event including junior goalkeeper Michael Simone, senior attacker Sean Nolan, senior defenseman Nick Shannon and senior midfielder Lucas Sommers.
 
Graduate student Andrew Medeiros led the way offensively Sunday as he scored a team-high tying two goals while dishing out two assists to finish with four points. Sophomore Matt Flammenspeck also chipped in two goals to share the lead. Sommers, Nolan and graduate student Jay Minor all added goals as well.
 
Simone was impressive in goal for the Mocs as he made a game-high 15 saves while facing 28 shots on goal. The loss drops Simone's record to 11-3 on the season. Shannon was a force defensively in front of Simone as he forced five caused turnover to lead all players in the contest while scooping up four ground balls.
 
Freshman Jacob Czyz faced the Tars for the first time after missing the regular season meeting. The rookie was 10-of-21 (.476) at the X with a team-best six ground balls.
 
The Tars and Mocs played a tight first 15 minutes as Rollins held a 3-2 lead after the opening quarter. Rollins led 2-0 going into the final minute of the quarter before a flurry of goals lit up the scoreboard. Minor opened the scoring at the 53-second mark as he found the back of the net off a Brendan Glasser assist. The Tars responded 26 seconds later before Medeiros finished an assist from Nolan with one second left on the clock.
 
The two teams traded goals over the opening five minutes of the second quarter but a 5-0 run by the Tars to close out the half gave Rollins a 9-3 lead heading into the break. The Tars lead stretched to 10-3 just four minutes into the third quarter before the Mocs stopped the streak with a Flammenspeck goal off an assist from freshman Nolan Tighe. Flammenspeck would find the back of the net again just three minutes later off a feed from Medeiros to cut the deficit to five.
 
Trailing heading into the fourth, Nolan broke through just over a minute into the fourth but the sticks went cold as neither team scored for the next eight-plus minutes until Rollins scored their first goal of the period at the 4:38 mark. Rollins would quickly add a second just over a minute later before Sommers collected the face off won by Czyz and raced down the field for his first tally of the game. Rollins added one more insurance goal down the stretch for the final score of 13-7.  
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