The Florida lacrosse team continued making history earlier this week when they received there first ever NCAA tournament bid.

The Gators, who are the fourth seed will host No. 13 Stanford this coming Saturday at 1 pm.

This is the second season for the Gators since the program has opened up, they finished with an overall record of 15-3 and went undefeated in ALC (American Lacrosse Conference) play and climbed all the way to No. 2 in the IWLCA standings which made Florida the highest ranking ever for a second year program which is awesome. The lacrosse program is really starting to build up.

Along with Florida, Boston College and Albany have been chosen for NCAA bids for the first time ever.

Florida Gator freshman golfer Isabelle Lendl was named to the 2009-2010 National Golf Coaches Association All-American Scholar Team earlier this week by the National Golf Coaches Association. The ruling for being eligible for this honor is that the athlete must have a GPA of 3.50 or higher and also she must compete in at least the 50 percent range of the college’s regularly scheduled competitive rounds throughout the season, according to Gatorzone.

Finishing up her first year a Florida, Lendl finished up with an outstanding GPA of 3.67. She also finished up making the All-SEC second team and as also part of the SEC All-Freshman squad. The best moment of Lendl’s year was when she competed for the individual title at the Central District Invitational and came out with a victory which helped her become the honor of SEC Golfer of the Week. Lendl led right behind first on the team with an average stroke of 74.9.

This special honor given to Lendl makes her the 10th in Gator history to do so. She was also one out of the 494 women golfers that were added to the 2009-2010 NGCA All-American Scholar Team list.

Below are the 10 UF Women golfers that were chosen to be apart of the NGCA All-American Scholar list gathered by Gatorzone.

• Isabelle Lendl (2009-2010)

• Sandra Gal (2004-2005, 2005-2006, 2006-2007)

• Mallory Blackwelder (2005-2006)

• Ornella Jouven (2005-2006)

• Camila Gonzalez (2002-2003, 2004-2005)

• Aimee Cho (2002-2003)

• Jeanne Cho (2000-2001, 2001-2002, 2002-2003)

• Whitney Code (2001-2002)

• Lauren Shniderman (1998-1999)

• Riko Higashio (1997-1998)

Photo credit also goes to Gatorzone.com

Congratulations to the University of Florida Athletic program and Athletic Director Jeremy Foley. Not for the football team’s recent accomplishments, nor for the basketball team’s not-so –recent success. And, even though the baseball team ended an improbable run at a College World Series Title against FSU just last week, this congratulations belongs to no one sport at the University of Florida. It belongs to all of them, collectively.

When the standings are made official after the College World Series is all wrapped up, the University of Florida will place second to Stanford for the 2009-2010 Learfield Sports Directors’ Cup. The Directors’ Cup is awarded to the college with the most outstanding sports program as a whole.

The Gators (1,237.25 points) will finish a distant second to Stanford (1,508.5 points), the winner of sixteen consecutive awards and counting. The second place finish will tie a Florida Program high finish. They also finished second after the 1997-98 school year.

According to a release by the University, “[Florida] is the only program to finish among the nation’s top 10 in each of the last27 national all-sports standings” Also, the second place finish will be the first time the school has finished in the top three in consecutive seasons.

The Florida lacrosse squad took over an 14-3 upset against No. 20 Johns Hopkins in a school tying record of 6 goals on Thursday.

The Gators are seeded sixth and will go up against No. 10 Vanderbilt (11-4) this evening at 5:30 pm in the semifinals. Then the winner will be playing on Saturday for the championship against either No. 2 Northwestern or Penn State.

Thursday’s win was the 10th for the Gators which is just the sixth team in division I women’s lacrosse to win 10 games in a single season. This young Gator team is having a very successful season. I wonder if anybody actually pictured this?

Couresy of Gatorzone.

In front of 2,114 fans at the the Donald R. Dizney Stadium in Gainesville, the Florida Gator lacrosse team had their first game ever. The Gators faced Jacksonville University on Saturday and defeated the Dolphins by a score of 16-6.

The freshman, Ashley Bruns, out of Ellicott City, Maryland led the Gators to a victory with four goals and four assists. Other notable Gators were Colby Rhea, Julie Schindel. Rhea and Schindel both scored three goals in the game. Sam Farrell scored the first goal in the Gator lacrosse team’s history to take the first lead of the game, 1-0. Although, the Dolphins tied up the score as Megan Lusby got the ball past the Gator defense and into the net. Within another minuet after the JU score, Rhea knocked one into the net to give the lead back to the Gators.

Schindel and Bruns used the all valuable teamwork method the give the Gators a 3 score lead. Jacksonville attempted a comeback as Hurley and Spangenberg scored two points to lessen the Dolphin deficit to three points. Although, Hillier, Chesterman, and Dashiell each put a point on the board to lift the Gators to a 11-4 going into halftime. The Gators made a two-goal run but before JU got too far behind, Abigail Warnken scored a goal for the Dolphins. The Gators responded by increasing the lead to 15-5, then to 16-5 by Schindel to end the game.

Bruns spoke to Gatorzone.com and said, “We’ve been waiting two years for this game. It was a huge win, but we still just have to take it one game at a time. It’s still going to be a lot of work.” Coach O’Leary spoke to the media saying, “We needed to get the first game under our belts. There was a lot of hype leading up to this game. I’d like to say it’s going to get easier, but I don’t think it will because of the competition.”

The next Gator lacrosse game will be played at La Salle on Tuesday. They face the number 4 ranked North Carolina in Chapel Hill on Sunday.

(Information collected from Gatorzone.com)
By: Justin Rectenwald