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Games Score Success

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By CHRIS ERRINGTON, Tribune correspondent

Published: January 7, 2008

Updated: 01/06/2008 09:22 pm

WESLEY CHAPEL - Teams from across the United States and Canada already had long left the Wesley Chapel District Park, yet there was Josh Gross, sales and public relations manager for NDP Lacrosse, which ran this past weekend's Dick's Sporting Goods Tournament of Champions.

Gross was removing temporary fencing, gathering tournament materials and organizing it all into bundles for easy transport; this after two exhaustive days of monitoring North America's best high school-level lacrosse action. And through it all, he couldn't keep from smiling.

After the tournament's two most successful days and plans for it to grow in size and scope, who could blame him? He's hoping Pasco County feels the same.

"This is our flagship event and I think this was a great success," Gross said after Sunday's finals. "We're so happy with the treatment from the Wesley Chapel Athletic Association to Pasco County. The people down here with the event have made our lives so much easier because they understand what we do.

"We want this to be the tournament's permanent home, period."

Pasco Provides Solution

A year ago, Gettysburg (Pa.) College was the host site for the inaugural tournament, but officials had several problems with its location and start date. Because many of the qualifying tournaments finished just before the start of the national tournament, teams from as far away as British Columbia and Canada had little time to raise the money needed make their travel plans. Event officials decided to move the national tournament's start date to early January, but that made playing in Pennsylvania difficult at best.

The solution was to move the site to Pasco County. It's one that none involved have regretted.

"I talked with a bunch of teams and they all said the organization was great and they enjoyed coming here," Tampa Tribe coach Tom FitzSimons said. "The site is unbelievable and there's definitely more room for growth here, not just for teams, but the number of fields.

"We hope to just keep this tournament growing and growing. We definitely want to keep it here for many years to come."

Gross agreed.

"In a lot of ways, this was the best lacrosse fans have seen at this age level," he said. "Lots of players have Division I and maybe professional futures and I think the fans appreciated watching play at that level.

"We likely will make this a three-day event in January of '09. I can't imagine the event not being here next year."

Numbers May Be 'Staggering'

The next major step in permanently bringing the tournament to Pasco County comes in a few weeks, Gross said. The county's sports commission will meet to discuss the financial benefits for the area, especially from hotel and restaurant receipts. Gross said NDP will begin compiling those numbers soon. He expects them to be "staggering."

Sunday, New Westminster (British Columbia) topped Headstrong (Pa.) 7-4 to claim the Elite Division's team title, the second consecutive time a Canadian team was crowned champion. Edge Senior Elite (Ontario) won last year's final. New to the tournament this year was the Rising Stars Division, designed for players under 17 years old. Four teams were represented, including the Tampa Tribe, which lost to Team Illinois West in the finals, but Gross said that's just one more area in which he expects growth next year.

"We definitely want to have more than four teams for next year, because it's such a great way to sell teams on the tournament," Gross said. "Now they can come here knowing they can bring more than one team and get even more experience for their players at such a high level."

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