Florida Gulf Coast pulls scholarship offer to Land O’ Lakes’ Garcia

Posted Jan 27, 2012 by Mike Camunas

Updated Jan 28, 2012 at 12:19 AM

LAND O’ LAKES— It hasn’t been a very good week for Land O’ Lakes senior forward Andy Garcia.

First, it didn’t help that Sunlake stunned his Gators 3-2 to take the Class 3A-District 7 championship on Friday night, snapping Land O’ Lakes’ seven-consecutive-title streak. To add to that, earlier in the week, Florida Gulf Coast University informed Garcia that it did not have a scholarship available for him after he verbally committed to the Eagles even before the season started.

Coach Mark Pearson told the Tampa Tribune that FCGU told Garcia he could still enroll and play for the team, though could not give him scholarship monies until his second year.

“It’s a real bad deal,” Pearson said. “However, within a day of that word getting out, he already had other offers on the table.”

Garcia, who is second on the Gators with 22 goals and 50 points, now has offers from Saint Leo, University of Tampa and North Florida, which watched Friday night’s district championship game.

“Andy will be fine, I’m sure, but it’s not something you want to hear just a week before signing day (Feb. 1),” Pearson added.

Garcia and the Gators, as district runners up, now travel to 3A-8 district champ Fivay, which picked up its first district title in program’s second season, for Tuesday’s 3A-2 region quarterfinals.

Correspondent Mike Camunas can be reached at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or follow him on Twitter @MikeCamunasTrib.

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