The Final Four is set. If the Elite Eight is any indication of what's to come than this is going to be pretty exciting! Catch the full Elite 8 recap below.
Cast your Final Four votes at SidelineSwap.com/contests. Final Four voting will be open until midnight Thursday, April 18 (EST).
The Elite Eight began Monday and ended Tuesday at Midnight. By 11pm Tuesday night, it was clear that University of Central Florida, UCLA, and Chapman University would advance to the Final Four. The last match-up, the Dallas Select versus Niagara University on the other hand, was coming down to the wire.
Around 11:20pm SidelineSwap posted a picture on the Twitter and Instagram of the vote count. At the time the vote was 520 to 492 in favor of Niagara University. Both teams had already reached record vote totals, but they weren't done yet.
It's unclear whether it was the Dallas Select strategy all along or if it was a genuine last minute push, but within minutes of that post Dallas Select started to close the voting gap. By 11:40, they had pulled ahead.
Niagara University, 12-0 on the field this season in the NCLL, wasn't ready to go down without a fight. Both teams continued to rally support on Twitter and Facebook. Over 300 votes poured in during the final forty minutes. Each refresh of the page showed the vote counts jumping higher and higher, with one team pulling ahead then the other closing the gap.
When the dust settled, Dallas Select had pulled it off. The final score was 699 to 664. Dallas Select, who wear StickStar apparel and Zima Gear helmet wraps, is the only non-MCLA team advancing to the Final Four. They clearly plan to build off their momentum going into the next round. They are already off to an early lead today against overall #1 seed UCLA.
We talked to Anthony Crimmins who runs the Dallas based youth program which is part of his company, StickStar Lacrosse about how they pulled off the come from behind win. We "just literally got the vote out. We have a loyal following and they just got after it. Couldn't believe it!"
Congratulations to all the teams for making it this far.
Make sure you visit SidelineSwap.com/contests to cast votes for your favorite teams in the Final Four.
There's only two rounds left before we name the National Champion of Gear!
Three of the four teams will win prizes from the contest sponsors: Streaker Sports, UniformSwag, and Mass Mesh. Be sure to check out their company stores on SidelineSwap.com.