[quote=Anonymous]Realistic view of this age group: Smash and TLI are a lot closer than smash would lite to think. Igloo is next. Then united. Then express. Although United and express have closed the gap a lot with igloo. Wouldn't be surprised if they beat them this summer. Also the gap has closed on smash's dominance too. This age group could be in for an exciting summer. The rest of the teams-hdd, legacy, outlaws are no where near these top teams.
I agree. It's not a knock on TLI. In fact, I think their age based rather than grade based approach may be best given all the cheesy grade holding back that goes. But if we are looking at it from a grade perspective and TLI has 5th graders on the team then they should not be in the discussion with teams that have only 4th graders.
Since TLI has some 5th graders on it I'm not sure it really qualifies for this age group and no one ever gets to see them play in any of the tournaments that the rest of the group plays in. United beat them at Hershey last year so not sure they are #2
United has a fifth grader also so I guess they should be removed from the conversation.
Is this conversation based on the grade or the age of the players? If United is now considered a U11 team, not a U10 team since US Lacrosse does not currently break it down by single years, then having a 5th grader on the team is fair game if they were born on or after 9/1/2002... And that's the problem with the current format of two year blocks. US Lacrosse needs to get their act together and follow in the footsteps of travel soccer by having each age group representing separately, U9, U10, U11, etc... and each player has a photo ID that is presented to the officials before each game... This would end this whole debate and the playing fields would be level for all involved.
