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If I were to rank the top teams

1) Springfield
2) Radnor
3) Haverford
4)ANC
5) Malvern

If I were to rank the top cheesesteaks :
1) Pat's
2) Jim's
3) Dalessandro's
4) John's
5) Your Mom's

Curious to hear people's thoughts on the PIAA State Championship games being held in Penn State, when it has been played at West Chester in the past. While the experience in playing at Penn State is cool, the likely reality is that two District 1 teams, or at least eastern Pennsylvania teams, will make it to the finals in each of the 2A and 3A divisions, which makes the West Chester location more reasonable than a 3 hour drive each way to Penn State. Does anyone know the reasoning behind the move to Penn State? At West Chester, you'll probably have bigger crowds from those not affiliated with the teams.

Pats clear cut number one. But Gino going to be offended he ain’t on your list.

1 Haverford, 2 Malvern, 3 Episcopal, 4 tie Springfield and Radnor, 6 ANC

I think Salesianum is better then Malvern but they are not a Pennsylvania team.

So why is Coach Bates leaving EA. Whats the story there?

Close 1 Haverford, 2 Malvern, 3 Radnor 4 Episcopal 5 Springfield 6 ANC

wasn't his choice..go back a few posts

(Bates let go last Monday. EA played the InterAc Semi’s v Malvern without him on Wednesday. Surprised nothing from Phillylacrosse or Chandik about his firing.)

Daddy coaches got hammered at north american lacrosse today and ended 13th.This program has no steak and all sizzle. NXT will beat them. Go to NXT Mesa or HHH fast as they have kids play in college. Not one from here.

You are an angry little man.
- "NXT will beat them." - Maybe someday, but when they played them in the spring they lost 13-3. NXT has a lot of great players and there is nothing negative to say about the program. NXT should never be taken for granted.
- Mesa - Which is daddy coached by the way has lost to Team Ten the last few times they played. They are always close games and Mesa is a great club. Any time those teams step on the field together, it will be a great game and could go either way. If a kid gets to play for Mesa or Team TEN, they are lucky and likely a very good lacrosse player. This is a great rivalry and I think both teams have a great deal of respect and friendship with the others.
- HHH - has some great boys, but they are struggling. They are 0-13 for the year.

You missed Freedom which is also a very respectable club, with kids playing in college. Team 11 is also a nice program with some strong players.

However, you may have a point that Team TEN has no kids playing in college. I don't understand how that can be given there oldest class is the 2025 which are rising juniors in high school. We should probably read a lot into the fact that they have not had any kids make it onto college teams. We probably should check back on this in the fall and see how they do.

Your son has value and you should not let the fact that he does not play for Team TEN detract from that. He deserves better. Love him and enjoy watching him play where he is. It's just a game. Please get some help.

Nice post. I appreciate the fact that you clearly made an effort to not directly bash any specific teams (and by doing so indirectly bash 13 and 14 year old middle schooler). The previous poster was clearly looking to start some [Censored] (and clearly team ten isn't the team he was hoping to start it with as they are the proven best team in Philly in this age group over the last two years with Mesa being the 1.a ).

It would be great it we could talk about the strengths of each team to build a positive community instead of the [Censored] talk. Our youth deserver better.

Class act post. Preaching goodness then putting down Mesa.About right. At least Mesa makes the championship game or the playoff brackets. And has real coaches. One team is headed up and the other is nosediving.

To be clear, I intended to say Team TEN and Mesa are the top two teams in Philadelphia in the 2027 age group. I'm currently giving Team TEN the higher spot because they have won the head to heads. ALWAYS a great game when these two powerhouses take the field against each other.

To be honest, I don't think i've ever heard anybody say anything negative about the Mesa '27 team. I certainly do not want to be viewed as the first negative.

For my own learning, I'd like to know what I inadvertently insinuated about Mesa referring to them as 1.a. Clearly it offended you. I want to make sure that doesn't happen again.

Dads should stop coaching their sons once they get to High School. Period.

8th grade club teams are a joke. I assure you 90% of the great players in 8th grade get passed up in the next 3 years.

Mesa nationals…the fleecing of lax parents continues. $2500 for 2 tournaments, a few practices and more unnecessary gear.

Between this and all the B level lacrosse where kids can’t even throw and catch. The $$ are corrupting this sport, but that’s every sport I guess.

I agree with Mark!

If you were in the circle, you would know that Marty is great with the young men and has influence over the things that matter. Healthy culture for starters.

Thanks for your insight....

Mesa’s younger teams are terrible though? How do they fix that? Saw their 29-32s and it ain’t pretty…

Relax, they are 9 -12 years old.

Congrats to Marple on their championship season.

Red Hots are the premier 2027 PA team. No other 2027 PA team in top ten in the ranks. Or in the top 15. Red Hots are #4 in the country. Any questions?

Yawn….

Red hots have 5 different team name variations at the 27 level. Red hot national, AA, white.. kinda seems like they choose their name based off of who shows up for ran tournament.

I’m relaxed, trust me. My son plays for a good team so I’m not concerned at all; just disconcerting to see programs succeed at upper ages yet flounder with youth. Once the older kids graduate, program is screwed.
Maybe coaches at Mesa should relax less

You go to a private school because it gives you status. One of the worst things about lax is that is horribly elitist and no matter how good a player is if they are not coming from one of “elite private schools” known for lacrosse around the country they can’t even get college coaches to look at them. This was not the case even 10 years ago. The worst college lacrosse team at any level has a roster comprised of a majority of private school kids. There are so many fantastic athletes out there who would make this game better if they were only given an opportunity, however due to the biases and wealth tied to this sport it will never happen. How many Kelce brothers (NFL players, Jason & Travis) are out there, both multi-sport public school graduates… that will never be given a chance?

Mesa is a solid program across the board. Not sure what your point is here.

Ok buddy, I guess every level of the program your son plays for is the top in the bracket. First kid thinking

I heard a story about Bates at EA today. My brother in law son plays there and he told me the boys smashed a stop sign after their loss to Haverford in end of regular season. the high school dean of students filmed the entire thing from his car. The players were all going to get kicked off the team as a result and then Bates and the AD (not sure if it is still gina Buggy??) got into it from there. Apparently there was some bad blood btw the 2 that had built up.

this is all word of mouth - not sure of any real validity.

The stop sign getting smashed is true, but the kids were not going to get thrown out. I think the best way to explain Bates' departure is the school has a different mission statement and expectations for the students then the lacrosse coach. EA focus is not sports (i.e.-Malvern, Haverford) and they do not play the entitlement game with their students. Bates is an outstanding coach and is probably better off moving on from the EA program.

I feel like it's fairly common for the the lacrosse team to be the red-headed step child at the school that the administrators don't want around.

AD is Todd Fairle, football coach. Class act firing a legend during an argument. Really crossed his T’s and dotted his I’s. SMH

We all know it was more then firing him during a heated argument. It's not fair to create that context when it is a false narrative. If I was going to put the blame on anyone, it would actually be the players.

"We all know it was more then firing him during a heated argument."

I think the point is that no one knows the "more" you are referring to. EA has not released any official statement. All I hear are rumors.

Can you share details?

I'd love to hear more information on this Stop Sign getting smashed. Anybody have the video? How did they smash the sign? Did someone have a sledge hammer or something? We need to know the details. Give 'em up!

The sign was not smashed. The stop sign is in the direct path the players take to and from the field. For years the players have reached up and hit the sign like many collegiate players hit signs when leaving a locker room. This particular day, for whatever reason the sign fell off of its post. Someone was videoing. The AD wanted Bates to suspend the players and he refused which led to Bates getting fired.

I'm sorry but that cant be right. all they did was hit a metal sign?

Episc. has fired 3 other varsity high school head coachs since this new hot shot AD took over (mens soccer, mens bball + field hockey)

anyone sadistic enough to take over for Bates?

Bates was told (and so were the players) to stop hitting the sign because they kept destroying it. It posed a safety and liability issue. EA replaced it with a more stable and better sign. Upon hearing that they should not destroy the sign, the students destroyed it and Bates tried to defend the boys from being suspended. The players who did this are known as spoiled and entitled kids and Bates did not act to curb their attitudes. In fact, he kept bailing them out. Malvern may be considered a sports centric school but they would never put up with this type of behavior as it goes against the very nature of the Augustinian beliefs they teach the young men. EA did the right thing by getting rid of Bates and should have expelled the students.