US Lacrosse Community Forum Forums MID-ATLANTIC LACROSSE MARYLAND FORUM Boys 2028 Grads - Mid Atlantic Region

Nailed it 1000% re Crabs (less so Hawks IMO, in this age group they've been good for years). I have an older son and the dynamic was identical--Crabs were botttom/middle of the pack in Hoco until 7th grade, then 8th grade there's a dramatic jump. I'm sure it's all due to development/coaching as well as nearly every single player hitting puberty and gaining 50 lbs and growing 6-12 inches at exactly the same time, right?

And like the other posters, not knocking it, it's allowed, and TBH I'm sure there's some reclasses on my son's team, but no other program (not just the 2028 team, but the entire program) works the process like Crabs do. Just own it.

I wasn't going to post but heck with it, these posters are so myopic in their thinking that they are not looking at the totality of factors; instead they want to maintain their victimization as if the larger community cares. The clubs don't care, middle and high school sports don't care, colleges and college coaches don't care. There are lots of factors that make some of these clubs just plain better so I'm going to break it down to you like a small child and hold your hand:
1. The best kids (and over zealous parents) gravitate to the best teams with the best reputations. It happens in all sports.
2. The push to join these clubs really begins in earnest going into 8th grade as kids and parents try to jockey for positions going into high school because wearing a Crabs, FCA, Hawks helmet gives them a perceived advantage and a "known kid" factor prior to trying out for varsity.
3. These programs likely practice more than the other teams and offer additional higher-level training opportunities and coaching that other teams do not. Which in turn drives kids to those top teams.
4. Steel sharpens steel so getting better and elevating the kid's lacrosse IQ, foundational skills and playing at a faster level/game speed again (which is critical considering how fast MIAA games are played), another key driver. I know parents at a lot of different clubs in the area and there is a wide disparity of practice drills and practice tempos amongst the different club teams.
5. Playing in better, more recognized national venues becomes really important as they are about to enter high school, again another driver bringing players to these clubs in 8th grade and beyond.
6. Lumping every kid that is playing at a high level on those teams as a double holdback or single year holdback, pre-first, etc. isn't always a factor. If a kid missed your age cut-offs by a few months I hardly believe those few months were such a game-changer; especially if kids grow and haven't necessary grown into their legs or size. There are also psychological factors that are not necessarily coachable like aggression, confidence, grit and other EI indicators of success.
7. If the kid is 15 and playing on a 28 or 29 team, I agree 100%, there are issues; now that kid has potentially 2 years of growth, development and additional lacrosse exposure.
8. All of this is a mute point in middle and high school when these kids have to try-out and play against older kids so again, an issue within the club programs and again another reason why kids and parents could gravitate to the other teams in 8th grade and beyond.
9. Specific to Crabs, they didn't start promoting younger teams until around the 2027 grad year; prior to that it was primarily started with kids going into 8th grade and preparing to play high school. Undoubtedly a money making decision and possibly to start building teams to be competitive earlier since everyone else was doing it, it eventually resolves back to Game Theory.
10. Same theory applies here to the whole holdback pre-first, PG issue, you don't do it so you find yourself at a disadvantage then you complain about it and stew on your victimization mindset to justify things. Most teams, if not all the "elite (I say this only as a general reference)" competitive teams, have them so now it goes back to previous bullets of the better holdbacks going to the better teams for all the reasons (and more that I didn't list) listed above.
11. Lastly, the club programs in MD/DC/VA have exploded over the years so the area suffers from dilution which is why the area can't seem to organize a truly MD-centric national team. Kids and parents want more playing time so a few join those teams which has a trickle down affect on more established and successful programs at the 7th grade and below where high school, MIAA and college recruiting isn't as big a factor.

So I think the old tired excuse of "well if they get rid of their holdbacks they will @ChillLaxin or that's why they @ChillLaxin now" excuse has been put to bed with Elvis and Big Foot but I will sit back and await your creative retorts that amount to nothing more than excuses for mediocrity.

You mean 9 dads, not 2, who took their sons from DCE and 2 more who took their sons to NL. Pretty large sample of the original team given it was only 18/19 overall. Don't feel sorry for us because the boys didn't have a good spring season. Who cares. At least they aren't being coached by a nut, who puts his kid before any other players on the team. It's why the two teams he coached the last decade (2024s and 2028) blew up. He also takes zero input from the parents, doesn't share information and is an embarassment to the sport The latter part of that last sentence reflects more poorly on you (and unfortunately your kids) because of your association. If your son wants to play in college, good luck. Just ask any parent on the older ML teams how helpful he was. They will happily give you an earful.

This is a plausible explanation, at least, and I guess time will tell on this because there are HOCO age restrictions from 2029 down. (Though for future reference I think you mean a "moot" point, not a "mute" point.)

You raise some valid points and thank you for taking the time to actually try to justify your stance. But you missed the point on a few things. First and foremost, I’m not complaining or feeling victimized. I just simply pointed out that these parents should not be boasting here. Once again, I will point to the facts. If you take away the holdbacks or reclasses or whatever you want to call them, they would not dominate like they do. That is undeniable. And I would like for you to respond to that since you seem like a reasonable intelligent person. The conclusion that is always jumped to is that people are saying that teams with known holdbacks would not be any good without them. You sort of said it yourself. I have never seen that written here or on any other forum. Nobody is denying the quality of the on age players. But let’s call a spade a spade. Without the kids who should be 27s or maybe 26s, these teams would not be as good.

Another tactic on this, and other forums, is to jump down the throat of anyone stating the obvious about youth club lacrosse and ask them what team they are associated with. While I do not feel comfortable with that, even though I was not rude or insulting to anyone, I’ll do one better. I’ll give you the demographics of my son’s team. The demographics of my son’s team should help you understand why me, and MANY others who share my opinion, occasionally feel compelled to call out people on public forums who ignore the obvious. This is always perceived as whining or complaining. It’s more of putting an asterisk next to a statement or a ranking or a record in a league or tournament that someone else felt compelled to brag about. I’ll get to the bragging in a little bit. It took 5 minutes on the app we use.

There are 24 players on my son’s 2028 club team.
The average age is 14 years 16 days.
The oldest player is 14 years 9 months.
The youngest (two of them) are 13 years 7 months.
13 kids have turned 14.
11 kids are still 13.
We fall somewhere between 25-50 for us club lacrosse rankings.
We would not beat the hawks
We would not beat the crabs
We would not beat rhino
We would not beat 3D
We would not beat 2way
I mention those teams for obvious reasons.

It’s not because of a lack of work or a lack of training that we would not beat these teams. You literally said “excuses for mediocrity”. I’m stating facts. They couldn’t beat those teams because those teams are just flat out older. If they took off all the reclasses and holdbacks off of those teams, I’m guessing that we could pull off about 3 wins out of every 10 games against those teams. Which is a true compliment to the talent, coaching, and dedication of those on-age players and their families.

Truth be told, my son’s team is not even in the hoco league. So I really have no skin in the game. I’m honestly hoping him playing currently up on jv (far from bragging), and playing against older kids yet again this summer, will make him even better. Time will tell if the “it all evens out” theory is a reality come September of his junior year. It doesn’t matter though because holding back is not financially possible for me, nor do I necessarily think he would want to. And quite frankly I’m hoping for academic money and an athletic scholarship is not something that even crosses my mind. If he is good enough to play in college, whether it be at D1 or a quality college club team, then the years of not making excuses and trying to beat older kids in his youth, will certainly be part of the foundation that created his character, work ethic and lacrosse abilities.

As far as the bragging I eluded to prior, this is where that comes from. A page or so back somebody arrogantly came on here and dismissed a discussion about some other teams and basically said the hawks and the crabs are the only teams that matter. That type of arrogant post without acknowledgment of the pink elephant in the room deserves an asterisk.
And that’s just what I did. I pointed out the obvious.

I blame autotype/autocorrect! lol

Too long. Did not read.

I read it and I appreciate the perspective. It is a moot point, at least in HOCO because they’ve changed the age requirement. We will see how the 2028 holdbacks do in high school. I can tell you that kids need to be able to compete with older players when they get to high school, especially if they want to play in MIAA A. If this isn’t your goal, then none of this should really matter to you. As for the people who come one here bragging about this club or that, they should just be ignored.

I agree. And thanks for the respectful exchange. To be honest I’m jealous that my son isn’t on a team competing in a league like hoco. No such thing up here.

Not to add more fuel to the fire but my son plays on one of those teams and several other tournament teams. I noticed on one of the elite tournament teams that my son is the youngest player, born 1/2010, so everyone is either held back or born in the first 4 months of the grad year (24 kids). It’s not a coincidence and it’s also not changing for 28s. Age definitely matters and it’s annoying when people claim otherwise, but complaining won’t change it. My son has and will play up to get ready for HS and beyond so I really don’t care, but that’s easy for me to say, he’s big.

Couldn’t agree more.

Yea I’m the one who made the long post and I’m in a similar situation. He is an October 2010 birthday. So he is younger than 95+% of the 28s and significantly younger than the holdbacks. And at this age it definitely matters. But like you, my son is big for his age at 5’10 165 and athletic so he holds his own and then some. As I stated there is no holding back in the cards for him as it’s not economically feasible. But as you pointed out it’s really annoying when people deny or pretend it isn’t an issue.

At age 12-14 the biggest reasons for eliteness/non-mediocrity are still
1. Height /stride length
2. Months/years since hitting puberty
3. Distant 3rd but related.....Birthday/age

The top 4 teams in Hoco excel in those metrics.

And none of those, if elite, are positive reflections of your son's skill or your parenting. By 10th grade, the deck shuffles substantially because every player is 5'8" to 6'3" and 150 to 190lb.

And yeah iron sharpens iron...it's no joke, but it's a very small percent of clubs at any level that seriously "develop" talent. Rather than replacing and recycling rosters.

Well Madlax beat DCE 2028. Let the garbage talking begin.

Just one more regular season game to go (Hawks v. Crabs) and we now have enough data to render the final verdict on each team.

Hawks - win or lose today, they are the class of the league. They win their games, mostly by big margins, and no real criticism of the team, at least not this year.
Crabs - great team, but they do it with a ton of holdbacks, so they are tarnished
FCA - good team, but the concussion episode was a real black eye, both the failure to pull out the concussed player and the awful way the coaches and players cheered the dirty hit. Disgraceful.
Next Level - kudos for sneaking into the playoffs, but a horribly under-performing team. given the sorry state of DCE and ML, they should be much better, but they can't score goals, and the gap between the top 3 and NL is pretty wide.
MadLax - gotta hand it to them for avoiding the embarrassment that everyone expected. They won three games, but all against the weaker teams, and it looks like many of their players are fly ins. basically a less talented version of red hots.
DCE - not sure where they went wrong, but defense, goaltending, face offs need work, and I expected more from this team, combining a good MadLax team and a decent BLC team, they should have been a lot better than they were.
Team 91 - close losses to FCA and Madlax were nice, and they vastly improved their face off game, but they have a lot of trouble scoring goals, and they seem to struggle with basic throwing and catching, which makes it hard to win many games.
Team Money - a solid AAA team who ended up in the wrong division.

Congrats on a fun season and on to high school!

two under-performing teams who combined for five wins (all against Team Money, 91, and each other) played a one goal game. yawn. I hope nobody on either of those teams comes out of that game or the season talking @ChillLaxin about anyone, except themselves.

Is this satire? You’re wrong about just about everything, but you have been all year, so nothing new,

You sound like a mom who is too absorbed in little Johnnys lacrosse.

That didn’t age well, crowning the class of the league before the last game and playoffs.

You’re too wrapped up in this with an analysis and a critique of every team.

So what exactly happened in the Crabs - hawks game? How did the mighty fall apart?

Well he posted it about four hours ago and nothing has changed since then, so it hasn't really aged at all. I don't think you understand what that expression means.

It's also weird to come to a discussion forum about 2028 lacrosse and then criticize someone for posting about 2028 lacrosse.

I think it was satire on the Hawks' parents, as in "we're great and everyone else stinks." but aside from the Hawks being great it looks pretty accurate.

8th graders played a lacrosse game and one team one while the other lost.

In 4 hours since your first post your main point is point is completely wrong.

You’ve been wrong about everything for weeks.

Btw responding to your own posts is sad.

I'm not the OP, I just understand English. To say something hasn't aged well implies that, with the passage of time, a statement has been proven incorrect or become inappropriate. That's what "aged" means in this context.

I bet you say things like "irregardless" and "supposebly" as well.

Let me spell it out for you since your reading comprehension isn’t firing on all cylinders. He said the Hawks were clearly the class of the league. 4 hours later it’s proved wrong based on the Hawks losing by 4 to another undefeated team. So with that passage of time, and entire 4 hours, his main point, and thus several subsequent points was proven wrong.

So yes, I understand what “it hasn’t aged well” means, do you?

Awesome game between Clippers and Team Maryland. Two solid teams.

Yes you are. Who are you kidding? Your predictions & assumptions are wrong. Maybe you’re better off with a YouTube channel, with your edgy reporting. Your self-centered insights demand a bigger audience. I think you’d be a huge hit with halftime & sideline reporting. Don’t let your all encompassing distorted knowledge of 8th grade lacrosse go to waste. You are a modern day Notredamous of lacrosse. They will sing folk songs about you.
I bet your a” enough about me, what do you think about me “ , type of person.

Sorry your @ChillLaxin hurt. What they said about your kids team is spot on.

He specifically contemplated their loss in his post. That's what "win or lose today" means. I hope your kid is really good at lacrosse because I don't see an academic scholarship in your family's future.

Two great teams… will get to dance together again next Sunday. I suspect the Hawks will make some adjustments and return the favor.

I specifically…

FIFY

two under-performing teams who combined for five wins (all against Team Money, 91, and each other) played a one goal game. yawn. I hope nobody on either of those teams comes out of that game or the season talking @ChillLaxin about anyone, except themselves.[/quote

I expected both of these teams to perform much better in the beginning of the season.

Hawks parents were losing their minds. Crabs are a better team and will show it again in the rematch.

You are right, but keep it real though. Crabs is the better team because they dumped half their team to fill it with 27s in order to get better. They have no chance otherwise.

Why Hawks parents mad your team use to be all 2027.

Blatant lie. There are NO 27’s Crabs that went to the 28’s. The Crabs 28 team have 2 boys that are holdbacks. Both 14 years old & won’t turn 15 until Summer. Yes, the Crabs are historically known as a huge holdback team, not the 28’s. You’re either a liar , envious, or full of detest, to suggest otherwise. The majority of these boys have played together for years. In my opinion, the biggest difference is Coaching .
Did your son get cut from the team? Is it easier for you to lie to justify your hurt feelings? The Crabs 28’s probably have the least amount of holdbacks of any team in elite (2). How about your own son’s team?

Not interested in beating the holdback drum. Had to be best game of Hoco this season and hawks haven’t had an equal so what put crabs on top, besides umm, their holdbacks (insert sarcasm)?

I think the main difference of the Elite teams is how long they have played together. Look at NL, ML, and DCE. They all have some good players, but they have not had the time to work together as Crabs and Hawks. So this also affects coaching that people complain about also.

So yeah..... I would like to hear parents complain about holdbacks next year....

This comment is a blatant lie.

This just isn't true at all. Crabs post rosters. There were about 5 kids that stayed on the 28 top team from last year. Where did all the new kids come frome? And there is at least one person on that team that has an 2008 birth year.