Is it wrong to pull my daughter and not let her play if I know they’re going to play the Yellow Jacket Blue LM? Think about it? My daughter and others on her team and girls from other clubs like M&D, Skywalker, Maryland United are very good players. We are all evenly matched and in the past and won and lost to all clubs mentioned above. We had some great conversation on the side lines with parents from all club teams except Yellow Jackets. Is it worth it for more injuries and to jeopardize a possibility for collage recruitment?
The Newsday article from this last weekend's edition discussing girls helmets points to the fact that the women's collegiate game is getting substantially more physical; the finesse game is rapidly becoming a thing of the past, good or bad. Expecting collegiate lacrosse to be playing with this "sphere" concept long term is not practical without stronger officiating.
The question here is how does one respond to the more athletic and therefore more physical nature of college lacrosse. Certainly, pulling your student-athlete from the field in major showcases will not be the right answer if you have intentions of playing for NCAA Division I national powerhouse teams.
I don't feel helmets are the answer, it will only make the aggressive play even more aggressive. I think a simple asnswer is maybe US lacrosse should put more teeth into the consequences of yellow and red cards, like two yellow cards in two games means a two game suspension, and four cards in a season means a four games suspension, etc. Additionally, if a team has a certain amount of combined yellow cards, then the team should not be allowed to play in certain tournaments. these are just some quick ideas.
I would guess that this would clean up the game by making coaches and players more sensitive to how they are playing, and it would keep the "too aggressive" players on the sidelines watching.
