Crabs do one thing REALLY well - sandbag with holdbacks. Without them - they are no better/worse than the rest of the elite teams out there. Their 2020 team (8th graders) had 16 year olds on the team. 16 in the 8th grade. SMH.
Only thing that has changed for this fall and next spring for their 2020 team is that they have a good amount of kids in the 9th grade who should be in the 10th grade and one or two are double holdbacks. It will never change with this organization, it is the business model of RM and will never change. Game the system to the fullest and hope for the best.
Their 2021 team also has a fair amount of holdbacks, kids in 8th grade who should be in 9th, but did the reclass thing.
2020 is 9th grad now, by the way. And no, there were no 16 year old 8th graders last year, as much as that would make your story better!
There are tryouts, and the best kids make the team. The club does not have any bearing on what these kids do in school. Most of the kids you are calling holdbacks did prefirst years before club lacrosse was even a part of their life. To say that the club has any influence on parenting choices for schooling is a huge stretch! More private school kids end up on the elite teams because of the prefirst curriculum, but by the time you get to HS ball, the cards will have fallen as they may, where good players have separated themselves from the pack regardless of the 1 year age spread.
