Originally Posted by Anonymous
A maybe better way of putting the above point, on the current teams in elite based on my eye test in seeing lacrosse for a long time as a parent and player, about the following number of kids have D-1 athleticism and potential:

Hawks: 8-10
FCA: 6-8
Crabs: 4-5
Madlax: 5-6
Next Level: 7-9 (problem for them is they are overwhelmingly on the defensive side so they have trouble scoring)
91: 1-2
BLC: 0-2
True: not a stable roster

Outside of these kids, the players in elite are pretty interchangeable among teams in this division and the better AAA teams and mostly are just playing for fun and for playing time in HS on non-power MIAA/WCAC/IAC teams.

Your count of great players per team looks about accurate, but you are wrong to correlate 7th grade greatness to D1 likelihood. As the Dad of boys in the 2025 and 2026 class, I have witnessed many of the 7th grade stars of 2-3 year ago have faded by 9th and 10th grade, and conversely many players who would not have made your list of "D1 athleticism and potential" back then are definitely in that category today. And, it goes without saying, many of the best players are not going to be on the same teams in 2-3 years. In the DC region, the strongest Madlax players will migrate to Next Level, for the same reasons they did in the 2024, 2026, and 2027 classes. And, Crabs 2028 will become an all star team of the other Baltimore teams' current 2027 teams.