This is a easy one have the kid play with the other 16 year olds. Would we all be yelling for a 16 year old in 12th grade must play 2016 team. I think not he would say I am 16 years old can I play with the 2018 team and everyone would say sure no problem [/quote]

And you'd be wrong. I have a nephew who skipped a grade. When lacrosse went from age based teams to school year based ones a year ago he was literally a year younger than on aged classmates and 2+ years younger than the reclassified kids and he was overwhelmed and didn't make the two club teams he tried out for. On age he was a good enough player and athlete, the problem is he was absurdly young for his middle school grade. My brother asked both clubs if he could play down a grade year. They both said they'd never do that because it would screw up kids who were on-grade out of a roster spot in the recruiting. So basically my nephew was excluded out over the optic of recruiting needs to have these kids on grade only based and focused teams. This was an 7th grade team. Clubs don't want and exclude that circumstance to play down to be more age appropriate if very young for their grade. So my nephew quit lacrosse in middle school to try other sports. That's supposed to support the argument that grade based teams for non-scholastic sports makes sense? Sorry, that fails.