Every tournament should be age based. Any arguement against that is illogical .
Cutoff is sept. 1... stack kids born in sept. There always a way to "work" the system. Hold backs are a joke and are looked upon that way from the parents coaches etc.
When a boy stands out -- bigger faster stronger -- 99% of the time it's because he's a holdback. Sad because it's just assumed .
This is not meant to be argumentative but just my opinion having been through the recruiting thing four times. The age based vs. grade based argument has no right and wrong answers it just all depends on your goals.
For my kids the goal of a summer team grades 2-7 were to become better lacrosse players, make new friends, have fun and also win some games and age or grade based teams were immaterial.
Once you start playing in the recruit tournaments, prospect cams and prospect days age no longer matters. The college coaches recruiting your kid only wants to see freshman play against freshman not 15 year old play against 15 year old .
IMHO you should not be worrying about winning tournaments after 7th grade, only the clubs care about championships and that is for their web sites and tryout turnouts.
Unfortunately this is not USA Hockey where a kid is registered by age and is on one team and can only play for that team and if he wants to change organizations he needs to get a release. In youth summer lacrosse, your team is who shows up that weekend or even that day and has the same jersey as the rest of the kids. That is not cheating as long as the kid is age or grade appropriate for that tournament.
When a team is selected by grade and then wants to enter an age based tourney you will almost always have to get additional players to make up for the kids that are grade appropriate but not age appropriate, you will see this again in two years when you put together your USL U15 National team.
good luck to all of your sons, don't burn them out and do everything you can to keep this fun for them
I have no arguments with your points, although I think:
* that you can extend your point about not worrying about winning tournaments after 8th grade, especially considering the new NCAA recruiting rule * that you can still borrow from the USA Hockey idea to have kids legitimately certified as to being on age through U14 - the commitment/release aspect of USAH is above and beyond the considerations here
