They'll be line Express Schwalje and Igloo B. I'll guess they will be on par or better than 2nd tier A teams at the age.
Here is the frustrating part with these teams. They are not good enough to compete with the Top 5 teams in the AA bracket. They kill all the B teams that they play so those games suck to watch. There is very little competitive lacrosse in this bracket on Long Island !
There are plenty of tournaments that have A team divisions that are not AA teams - it's like the whole lax world wants to pretend that there is not a whole swath of talent between AA teams and true B teams. It's a major reason youth lax is so far down the curve when compared to other sports. The A teams from many of the non-Igloo/Express/91 clubs are very good, and are not B (talent) teams.
My son played on 9D1 A team last year. We beat up on B teams and Struggled against true A teams like Outlaws, Express, just to name a few. There is a big gap in talent between AA, A, and B no doubt about it!
When you say "true A teams", with respect to Outlaws are you referring to their Select or Gold team? Similar question Re: Express - which team(s)? Even under a properly structured talent system, which lax does NOT even come close to having (!), there will be weaker A teams that will not have much success against other A teams, especially the stronger A teams. That's the way it's supposed to work! That does not mean the weak A team is B, nor does it mean the strong A team is really AA. A weak A team should probably play a mix of tourneys both at the B and A level (more A than B, though) - there are benefits in doing both for team and player development. Similarly, a strong A team should play in both A and AA tourneys. A strong B team should probably play in an A tourney, but stick mostly to B tourneys. Until people are honest about assessing teams and creating tournaments properly around talent levels, the lax tourney world will continue to be a mess. An age-based system for all pre-HS levels would also help that problem.
