Depends on who you ask - if you ask the AA teams, then they'r it - everyone else is "B"! If you asked realistic, unbiased people, those who actually get what it means to run, coach and assess youth sports, you're probably going to get a list of about 8 - 9 teams. And that's the same general problem with every on LI. The lax mafia thinks they have some super select private club . . . [/quote]
It’s ridiculous to say there are 2 A teams and everyone else is B. It’s like saying if your not top 25 in NCAA then your not Div. 1. Who thinks like that? There are more like 20 A teams. If you want to be this super elite team and everyone else is a B team in your eyes, go play 2023 teams. [/quote]
Yup, but that's the exact assessment for EVERY age of lax on LI - the AA teams (which nobody disputes are deserving of being called elite) say that they, and then maybe, IF they're feeling gracious, they'll throw in the next 2 - 3 non-AA teams, as comprising all that is A - everyone else is B. The lax mafia does not think that LI (of all places!) has any more than 5 A teams at AT ANY AGE GROUP! You can see this on every age board on BOTC - it's absolutely the dumbest approach to youth sports I've ever seen.[/quote]
Not you again... OK, here we go, again. Two teams are significantly better than the rest. Always have been. The 2nd tier of Express and Igloo do a fairly respectable job against both teams, but can't stay within 5-6 goals of either. You want to put all four teams in an A category, that makes sense to me. Here's the issue. The rest of the teams can't stay with 15 - 20 goals of either WP or Taz. You want to put some of those teams in the same group? That makes no sense for any team. If those teams are in a tourney bracket, both Taz or WP should play up (and one of them always does for that reason), for the benefit of their team, and the benefit of the team that they would destroy. No person with more than a single brain cell can dispute that. The only person that keeps disputing that has obviously not seen the AA teams play. That is the landscape of LI youth lacrosse at this age, and it's been that way since 2nd grade, when they started youth travel for this age group.[/quote]
Again - NO ONE disputes the top two teams being that much better. But, just because THEY are that good does NOT mean that teams below them are somehow relegated down. There are a bunch of teams below that can play reasonably well together (even in losing), but totally and consistently dominate what should truly be considered B teams. That this has been the case for this age group since they started club play changes none of that assessment - if they are truly "too good" for the rest of the teams in their age group, then play up all of the time - why ever play in 2024 unless they know they are playing against equally elite teams? Personally, I don't care if they play up in 2023 or in 2024 because that has nothing to do with whether other teams below them are A or not - they are so far above everyone, they don't figure in to that assessment - it's not a sliding scale - , and that is the point. The bigger picture is that this attitude exists in many, if not most, other ages of LI lacrosse, and in many of those cases, the top teams are not quite as dominant as Taz and WP for their ages, but they still want to relegate any but the top 2 -4 as being the only A teams on LI - it's an even weaker argument there, but a symptom of the same prevailing idiocy, and largely perpetuated by the same small group of clubs. Taken to its 'logical' conclusion, this argument suggests there are ALMOST no non-AA "A" teams anywhere, for if LI (and MD) doesn't have any then who does??
