I am a Philly guy, thus no horse in the race between this LI vs MD supremacy debate. However, my sons team is AA 2024 and we have played all of the Team 91 MD, BLC, and Madlax teams vs. the Team 91 LI , Legacy, and Express Teams and I can assure you there is no contest. The MD teams are stacked with obvious rec-classes and win by out-sizing their opponents. The LI brand of lacrosse is based on elite stick skills and IQ and is without a doubt superior and they are doing it with kids clearly younger than MD AA Teams.
This is isn't about size, we have some big boys on our team as well that are on age...a 14 year old vs a 12 year just simply moves differently on an athletic field.
Our team is on the list and going. I am not sure who is over age on our team, I think we have a total of three on the whole team that have summer birthdays; however, I believe our whole starting line up is ON age except for one middie and there are kids on age behind him that are as good if not better.
Madlax you aren't technically cheating, simply own up to it, if you are winning, it is because of all the re classing going on.
So you are staking the moral high ground because you have fewer holdbacks? I guess you aren't technically cheating with your 3 or more holdbacks either.
Love how some people feel like they can identify holdbacks just by looking at them. My son is average-sized and on age. Two of his classmates have been about the same size as my son since pre-school but have had huge growth spurts the last 18 months. Now, all of the sudden, they have to hear whispers of being holdbacks because they grew faster, even though they are on age. Not saying that there are not holdbacks and that there is not an advantage. Just saying that many of these larger boys are not holdbacks and the problem is not as extensive as some on this Board want you to believe.
That is a direct result of a huge amount of players being heldback/reclassed/prefirst playing now. Years ago the main thing you said when you saw a giant kid playing on age lacrosse was...darn that kid is big for his age ! Now, with the holdback world, you always wonder if he is heldback or big, and Frankly most of time today it is a holdback.
Youth lacrosse should be age and High school should be grade. Common sense.
