Madlax just had a huge start on it since they've been around for awhile and picked up on it early. BLC used to be purely recreational but have become much more serious in travel. NL became more focused on travel when the Mitchell's took over and their popularity has translated into attracting better players who are most likely older.
It's also not limited to private school. If a public parent starts his kid late to first grade, as in the case of summer birthdays, The kid stays in that grade and there are plenty of those examples on the club and high school teams. This is why 19 years old publics can play high school sports. The problem comes when those older kids are then moved to private and held back. Then they become almost 2 years older than USL rules allow.
I thought I saw somewhere where USL caved a little and are allowing 5 exceptions per team for their sanctioned tournaments.
Only for Nationals. ML still couldn't qualify a team.
AGE EXCEPTIONS FOR THE 2019 NATIONALS The 2019 Age Exception Policy is as follows: a team competing at the 2019 US Lacrosse Nationals may field up to five players who do not comply with the birthdate guidelines above (Section 4 and 5 above), provided i) that the players meet the previously stated club participation requirement, ii) that those players were born not more than six months earlier than the birthdate cutoff for their division, and iii) that the player is in the scholastic grade that corresponds to their respective division. The corresponding grade for each division is:
13U, 2018-19 SCHOOL YEAR GRADE SEVEN 14U, 2018-19 SCHOOL YEAR GRADE EIGHT
