Quick question on "the facts". Honestly I am not trying to be difficult here but we have a lot of 15yo vs 12yo which seems pretty disingenuous to me. The cutoff date for age based is 9/1/2005. This means on average by the beginning of March the average age of 2024 kids is 13, not 12. Of course if your team has more summer 2006 birthdays the average will be 12+, but in that case even an "on age" team could be 6-9 months older if it had more fall birthdays. Most of the MD "holdbacks" I have encountered have summer 2005 birthdays, the reasons for this have been talked about a fair amount (private vs. public focus, etc.). So let's assume every kid on a team was born in June 2005 (which is a stretch as I know for a "fact" that the teams talked about here have "on age" players because it wasn't that long ago MD was age based as well) then by March, on average, the difference would be 9 months as opposed to the "cited facts" of 1 to 2 years. Of course talking in averages does not take into account individuals which can vary but since none of the LI or MD clubs post birth dates or birth certificates no one here really knows exact age or birthday. We can make some assumptions pre/post 9/1.
To your questions about how good MD teams are and why they are not "as good as they should be" since they are 1/2 years older is perhaps because they are actually closer in age than you make it out to be. I am not saying a 9 month age difference (which I think is a high end estimate) is not an advantage but it is a whole lot different than saying a 1 to 2 year difference and it is an age gap that can occur even in age based systems.
Let me know if I am doing the math wrong here.
I am a MD parent of an on age 2024 who believes that age based is the way to go in youth (pre high school) sports.
The first issue is if you stack a team full of summer birthdays or even earlier and have them play a diverse team of different ages. This is the first issue with the HoCo elite divisions. The better teams are completely stacked with this type of roster. There's a reason why they are "better" and it's not due to coaching.
If you are a 2024 parent who pays attention and your club is competitive, here's a better breakdown. There are approximately 21 players on a team, some more and some less but this is about right. At least a third of those kids will be older than the 9/1 guideline; about 10 will be born between September and December; and there might be 4-5 kids born after January. In the elite division, the numbers will skew even older.
The problem lies in those 7 and more like 14 for the elite division teams where their ages vary from a couple of months before up to 18 months before. Yes - 18 months before the 9/1 guideline.
Here's how it happens. You take a delayed entry child who is born in March (and I believe this is too old to play in class divisions) and then that kid re-classes. Now you have a 15 year old playing 7th grade lacrosse. I don't know about 7th grade HoCo but I know most 8th grade teams in the elite division have at least 1 and 1 team has 3. Yes - 3 young men who are 16 years old playing in an 8th grade division.
The age difference in teams for a class based league is way out of balance.
No way this scenario is accurate. They would be ineligible for senior year of high school. Stop clinging to these weak Meanyexcuses.
