Serious question to all of the MD holdback parents: Why do you have your kids play down a year? Do they have a confidence problem, where they feel inferior to kids their own age? Or, without their size advantage, they really just compete with kids their own age? Maybe it's both? Very sad.
I would say one of the more difficult things for some kids , especially undersized kids, is making a AA team when most coaches are taking size over skill in 7th or 8th grade . a smaller boy may have superior speed, superior stick skills but lack size. its very unfortunate. so a boy that plays down, may be just positioning himself for the future as he has been pushed out of his own grade
MD lacrosse has a history of holding back in the Private schools. It used to be exclusive to Private schools. Advantage was not in youth lax..just school MS and HS.. Now HOCO has enabled MS and below private school holdbacks to play...Well now more and more are holding back at youth level.
I know. LI has no prep schools where this activity is down to an art form, so that’s got to be the main reason why it doesn’t happen up here very much. Regarding the top few teams, only one team has any holdbacks, which numbers probably about 4-5 would be my best guess. Could be less. But that’s nothing compared to the real holdback teams where basically their entire team is holdbacks. The top 2 teams have none and never have. For the most part, they develop the kids they have had since 2nd grade, and go with that, with a few exceptions.
