Team 91 NJ needs to combine its teams, I believe there are three of them not including Leading Edge which is separate, into one central location and make a more competitive team. It is ridiculous to have so many separate teams from one state. If you have enough players just have an A&B and hopefully the kids can move up. The 8th grade thru high school kids parents will be more than willing to drive, LE and BBL are examples of this, if the teams are better.
Most ages have south, west and north teams. Plus LE which is a Team 91 team but has been permitted to keep the LE name. It is simply another local team for A to B level kids. LE is the only AA team and all the good kids will gravitate to that teams once they get to 9th grade
I think that the issue is that high school is a completely different experience at LE, their youth teams are not a strong feeder program. While I am sure that they find a few kids from their youth teams, which are not typically strong,, there is absolutely no loyalty, they have no problem cutting their own kids.
I do see what you are saying, but you would hope that if a kid on the current team is equal to a kid that is trying out, they most likely would keep their own.
At the end of the day, if a club is cutting weaker players to add better players that tryout at the high school level, how can you fault them? Damned if you do damned if you don’t. It’s probably better then demoting them to a B team to collect your check and play in B level tournaments to feel good about yourself, right ?
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