I am like most BOTC posters, a parent who has spent seemingly every weekend for as long as I can remember sitting in a [lacrosse]'s sporting goods $39 lawn chair watching lacrosse. I have a HS 2014 class son at a D1 program and a D1 committed 2017 son, and a third son still at the middle school youth level. Both of my older sons played for a first tier club and at a top HS program. I am providing my opinion only, but after seeing a mind numbing volume of lacrosse those were my observations. Obviously A LOT of 2017 dads are going to disagree and call me an idiot. I have noticed a very distinct degradation of the quality and caliber of Maryland lacrosse in the past 2-3 years at the high school class by class progression.
Locally and nationally I think the 2014s were better than the 2015s and I believe the 2016s and 2017s as a class are materially weaker than the 2014s or 2015s. Just what I think and of course the parents of precious 2017 commits will attack. Answer me this though: do you think Ward Mellville's current team with some 2016s and 2017s is better than the 2013 team that was stacked with 2014s and 2015s? Do you think the 2016s and 2017s at St. Ants and Chaminade are the dominant classes at those schools in the past 5 years? Save for the single fantastic LI club team I named -- 2017 Turtles -- do you really think that there are elite LI Express or Team 91 teams that can come down to B'more and hang in the winner's bracket or win a Crabs tournament in the 2016 or 2017 classes? LI Express and Team 91 teams in those two school years come to MD to get piped by what I consider decent but not great MD club teams for those two classes. Team 91 can't beat regional 3d teams at that stupid fl$ in 3d thing either.
Maybe the decline in LI club play is not as distinct in LI as it is here in MD, but I see it on the field in the 2017 class every June, July and November. The performance of the non-2017 Turtle teams don't lie.[/quote]
I do not disagree with the thought process. I will only say that 4 years ago on LI there was only really one main club - Express - while the others were just starting out. Now there are way too many clubs on LI - over 35 boys team (look to the right of this screen). The talent is so spread out that good kids are playing on crappy teams. If they cut that number down to 10 teams you would see a dramatic difference in team talent. If you made 3 allstar teams from LI I think you would see some pretty incredible talent. Express 2017 is a completely different team then it was 2 years ago - 4 kids went to Turtles, 2 kids are prep schools kids and are away, the committed kids don't always show up. 91 was never as good but has real good talent, Outlaws good talent, fl$ good talent. Now if you took those 4 teams and made 2, they would be able to compete with anyone (this doesn't even include Team LI, Sting, True Blue, Tomahawks, Pride, etc. who might be weaker but I'm sure that their best 3 players could play for anyone). The whole LI Lax scene is terrible. Every team is watered down. It is only going to get worse for LI as it seems a new organization is popping up each week...
