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... [/quote]

That is pretty telling. Certainly the best 40-50 kids per grade in LI are going to be talented players, but if they are spliced out too much that level of play does not show up where it matters: on the practice field. I saw my oldest son get better in practice with his strong 2014 MD club team every single season. I never thought on the surface that so many clubs in MD like in LI, and of course the not so welcomed bloated rosters = dumbing the game and level of play down. Not to sound elitist, but if you don't have the opportunity to get reps against strong players you will never become one or remain one. That is a real problem now for kids in the 2016s, 17s and onwards classes.

There was some early planning and talk here in MD about going off and having a few well heeled parents write a nice check to a high level coach to pull together a no-nonsense 18 man 2017 team with only the very best MD players...a team that could give the Turtles a tilt of a game. But then it got predictably disturbed by everyone's home club agendas and politics. Some parents, myself included, feared retribution against younger siblings in those same club programs for having a committed kid bolt. The easy way out is to tell the club your kid is going to play for his school in the fall and in summer, which we did. That goes over badly but reduces the likelihood of reprisals by the vicious club owners. But that recipe is a bad one too. Does everyone in MD need to go to a $30K-40K a year prep school with a strong lacrosse program to keep developing and be able to practice with other strong players? That is not a great recipe for those who can't afford it and is a tortured decision for the families that leap into those money pits. One fine mess.