US Lacrosse Community Forum Forums NEW JERSEY LACROSSE NEW JERSEY FORUM Top Boy's Club Teams in New Jersey

Helix is the B teams

How can you possibly know this? I’ve spoken with many parent on this team who expressed their disappointment and are looking to leave. Maybe tryouts didn’t work out for them at other clubs but the sentiment is there. People want off the sinking ship.

I would say that equally talented players (“talented” meaning same skill, athleticism, grades, character, etc ) don’t have hugely different experiences at different clubs. As long as you are playing for a reasonably competitive club, it will be the same result.

Florham Park same as Black. They practice together.

Does Helix effectively become the other National team BBL intends to offer at each age group? Just wondering since they don’t appear to be regionally based like the other ones.

I would agree, but a club director that has a positive track record as far as kids that they recommend for a particular school can go a long way. Conversely, if a club coach/director is over-selling kids, that can be a detriment to the recruiting for their program down the road.

The national team concept is ridiculous for BBL if they are just pulling kids internally from their NJ program. Also, Helix is their B team, how would they possibly compete as a national team.

One of their e-mail memos indicated two national teams at each age group. Maybe Helix + South + North + Turnpike?

A national team made up of helix, north, shore, and turnpike kids would just be a glorified B level NJ team. If you don’t think that AH is simply trying to make money with this “2 national teams for each grade” idea, you are the stunad of all stunads.

A national team made up of helix, north, shore, and turnpike kids would just be a glorified B level NJ team. If you don’t think that AH is simply trying to make money with this “2 national teams for each grade” idea, you are the stunad of all stunads.[/quote]

The only club that has really pulled off the 2 national team concept is True with the national black and green teams, but green is still the lower level team of the two. Either way, True draws from a huge pool of players, mostly from the Midwest, but other underserved regions as well. Way too much competition in the region to make this really successful, Duke's national is a perfect example.

United/BBL was not able to hang onto all the players they wanted. Those personal calls that AH made to try and keep the United players blew up in his face.

We will find out soon enough. It's about results, being competitive in tourneys against top national teams. A depth chart of all BBL players for National teams would make sense. Chance for a player to move up based on merit play. Plus I will guess BBL is planning on expanding outside of NJ (i.e. Colorado).

Have fun with that.

You're all SALTY against BBL. What's the deal?

To the guy who posted about the significant BBL player going to LE it is not true. Why would he go there when their defense is the only good thing about that team. Their offense is where they need the upgrades.

Maybe he wants to play in college?

Two national teams for BBL. I assume one will basically be black. The geographic difference from North to Central to Shore to Princeton is not that great. The really good players will want to play for black. The other national team will be made up of Turnpike, Helix North and Shore kids whose parents can brag about how they are on a National team even though no-one who plays on the team is outside NJ. Those kids will be fed a dream of college lacrosse even though they are not at that caliber. However, if the kids just wants to have fun, play with his friends and go to a few local tourneys a year, does it really matter what team he is playing on. The kid and parents will be happy. College lax is not everyone dreams.

My son has played on B level teams, A level teams and now AA level teams in NJ. I thought I knew all the teams at his age group given the diverse teams that he has played for and I can honestly say that I do not ever seeing a Turnpike team. Maybe there is not one in his age group but that begs the question how much of a presence is that club if they do not have one at every age group.

With the exception of MD 2025, most of the top kids from shore area (and by "top kids" I mean kids that have an interest/legitimate chance of playing college lacrosse) travel to play for their club teams such as Tri State, Bluestar and Leading Edge. Likewise, there are a handful of shore area kids that travel to practice with BBL. Therefore, coming to the Shore area may result in kids leaving United because if they wanted to play for BBL, they would have been playing for BBL already.

Kids are leaving Leading Edge.

My son has played on B level teams, A level teams and now AA level teams in NJ. I thought I knew all the teams at his age group given the diverse teams that he has played for and I can honestly say that I do not ever seeing a Turnpike team. Maybe there is not one in his age group but that begs the question how much of a presence is that club if they do not have one at every age group.[/quote]

United was a more substantial move in that BBL gets an established program at the shore with a full roster of teams, the Turnpike deal seems more about taking a player out of the market.

Careful with this! :-)

Too many people on here can't wrap their heads around that being the endgame for some (maybe most). Some kids just want to play on a team that's more competitive than Rec and their parents don't get caught up in the LE vs BBL vs Tri-state nonsense.

I think the goal for most of these kids playing club is that they get significant playing time in junior and senior year of high school. In that case, getting playing time at a good A or even high level B team makes the most sense especially if the HS coach is the director or a coach on that A or B team. If they want to play in college (and I mean Division 1 lacrosse) then the parents and kids will do whatever to get to that dream. The real issue is the parents not knowing the difference between kids that have Division 1 potential, Division 3 potential potential or just HS potential.

Don't disagree but it seems notIntelligent to spend that much time and money when you can go to the beach or lake in the summer

Yes ofcourse. Just know that most of the kids in these clubs know each other, goes to the same HS and are friends. We can have conversations/arguments here even if it's mostly non-sense. The alternative is a dead forum (look at PA, it's strange.)

Interesting perspective, but I imagine that the bulk of the parents on this forum have kids that hope, whether realistic or not, to pursue lacrosse at the college level. However, I 100% agree about many parents not having any perspective about their kid's skill level, I hear too many parents telling me about the prospect days that their kid went to at a school that the kid has absolutely no chance to play at. The parent always tries to cover themselves by saying that their kid probably can't play at the school, but they just went to the prospect day for the "experience"...yeah, right.

But if you notice, the only ones shilling D1 recruiting dreams around here is LE. It's their calling card.

What teams are you referring to that you feel kids are leaving Leading Edge?

Got to admit in NJ LE has best track record for D1, who is as close?

2022

I agree that LE's track record speaks for itself, but not sure if they can keep it going like the old days. As we all know, in the past, LE was the destination for most of the top players in NJ, this is not the case anymore, plenty of top kids, if not better kids, on other clubs. As a result, you are seeing a lot of impressive commits from Tri State (not really new), Riot, BBL and Bluestar. I think that the 2023 class and beyond will be much different for LE on the recruiting front, but only time will tell.

A little insight into the sham that Showcase “All-Star” selections are… They are all rigged. When kids who don’t even show up get selected, it’s a massive joke.

buyer beware

The rankings for club lacrosse are good directional however it doesn’t take into account the level of teams you play. There are teams on there that play easier ranked teams ranked high.

They have a strength of schedule factor. The bigger issue is they weigh fall ball the same as summer. Everyone knows fall ball is a very different animal and should be much less weighted than summer.

They probably have the best history but nothing lasts forever. The landscape has changed and with the new recruiting rules, they aren’t as important. 2023 and beyond are nowhere near the level of previous teams. Even the 2022s still have a lot of kids who aren’t committed

This is a very poor take on the 22s, only a handful of kids are uncommitted. 23s may surprise people as recruiting is more about individual talent rather than team wins

I just looked up their list of 2022 commits. Wow .

Ryan Bilello, defense, Manasquan - Colgate

Christian Bockelmann, attack/midfield, Rumson-Fair Haven - Yale

Tripp Didden, defense, Deerfield (Mass.) - Johns Hopkins

Matt Dollive, midfield, Wall - Army

Will Doran, attack, Princeton - Williams

Luke Engelke, faceoff midfield, Pingry - Duke (Commitment story)

Mikey Kloepfer, midfield, Scotch Plains-Fanwood - Merrimack

Harry Laferriere, goalie, Kent (Conn.) - Brown

Dylan LeBlanc, defense, Manasquan - Loyola

David Link, attack, Delbarton - Villanova

Tyler Marmo, attack, Avon Old Farms (Conn.) - Holy Cross

Ryan McLaughlin, LSM, Mountain Lakes - Penn

Konrad Miklaszewski, LSM, Montclair - Yale (Commitment story)

Cade Schuckman, midfield, Mountain Lakes - Williams

Jaz Zanelli, goalie, Seton Hall Prep - Bucknell (Commitment story)

m

2024s went 0-3 again today. 2023s didn’t do much better. If you think this club is not on the outs, I have a bridge I’d like to sell you.

Leading Edge is the most cowardly club in NJ. The 2023 lost to Tristate horribly earlier in the summer. They were matched up against Bluestar this weekend twice and changed the game to avoid embarrassment. What a sham that club is. Afraid of competition.