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Long Island Pride LaxFest 2013 - Sunday Teams

Fun time today at Pridefest. My sons 5th grade team played 6/7th grade team in the 5/6th grade bracket. Team was from New Jersey.

You only need 4 similar level teams to put together a bracket that gives teams 3 good games. To have teams play against kids who a year and/or two years older is just not acceptable. They worry about the stupid waver forms, and then have 10 year olds play 12 year olds which is an injury waiting to happen.

I agree. We were rising six graders playing rising 8th graders. When every kid on one team is almost a full head taller than the other team it should be a signal that the matchup is off.

Kids get injured playing kids there own age. My sons small for his age so the other teams always look bigger and older. If u have a second grader playing up on a 3rd grade team playing in a 3/4 grade division you can't complain when u run into a 4 th grade team

Bad enough when teams play down but when they play down in a B bracket and barely win

Pride fest has become a joke and all about the $$$$$$ if it wasn't they would take there time and make age (grade) appropriate brackets . I can not believe people pay $950 for that . But it's a business so if people buy you sell. I saw some of the match ups and it was bad .

Yes you can't complain when playing up or age appropriate. But when you show up at a tournament in a 5/6 grade bracket and play a team whose own parents admit are incoming 8th graders you have a problem. Who do you blame the tournament, the coaches who put a 7th going into 8th grade team in a 5/6 grade bracket, the parents (especially after they knew they were older), who? Unfortunatly it will take a player getting hurt and someone getting sued until it stops. MAYBE

Which team(s) was in the wrong age group and played down? The argument to date has been that this event is a festival and not a tournament, but for $1000.00 per team, you expect a tournament-level performance for tournament-level prices. Proper age-group placement is something that the BOTC advertised tournaments have been working to police this year.

The blame goes to the directors that register their teams into the wrong divisions!!! The guys that run these tournaments are just looking at a sheet of paper that the team directors filled out, they don't know the age of every team or kid.

IMO having divisions with 2 ages 5/6, 7/8 ect. creates more cheating by these directors.

People have legitimate complaints, but I thought I'd throw out a compliment ...

My son's 7/8 team played three games in the 7/8 age group, against all 7/8 teams. One LI team and two NJ teams. All three games were good, the officiating was good, and most of the fields were in good shape. Been to Pridefest three times with two different clubs, and it was well run from my perspective each time.

There really is only so much a tourney can do if teams are signing up with kids that are too old. Until lax starts requiring birth certificates this will continue to happen. All tournaments suffer from this, especially when the standard is different from one to the other (age based vs. grade based). In turn, the clubs (and we) suffer, as some teams are formed to cover U13 or U15 age groups and others by specific graduation year.

There were more teams in prior years, and I think Pridefest (like a lot of tournaments) will need to add a championship round or attendance will probably continue to fall off. The landscape of summer lax has changed and clubs want to advertise results. Some of the charity tournaments like the JDRF and Gallagher may be able to keep the festival format for a little longer, but I think even they will have to change eventually.

I agree 100%

Ridge Futures 6/7th grade team played 5th grade Tomahawks. When speaking with a Ridge parent about the age difference they said that because they had some 6th graders on the team they can play 5/6th grade division. Tomahawks are a straight 5th grade team. Also, somehow Viper 5th grade played Recon 2018. Also a two year difference. If the organizers stuck with US Lacrosse age guidelines the brackets would be 4/5th which is U11, 6/7th which is U13.

JDRF had over 160 teams this year and Gallagher had plenty. They are both run very well and have not seen a decline in teams. Pridefest was has been run poorly and has had a decline because of it.
I disagree 100%.

Recon u13 was asked on Friday to be an emergency fill in for a garden city team that pulled out at the last minute. They didn't know what age group they were put in until after they said ok. They also played with no body checks and told th e oposing coach before the game. Trying to do the best in a bad situation.