Back of THE CAGE Forums MID-ATLANTIC LACROSSE MARYLAND MAIN FORUM Boys 2028 Grads - Mid Atlantic Region

LSU wants to win the SEC championship a lot more than the galleryfurniture.com bowl or whatever.

Same with HoCo and these tournaments to me.

Does the Texas Nationals rental D-Pole play for TX Nationals or Madlax in this tourney? Lots of talk from ML parents that "he's part of the team for the summer" and not just at NAL trying to inflate the wins for rankings. Shockingly, this integral part of the team wasn't there for the Hawks game (rental anyone?). I guess we will see if he's really a Madlax player or not. Something tells me Madlax coaches have been quiet on the subject for a reason...

LSU wants to win the SEC championship a lot more than the galleryfurniture.com bowl or whatever.

Same with HoCo and these tournaments to me.

Couple of good games in Vail today. FCA and Next Level won their pol games against weak opponents, but some great matchups with Mad Dog West Elite and JM3 today. I suspect Mad Dog West beats FCA, and NL beats JM3 in semis. NL with the tourney win

You must be the same dude who is always on here saying such ridiculous things with incredible certainty. It’s the Sugar Bowl or Rose Bowl and they’d rather with that because it’s usually against another top national team and for a national championship. Great teams don’t play in the galleryfurniture bowl you nitwit.

One of the big benefits of a club-level league like HoCo is that there are no realistic excuses of why "normally we would have won that game." The competitiveness is as transparent as it can really be through the season. All players and coaches from AA to Elite should be blocking off those 7-8 weekends as "in season" for lax. Yeah of course, "well, a school conflict" and "but COVID," family emergencies etc, but those things happen to all teams at all ages, and a good club and good coach (from AA to Elite) can adjust for 1 kid being out on a random HoCo sunday. But absolutely, 100% of contributing players will be there 6 of 7 HoCo games.

Compare that to summer and fall tournaments and winter events (box, 6v6 etc) where there's always an excuse of "why we didn't have our top 5 guys." Or "we didn't win because the other team flew in 6 kids from TX who played entire games in tryout pinnies."

And yes, it's very ironic that the clubs who so vocally claim to "develop players" also stake their pride and their rankings on summer tournament wins where they are flying in guest players. 91 and Crabs immediately come to mind, but even FCA White used FCA Blue players in their tournament last week.....though that's hardly "flying in a player" I suppose. At least those kids all work out together all year.

FCA White brought down Blue players and had 3 guest players from 91 (downgrade of players) and still couldn't win the A division at Summer Exposure. Beware of the teams you choose to play for and respect to programs who develop their kids from try-outs and don't rely on BS rankings, guest players and out of state players.

Interesting perspective. But I always considered HoCo the more fair test of how team A compares to team B, because the teams are playing one game per week, with fixed rosters, on the same fields and with the same refs, and each team gets only one shot at the others (plus playoffs) as part of league play. In summer tournaments you never know what roster a team is bringing and whether they beefed up with out of state kids, plus they are playing five games in one weekend, and teams play each other multiple times over the course of the fall and/or summer. So I always thought that a HoCo game (esp. a playoff game) is the one that "counts." Just my two cents.

“Summer matters more” when you lose HoCo. Of course, we’ll revert to “HoCo matters more” next year when the good guys retake the crown.