US Lacrosse Community Forum Forums MID-ATLANTIC LACROSSE MARYLAND FORUM Boys High School

Thank you.

Agreed. Now lets not hold them back by playing B in the sports other than lax. The schools that you mentioned are basically holding them back by playing them in B conference in sports other than lax. Everyone has hit the wall, done the dishes and taken out [Censored].

McD always competes at a high level. Lacrosse, Football, wrestling, they are always in the top, JC is competing in the other sports as well.

Lots of kids play three sports at the smaller MIAA schools…. Gilman, StP, etc

MCD's male enrollment is not substantial. Neither is JC's. So them being among the top in many of major sports is impressive. They both seem to get a lot of bang for their buck.
StP used to have a lot of 2-way athletes, but that has fallen off greatly in the past decade or so.
Loyola and CH simply have too many kids to allow a ton of multiple sport athletes. If you go to those schools they ask kids to "focus" on one sport. It saves a roster spot and gives more kids in the school a chance to participate in a sport. I am not a fan of that, but I totally understand why they do it. Good to have more kids involved, I guess.

Completely false statement about Loyola! My son is a 2 sport athlete and is encourage to continue to play both.

Lacrosse has its place among the sports world. For years it was the sport for the decent white athlete who couldn't compete against the 5 Star athletes.

Now, the sport has branched out and lacrosse does have some better athletes, still not even close to the true 5 star athletes, but where else is a 5-10 white guy going to compete and tell us how good he is.

Is there a reason this forum has gone back to the stone age with its forums

Completely false statement about Loyola! My son is a 2 sport athlete and is encourage to continue to play both.

Truth. I have 3 boys there now. There are a bunch of lax guys playing f-ball, soccer and even volleyball. Wrestling, b-ball, too. The boys are encouraged to be multi-sport but, of course, those that aren't playing a Fall sport will play in their Fall Ball activities. This site has so much BS disinformation about all of the local schools. Buncha trolls...

New England West here - this forum YET ANOTHER reason why we're glad we aren't you guys.

That's the opposite of what happened to us.
My son goes to Loyola and was a starter for an winning HoCo AA lax team throughout middle school. He also plays ECNL soccer and it's his favorite sport.
He was told before tryouts he should "probably focus more on soccer" by the soccer coach. He didn't want to give up lacrosse. So he tried out for f/s lacrosse and was surprisingly cut.
Kids on his club lax team (who were behind him on the depth chart, and a couple who didn't play at all) made the team.
I know of at least one other family that had a similar experience.

This sounds more like a talent issue - kids develop differently and just bc they were behind your kid in middle school doesn’t mean that won’t change as they hit the HS years.

If your son was cut from the Loyola F/S team he had no business playing lacrosse...

Not true, he was a starter for his HOCO AA team lol

you're a hammerhead tough guy... they're kids

Actually, at Loyola we are "Men" for others.

In the HOCO club league, AA is the 4th division. There's Elite, AAAA, AAA, and then AA. Starting for a 4th division club team hardly seems like a guarantee of playing anywhere.

700 boys on campus = "male enrollment not substantial." Yeah OK.

Loyola and CHC are not trying to "make spots" for kids to "participate." What are you even talking about.

At the varsity level of the sports that cut players (football, basketball, lax, soccer, baseball), yes, some kids will be asked to focus but most will not. The schools carry large rosters in every sport and many students play 2 sports through 10th and in some cases 11th and 12th grade.

Honestly it sounds like your son was on the bubble in both sports, and the coaches thought enough of him to coordinate and push in my the direction where he'd be more likely to have success (or where the school "needs" him)

Loyola usually keeps 110-ish of 125-150 boys who try out for the 3 lax teams. (CHC is similar, keeping about 95 of 125 on a roster). Honestly I would guess that soccer is more competitive at either school, because a) more kids play it, b) the varsity roster is smaller.

McD has about 300 or less boys in the upper school - you're looking at numbers for K-12

It's not like some schools have 10,000 kids and others have 7. All of the "major" varsity coaches have jobs on the line and if they have to split a kid's time who is a serious contributor, they will and often do.......up to a point.

Looking at these numbers, I think it's actually impressive that the smaller schools are often dominant, it means that if you have 300 upper school boys, and you're MIAA-A, roughly 1/3 of the student body plays lax for the school (at some level). If you are a fan of the sport, that is just really cool. And I think these numbers point out that if you are CHC, LB, or Spalding, there is absolutely no reason for you to be finishing last in any MIAA sport. Ever.

The big boys:
CHC has 1200.
Loyola has 650-750 in the upper school, as high as 775 in 2021 I believe.
Spalding has 600 (boys)

The Rest:
Gilman has 450
John Carroll has 350 (boys).
BL has 300.
St. Pauls has 310.
St. Mary's has 250, sometimes fewer.
McD had 330 in 2021.

McD is not on some island of "Oh my gosh, how do they do it with so little!" But again, shame on the bigger schools for getting beat by these squads relatively frequently. LB's record this year definitely stands out.

It is not how many kids you have, it is what club you align with. McD has the T91MD owners kids. Boys Latin has Crabs. StM has Hawks. Calvert Hall has FCA. The schools need to keep the club owners happy and the club owners need to keep the pipeline of quality kids flowing. Everyone else is fighting for scraps.

Bottom line - people will find the sport where they have opportunities that match up with their abilities. There is always golf and baseball further down on the required athletic abilities list.

Under the current regime it’s “Meh” for others.

Right. That’s why lacrosse and it’s superior athletes earn so much more than golfers and baseballl players.

Made a correction for you on your feeders


Other than MM kids teams 91MD is [Censored]

You've had one too many Ranch Waters on the Back Nine if you realistically think more than 3-4 current high school lax players in MD will ever be professional lax players. Actually you've had too many Grapefruit Crushes if you think any kid you know will go pro in any sport.

Baseball in MD is a joke compared to baseball programs throughout the entire south, especially FL and TX. The odds of a MD HS baseball player getting an MLB contract is along the order of 1/100 of 1 percent. In FL and TX it's about 1 percent.

As for golf, a sport which often doesn't have cuts at MIAA schools, there are roughly 300,000 HS players and 50 pros on tour. I'll let you crunch the numbers on that one.

Way to make a long worthless off topic post.

You have this totally wrong. Starting with BL-the school only participates in a few A conference sports. There are several sports that they don't even field a team for and the rest of the sports they play in B conference.. They pick & choose, while the larger student bodies you mention(CHC, LB, Spalding & you forgot MSJ all play A) So the school is really all about lax as we know. Kids are bought lock stock & barrel-most of roster never sees the field however. McD, John Carroll(Football is B) & Gilman all play A conference sports. StM, StP & Severn are the carpet baggers that that are allowed to play A lax and B in everything else. So when you come on here and say the larger schools should never finish last, lets put all of these schools that are in A lax in the A conference for ALL sports and see who finishes last. Because you have more students, not mean all play sports. Furthermore, those school are trying to compete in A in just about every sport offered-filling many teams. Some smaller schools are sports academies with a school next door....

Way to belabor it.

BL uses lacrosse to fill admissions seats. Don't discount their approach because it's worked extremely well for them. St. Mary's is a parish school which has a similar (lacrosse wise) niche (to BL) in AA County. McD's model is different. They try and recruit the best multi-sport athletes available and are super competitive in almost all of the A Conference sports. Since they are filling so few male slots in 9th grade, they suffer from an ongoing lack of depth across most sports. CHC and MSJ are perennial juggernauts in the A Conference across almost every sport with exception being the Gael Lacrosse Program. For whatever reason MSJ has had issues attracting enough great lacrosse players to be a playoff contender. Loyola just re-joined the A Conference in football and is looking to re-gain its once held prominence in lacrosse.

Loyola plays B conference football. Loyola lost to St. Mary's in football last year. Loyola beat A conference champ Calvert Hall in football last year. None of this has anything to do with lacrosse. Next you'll be talking about which robotics team competes in the top competitions or who has the best It's Academic squad. This is a lacrosse board and your retort to the bigger schools should be better at lacrosse is to say that the smaller schools should be better at all other sports? Strange.

FYI,
LB is playing in the A conference for the 2022 season. I think the comment about smaller schools having success in lax requires a conversation about MIAA sports in general and why that occurs vs. all sports played and the level they are played at. There is a reasons behind success or lack of that should be explored when a comment is made about big school vs. small. There is more to it.

Loyola (1200 boys, A conference FB aspirations) lost to StM (250 boys, solidly B conference for FB) two of the last three years. Draw your own conclusions from that but it is a legit datapoint.

With less than 12 hours until the 2024 class can commit, any predictions and or who’s going to go where? Who’s likely to commit with in 24-48 hours after the midnight mark?

Legit data? Loyola doesn't have close to 1200 boys in both the MS and HS. More like 700-750 in HS. And Loyola is playing FB in A conference this year. Sun has them ranked 5th in preseason rankings. But this is a lacrosse forum, not FB.

Except that Loyola's 900-950 boys (not 1200) cover 6th-12th grade. So much for legit data points.

Ok, let’s try it again…

Loyola (750 boys, A conference FB aspirations) lost to StM (250 boys, solidly B conference for FB) two of the last three years. Draw your own conclusions from that but it is a legit datapoint.

Happy now, Don Nation?

750 in the hs is a ton of boys. They should be at the top of most sports.

Sure. Happy now that LB football has been built back up. The past is over. Money was raised and recruiting is paying off. Lax is looking good now as well. Have you seen the new fields? We'll be eating the Saints ' lunch in lax within 2 years and you wouldn't touch us in FB if you move up to A.