US Lacrosse Community Forum Forums MID-ATLANTIC LACROSSE MARYLAND FORUM Boys 2028 Grads - Mid Atlantic Region

My Opinion ..... Please Read.......This is gospel ...

If you want you son to have a chance at playing for a top D1 program....

If you want your son to have a great youth career....

If you want your son to be a starter as a Freshman or Soph .....

HOLD THEM BACK EARLY OR DO A PREFIRST

Not always true. But it does help.

My son is on age.
Played up in A in 6th grade (against 7th graders)
Played AA on age his 7th grade year.
Played AAA on age last year in 8th grade.
Going to win an miaa championship for St Paul’s Varsity this year.

No they didn't.

Except this doesn’t work if your kid stinks

I forgot that it's that time of year when all the 9th grade dads predict their sons will make varsity in March.

Having sent two sons through MIAA schools, here is the general breakdown
8th grade elite starters - make varsity in 9th grade (rarely more than 6 per school, per year). 1-2 will contribute per team per year.
8th grade elite 2nd and 3rd line, AAAA and AAA starters - make JV in 9th grade as starters
8th grade AAAA and AAA backups - make up the JV bench in 9th grade
8th grade A, AA, and rec/new players - either plan on the Fresh/Soph team or are encouraged to pick another sport. A few make JV.

There is definitely some gray area and overlap (partly because club coaches are not the best talent evaluators, to say the least) but in general terms if your kid was "the best kid in AA in 8th grade" he is probably not going to make varsity as a freshman. Not in public school either.

I guess AAA starters in 8th grade could make St Pauls Varsity.

It’s St Pauls.

And this is what's wrong with youth lacrosse. Your kid stinks and couldn't hang with the on-age kids. Tell him to the hit the squat rack next time.

You're missing the point. A kid who stinks is never playing college lacrosse at any level whether he holds back or not. But if your son's goal is to play D1 lacrosse (or even D2 or D3) he has the best shot if he holds back, AND is naturally great athlete, AND works hard on improving himself outside of team practices by hitting the weight room, the wall, etc. Of course there are exceptions, such as the St. Paul phenom with the proud Dad who posted earlier. But if you look at the rosters of the top college D1, the majority of players do have the trifecta of holdback, lots of natural ability, and hard work.

Good point, but 4 years of playing D1, D2 or D3 lacrosse doesn't last forever and they certainly don't pay the bills.

All this is true.

Man I wish my kid loved a less weak sauce sport where playing down was rewarded.

Def a SAD sport when kids have to play down to be the best. I look forward to walking by the the holdback parents at tournaments this year. They always look so embarrassed and ashamed.

Nobody said that it did. The benefits of being a lacrosse star (holdback or not) is a college admissions advantage, the self-confidence and prestige that comes with being a varsity athlete, a peer group of like-minded and committed teammates, and coaches who hopefully are good role models. And, if your son is a class act while in college, lacrosse is a small world that will likely provide life long friendships and maybe business connections. Scholarship money is not what it is cracked up to be - 12.6 scholarships spread among 30-40 players in division 1, and zero in Divisions 2 and 3. If your son works hard enough to get some modest D1 scholarship money, you should be incredibly proud of him, but it probably will not surpass the thousands that you paid for travel teams, private coaching, hotels, etc. from age 8 to 18. So nobody should be in lacrosse for a career or to pay bills - but if you want all the advantages, prestige, and fun of playing college lacrosse, the prior post is correct that holding back is a good move, like it or not.

You sound like an angry person. Just saying.

Really? for the record, I am the Dad of three lacrosse players, one holdback and two not, and my holdback was for reasons unrelated to lacrosse, and at least today, is not the strongest of the three. But I find your statement that holdback parents are "ashamed" on the sidelines hard to believe. Parents on the same team have a lot of interaction (good and bad) and not once have I seen somebody's holdback status be a source of embarrassment or shame within the same team. And parents of opposing teams have plenty of interaction too (good and bad) but nobody knows the age or school year of opposing teams, so parents could not be ashamed in front of opposing parents even if they were so inclined. And, trust me, the best players are not necessarily the holdbacks. So if anybody is embarrassed or ashamed at lacrosse tournaments, it is the parents of the weaker players or the kids sitting on the bench (holdback or not), but honestly I have never noticedwuth8 embarrassment on the sidelines by anybody at all. Just curious, how do you recognized an embarrassed parent - do they wear a paper bag over their head?

I thought The Circuit was on age? There 28s are U-14. Same racket.

Holdback parents can’t be embarrassed because they have no shame. They are like the PED users. Holdbacks live by the motto. If you’re not cheating you’re not trying.

Any predictions for Sweet 16 this weekend?

The circuit isn’t on age. They made up a date cutoff so the summer birthday 2009s can be considered on age - which they aren’t.

And besides they made “exceptions.” There will be 14 year olds playing.

It would be a bad look for NL if they don’t win it.

Lacrosse has the biggest whiners in all of sports. Holy LaxinItUp.

Oh my god...that kid is 22 days older than my kid. Oh, that other kid is 33 days older than mine.

Wait until high school.

What a bunch of whining pansies.

'

Agreed on everything above . . . but at least they are validating that the kids in the 7th grade bracket are in the 7th grade. They are collecting report cards and birth certs. Then they will validate rosters before the game similar to soccer - at least that's what we're being told to expect.

Is it perfect, no. But it's a step in the right direction. The infrastructure has to be in place to capture and validate ages before these tourneys can enforce any age restrictions.

True Chesapeake will get clobbered. All other games should be close.

LI Express wins it. Freedom are tough. No idea if Sweetlax Upstate is any good. NL beat Sweetlax FL in Colorado fairly easily. Who is True Chespaeake? Those True teams change names/acquire other clubs so often it's hard to tell.

True is having an open tryout to fill their 2028 World Series Team: https://truelacrossemd.leagueapps.c...day-tryout--2028s-born-after-912009-only

Hawks dropped out for some reason so one would think Madlax should be able to win it fairly easily
They only got stronger with BLC additions.

Wrong thread sounds like 29 talk

Why is MadLax 2028 not playing? All their other teams seem to be there.

Because over half the team plays tackle football and wouldn't be able to make the tournament.

Can't they just backfill with some tennis players? I hear they're superior athletes.

It’s a joke unfortunately, sure you have to verify online that your kid is of age but anyone can show up and play and NOBODY checked.
So you can have a roster online but you can show up with a completely different team and nobody will know. Nobody asks. Nobody verifies. They were definitely older kids in that tournament this weekend.

Isn't that why Madlax has a DMV team? To allow that roster growth and opportunities to play better competition at some point? No, Madlax protects their "ranking" by not playing. The ranking system they helped develop is now actually hurting the club. You can see it from the 26's down.

DMV team was already playing in another MD tournament.

Who told you that?
That’s not at all why Madlax has a dmv team - or any other clubs That have B teams.

What are you talking about clown? Over 10 kids would have missed it due to Football. Not 2 or 3.

3rd place in group play, knocked out of the winners bracket on the first game Sunday, two losses to LI Express and squeaked past True Chesapeake in the consolation game Sunday, 5-4. Last in goals scored over the two days, third (out of six teams) in goals against.

If you are watching a team that closely that your son is not on, you have issues.

I mean, it's all on Tourney Machine, so didn't really require high level research. I follow all the Hoco elite teams in the 28 division, plus some of the other big teams nationwide. Generally that's the subject of conversation in this thread.

My son goes to school with a bunch of NL players. They have told him that something isn't clicking with the team right now. It's 7th grade gossip, but they are all pretty tight.

One thing I've come to realize with multiple kids going thru this process is that on any given team like 5-7 families will be pretty happy, maybe 5-10 more will be neutral, and the rest will be upset about something. The real issues occur when the last group grows to become the majority of the team.