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

NL is on the rise Will be top 3

Also pre-season Elite rankings (channeling Bored MD Lax Dad):

1. Hawks
2. MadLax
3. New Crabs
4. Next Level (tie)
4. FCA (tie)
6. BLC
7. True Chesapeake
8. 91 MD OR Kelly Post

I wish a Philly team or two would come down

Be so much better to see Dukes or Freedkm instead of BLC and True. I saw we give 91 MD their shot.

Agree. It looks like top 4 teams as of now in this order are FCA Blue, Next Level, Hawks, Crabs. Then Madlax, BLC, True Chesapeake and probably 91 (Who will struggle in Elite).

1. Hawks - earned it based on past performance. Fall has been weirdly bad. Will probably figure it out.
2. FCA - team appears to be loaded. Hasn’t been tested much this fall though.
3. Next Level - solidly unimpressive fall but largely the same team.
4. Madlax - even more unimpressive than NL this fall. Will see in the spring what happens.
5. Crabs - the new crabs appear to be performing about the same as the old crabs.
6. BLC - welcome to not cellar dwelling.
7. True - this team will have a varied roster of kids throughout HoCo and the summer. It probably won’t matter much.
8. 91 MD - someone has to slot here and they appear to be better than Team MD.

Thanks FCA dad

Spot on!
AAA.
1. Team MD (Returning Champs, struggled this fall)
2. Blue Claws (Did they get better or worse? They didn't play anyone relevant)
3. VLC (Won AAA last year so moving up. Remember no AAAA this year)
4. FCA White (Right where they belong)
5. Team Money (Mainly rely on 2-3 players. Usually need more than that to play at this level)
6. Sidewinders (Killed mediocre teams this fall). Have gotten better
7. Wolfpack (Are they still around?)
8. HLC (Not sure if they played this fall?)

Not arguing w the rankings but why wouldn't Team Maryland get promoted to Elite if they won AAAA last spring? Where did Team 91 MD finish and in what division?

Team MD was annihilated by Crabs and lost to VLC.

Team 91 MD is better than they were this past spring so where they finished doesn’t really matter for this season upcoming.

And with that same logic, I assume Next Level Red would get promoted to AAA since they won the AA HOCO league last year and have already had a pretty decent Fall season.

91 came in 3rd in AAAA, but their club director insists they need to be elite ASAP. To their credit, they seem to be improved this fall.

Seems like both Blue Claws and Wolfpack lost some key talent. Saw Blue Claws play this weekend and they looked AAA level or even AA level against A-level competition (who they soundly beat). They don't look like Blue Claws of Spring 2021 or Spring 2022. They DO look like a VLC or Sidewinders or dare I say Predators, who just tied BLC and beat themselves pitifully (passes out of bounds, bad clears, etc) when losing to FCA White by 1.

This actually was the Hoco league policy for several years. #1 seed moves to next league, #last moves down a league. Whether we are talking "elite" or "B" level.

I'm very interested to see who (which club's director) fumes about there being a "B" league this coming spring.......because they put up so much of a fuss last year that the ridiculous AAAA league was created, rather than having a B league at the bottom, so everyone could be "A" and above.

I'm betting on the HoCo club director, Zingos director, or True Director. Bet we'll find out in the coming weeks!

All that said, NL Red would be a bad look for 2023's AAA. They should be promoted from Fake AA (2022) to Real AA this year.

Next Level is awful. Horrible summer, literally didn’t beat a top 20 team got blown out several times by the likes of 2Way. Have had a poor fall as well— I think they lost a game yesterday by 7-8 goals. Haven’t beat anyone of significance since last April.

The team to beat around here is FCA. Couple of key holdbacks, including 2027 FCA’s best player #14 he is legit. Picked up a few other horses as well. They’ll be tough to beat come spring.

Madlax has had a rough fall missing goalie and 6-7 players every weekend to football. But they had the best summer by far with full squad, beat 2Way, Venom, 3D New England, BBL, Ex North and LIE MULTIPLE TIMES. Only losses were one goal losses to Hawks, NXT, and BBL. They’ll be ready for HoCo.

Hawks were bad this fall too, likely missing a bunch of players. Can’t explain some of those losses otherwise. Gotta assume they were short players, unless they had a mass exodus?? They should be back for HoCo.

Crabs— nope. They got rolled this weekend by a mid level team. Not there yet.

FCA top of the stack after Fall Ball. And there is separation above the rest.

-Not an FCA Dad

ML dad here. Agree re FCA. They were always a good team, but they are a great team now.

Will Madlax have its out of state players for spring?

Seems they are .500 at best without them against elite competition in tournaments.

What’s with the new crabs talk? Is there team really that different than last year?

Agree that NextLevel does not seem to have much - can someone explain how they beat MadLax twice last spring and won HoCo?

Short answer is faceoffs.

If it is league policy for the last team to move down, how has BLC remained elite after consecutive years coming in last?

Maybe NL is suffering from the same reason ML is having such a dismal season — football? But I suspect that ML’s issues are systemic. Hard to tell at this point, but I guess we’ll see.

BLC didn't finish last in Fall 2022, they finished 6th (out of 8). Bottom 3 (BLC, True, KP) all finished 1-6 but there were some tiebreakers going on.

Fall 2021 they did indeed finish last, so no idea how they stayed up.

The only team that beat NL in HoCo regular season was Hawks--and NL had lead in that game with time expiring but took ill-advised shot when they could have easily bled the clock to 0:00. Lost by a goal in OT. 8-1 overall HoCo record and championship in 2022, but keep telling yourself "they don't have much."

Waiting for the following game I saw NL Red get shellacked at an early fall Aloha tourney by a Sidewinders team that had one high quality player and nothing else worth noting. Fwiw, that kid was big, strong and fast with good stick skills who just beat up on whatever NL threw at him, but to call the Sidewinders vastly improved is way off, which means, by extension, NL Red is appropriately AA or A or whatever they're calling it now.

Faceoffs were a big problem for MadLax in their two HoCo Spring 2022 games vs. NL. But their three overall HoCo losses came in two different ways. Two early season losses to Hawks (5-9) and NL (4-5) were offensive struggles. They clearly are capable of much more offensively, even against tough defenses like NL and Hawks. But the playoff game vs. NL was not as close as the 15-12 score indicates. And, yes, faceoffs were dominated by NL. But NL also pretty much scored at will. MadLax scored some [Censored] time goals against NL's backup goalie to almost get within striking distance (yes, it was so out of hand that NL put in its backup early in second half). So NL was forced to re-insert the starting goalie and other starters to close things out. Odd game. MadLax is much better defensively than they played that day.

On NL's tournament struggles specifically, I don't think much has been said about NL using short bench during HoCo (once a week games in spring) and having a tougher time in tournaments with multiple games on same day. Could explain their uneven performance. Also, NL director probably under pressure to give PT to non-starters after leaning heavily on core players during HoCo.

Sounds to me like you participated in the very same “early fall Aloha tournament.” Which means you finished somewhere BELOW NL Red. Congrats! And I hope your son is also enjoying “AA or A or whatever they are calling it these days.” Try not to be such a donk and try to remember that this is 7th grade lacrosse.

I watched Crabs play twice this fall. They definitely improved at attack. All three starters are athletic and have decent size. Otherwise, seems like the same team. I’d be surprised if they don’t score more goals this year.

Ok you're right, they didn't get shellacked, it was D1 level greatness all day long. And yeah it IS middle school lax, so why on earth would you set them up for beating after weekly beating and moving them from where they seem appropriately placed? Sadist.

Who are the out of state kids at Madlax? You keep referring to them? How many are there, what positions do they play? We saw Madlax at NLF and I don’t think they had any out of state kids but may be wrong?

You sound like someone who will not be playing elite anytime soon or at all. It starts now, sorry to burst your bubble

I heard someone mention the phrase holdback? You keep referring to them? How many are there, what positions do they play? 'We' saw Madlax-Fall 28 play at NAL and I don't think 'they' had any but may be wrong?

Guess not

Troll attempt. There are absolutely holdbacks/pre-first/started at age 7/whatevers at almost every team from A to Elite in MD. That's the way things are.

You sound like someone who will not be playing elite anytime soon or at all. It starts now, sorry to burst your bubble[/quote]

Ok so you know those nice kids who just like to play lax got shellacked by a mediocre AAA team and take from that that elite athletes are created by such beatings. Which means you don’t realize that the statistical odds of any of those NL Red kids - indeed, any kid at 12/13 playing A/AA/AAA ball ends up on the other side of puberty as an elite lax player are perhaps at best slightly better than winning Powerball. So rather than urge you to embrace the likely very nice kid you have for who he is, I surrender. You’re right, you’ve got Jim Thorpe over there. A whole team of em just waiting for enough abuse to emerge. I do hope there’s at least a decent inheritance at the end of that kid’s dark tunnel.

Ok so you know those nice kids who just like to play lax got shellacked by a mediocre AAA team and take from that that elite athletes are created by such beatings. Which means you don’t realize that the statistical odds of any of those NL Red kids - indeed, any kid at 12/13 playing A/AA/AAA ball ends up on the other side of puberty as an elite lax player are perhaps at best slightly better than winning Powerball. So rather than urge you to embrace the likely very nice kid you have for who he is, I surrender. You’re right, you’ve got Jim Thorpe over there. A whole team of em just waiting for enough abuse to emerge. I do hope there’s at least a decent inheritance at the end of that kid’s dark tunnel.[/quote]
👍

👍[/quote]

You know you are at peak BOTC when Angry Lax Dad is so anxious to rip a NL B team he posts the same thing twice.

Ok so you know those nice kids who just like to play lax got shellacked by a mediocre AAA team and take from that that elite athletes are created by such beatings. Which means you don’t realize that the statistical odds of any of those NL Red kids - indeed, any kid at 12/13 playing A/AA/AAA ball ends up on the other side of puberty as an elite lax player are perhaps at best slightly better than winning Powerball. So rather than urge you to embrace the likely very nice kid you have for who he is, I surrender. You’re right, you’ve got Jim Thorpe over there. A whole team of em just waiting for enough abuse to emerge. I do hope there’s at least a decent inheritance at the end of that kid’s dark tunnel.[/quote]

I'm a third party in this confusing (on both sides) argument but it depends on what you mean by elite.

And just for fun, and to irritate the 3rd line elite-adjacent dads here, If you look at the horse trading that took place in Baltimore during tryouts this year, you would know that AAA/AAAA starters are basically interchangeable with 2nd and 3rd line elite kids - as angry as it makes the elite-adjacent parents. Kids on AAA teams (a few of them) are playing on national teams that are full of players from Hawks, Laxachusetts, 91 National, and so on. People are crowing about the improvement to Crabs and yet the two notable players they picked up were the #1 offensive mid from FCA White and the #3/4 attackman from Predators.

That said and to your point, the gulf between elite starters and AAA bench warmers is substantial and you're right, it's probably growing. And aside from the weird outcomes this fall, normally putting those AAA teams on the field against top elite talent isn't good for anybody.

I'd like to see most teams go 2-1, 1-1-1, or 1-2 at tournaments in all honesty. It tells you the boys are at the correct level of competition. Going 4-0 at an Aloha event is as much of a waste of time as going 0-4 at Naptown.....and tells me the coach or club director isn't looking at the right priorities for the team.

👍[/quote]

Nobody tell this guy that there are kids from Breakers and Zingos and Rough Riders playing MIAA A varsity at some of the nation's most respected HS programs.

All this from the simple question, “does HOCO promote the winner of AA to the AAA?” I heard this forum was a cess pool but goodness this is bad. Angry Lax Dad, just relax. You are clearly an Elite level troll and have a bright future.

Good article but a year away. The Circuit did it after 1 meeting and there were plenty of teams. June 1 date with 3 exceptions per team.

I think it could be even tighter with age and class verification. I think you could have rosters based on the 1st of every month. Every kid is the oldest or youngest on a team during the course of the year. It might even settle down some of the angry coaches by forcing them to actually coach instead of giving it to the big kid.