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BL had a dozen boarders living at its school.
How many does McDonough have?

Gilman will have flashes when they are competitive in the future. It will be fun to see, especially success against the schools in the lacrosse arms race. CHC started this whole mess and now it is out of control. Importing/boarding/whatever you want to call it players; and playing against schools comprised largely of local, neighborhood kids cheapens the whole process and is pathetic. You are the St. Frances of lacrosse and look how that worked out.

The correct distinction isn't day vs. boarding, it's day/boarding vs. schools that allow 5th year seniors.

Truth.

Truth.

Best in DC, MD or VA - is that better?

Where can we find the games on the internet this year?
Is Legacy Sports still doing them or CSE doing them?
I hope that doesn't go away

Someone on FB started an MIAA discussion page. They post links to games online

Anyone else surprised by how close the McD/ Zags game was last night? 6-4 final. I expected a little more offense from both teams.

Anyone else surprised by how close the McD/ Zags game was last night? 6-4 final. I expected a little more offense from both teams.

There are two primary ways to build a competitive team; rely on athlete development or use free agency. Obviously, the two can be used in combination as well. Since MLB instituted free agency in the mid 1970s, the game has changed, and the money involved has increased exponentially. Winners: the players and owners. Losers: the fans who pay exorbitant ticket prices, often to watch their team lose to a club with a fat payroll and a winning record based on free agent talent.

League rules attempt to enforce some level of parity in order to keep the competition viable. The NFL has done a pretty good job of this using salary caps, while the other pro sports have succeeded to a lesser degree.

Some lacrosse clubs and high schools develop players, working for years to teach the game and build teamwork. A few players will come and go, but the core of the team play together for years. Most of the successful NY/CT club and school teams do it this way, and this used to be the case in the MIAA, arguably the most competitive HS lacrosse conference around.

The other way to build a roster is to recruit a majority of the team's members, with annual tryouts and cuts, often cutting players who have been with the program for years. This seems to be the way (at least over the past few years) the most successful (in terms of W/L record) Baltimore area lacrosse clubs have constructed their rosters. Now, the MIAA schools are getting into the talent war, with some schools using host families and boarding facilities allowing for out of area recruiting of skilled players from wealthy families.

Those who followed MIAA football over the past 15-20 years can guess where this is headed. Gilman School allowed their football coach to use free agency (as in, free tuition) to recruit out of area standout players to build a roster. The team started winning more games, eventually building a roster that dominated the MIAA. Sure, the winning was fun, and at first everyone was happy. Once the parents who paid full tuition at Gilman started seeing their kids ride the pine while recruited athletes took the field, the newness wore off and the school realized what was going on. Bye Biff!

As MIAA schools increasingly embrace boarding as both a money making endeavor (collecting full pay tuition + room and board, with some schools charging more for out of area kids than they charge local kids) and as a way to strengthen their rosters, parents will go through the same learning process. First, the rah rah - we are winning more games, yay us! Later, once families who have paid full tuition for Johnny or Susie since preschool start seeing more and more out of state recruits take roster spots from their kids, the backlash will begin.

You can bet there are Trustees these days at non-boarding MIAA schools asking their Heads of School whether adding boarding capacity is a way to kill several birds with one stone. Hey, we can get more full pay students, and recruits who will help us win championships and also be top college recruits - what could go wrong? Indeed.

Fair competition should be the main goal of any conference regulating body. Is it fair for a school to recruit from a national talent pool to play against school with a 25 mile recruiting radius? I don't think so. Sadly, I also don't think the MIAA will have the courage to deal with this problem. Did it do anything about Biff's football program? Bueller?

So, the talent wars in MIAA lacrosse have begun. CH, BL, and McD, for example, have boarding facilities and recruit top athletes who also happen to be high school students.

Who is this good for? Is it good for the students? For the ones being recruited, sure. Is it good for the others, who lost a roster spot to someone with rich parents from out of state? Not so much.

Is it good for the school? Maybe early on, but as time goes by, history has shown us that local parents will start to vote with their feet (and their money). Maybe their kid won't be on an MIAA championship team, but at least he will see the field, so they will choose ________ (fill in the non-boarding school here).

We already see the impact money has on MIAA sports, with varsity roster spots given to kids of wealthy/influential families who otherwise would play on JV (oh come on LB, you know this is true). There will be an increasing stratification in the top ranks of the MIAA, between schools that recruit and schools that develop. Will the regulating body step in and do something to ensure fairness across the conferences? Or will the market forces (which comparatively move at a snail's pace) be the only way this all shakes out?

Wow..... You lost me on chapter 7 of this long post

Some intriguing and notable headlines out of the gate for the Spring Season in the MIAA

1. #1 Ranked 2023, top attackman for McDonogh starting off injured. How long will he be out for? Will things heal completely or will he be impacted all season. You think of when CH lost Sunderland for the year and how impactful that was.

2. CH have a new starting goalie? Didn't see the freshman from last year take the field in their first game. Is he injured as well?

3. Heard there may be a devastating injury over at LB, but that they are awaiting results / further clarity.

Any other big headlines out there?

So I guess "Cast not pearls before swine" applies here...

You seriously quoting scripture and the word of Christ on BOC? You might want to get a mental health check.....

If that is really what USA lacrosse considers the difference then that is just silly and splitting hairs. For example in NY Westminster has a DI committed fogo doing a PG year for this upcoming year and Loomis has a committed DI fogo reclassing and repeating his junior year. They're the identical thing to me. If this is the difference between one school being ranked and the other not that's just silly. I know neither are ranked but it would appear that USA Mag would rank one but not the other. IF BL, McD and others are having a dozen or so lax kids boarding, the powers that be should have a prep school ranking and a public school ranking OR just a single ranking system with all schools.

Christ? Who does he play for?

Probably Beth Tfiloh tbh

Academy New Church (PA) defeats St John’s DC 10-9 in OT.

St John’s goes down to ANC; Philly tough!
Keep reclassing

So a precedent has already been set.

In football, The MIAA forced a team with tons of recruits that was bankrolling players, allowing older kids, and boarders to play a “national” schedule and become “independent” in football. They kicked St Francis from competing for miaa championships.

At this point, there are at least 3, maybe 4, lacrosse teams in the conference that are doing exactly what St. Francis did in football.

2. Returning soph CH goalie no longer attends CH.

2. Returning soph CH goalie no longer attends CH.

A precedent has been set.

St Francis got kicked out of the miaa and made to play an independent “national” football schedule because they 1) privately bankrolled one specific sports program, 2) had multiple/numerous kids from outside of the local area, and 3) had older kids on their team.

It supposedly went against the “spirit of the league.”

The last 5 championship winners did all of these things.

Why no action by the MIAA?

Schools have to go to the MIAA with a complaint. For football they all had the same beef with SF. For lacrosse, they are all guilty of doing the same thing. Not going to call another school out when they are also guilty.

That's a rumor and is not true.

One team had beef with StF.

In lacrosse 3 or 4 of 11 are guilty.

Apples and oranges, and I dislike both Biff and lax boarding schools, and not looking to shine a positive light on either. SFA is a top 5 national football team miraculously with 210 total students. The level of recruitment, boarding, and financial aid required to pull that off is an order of magnitude - or more - more substantial than what's going on with boarders at CHC, McD, or even BL.

BL has about 500 HS boys and what, 12 boarders? (Yes I know they plan to have many more). Depending on what counts as a "boarder," what does CHC have, 20-22 out of 1200 HS students? And out of 1500ish kids at McD, 75 are boarders.

Does this have the potential to become a Biff Poggi scale problem? Yes it does. But it isn't yet. No thanks to Biff.

Rumor? I would hope not given his criminal behavior.

I’d be completely shocked if that were a rumor.

BL is both. MIAA needs to deal with McD, BL & CHC now. It will get worse. The right spirit is not present with their collective actions. They can join other leagues…

Let me guess.

Gilman mom?

Pretty sure of the two (?) five day boarders I know of at McD for lax they are both MD residents who didn't want to drive the commute every day (you have to live within 90 miles). Neither are fifth year seniors, and both are MIAA eligible on age. Not sure the epidemic here. Also they've had boarders since 1873. If it's a lacrosse arms race on boarding, they started early!

BL pulling from further away geographically with seven day boarding but they are the outlier. No idea how many kids at CHC coach/family board but it's not usually a large number.

Criminal? Rob some attack of goals?

Not the original poster, but I’ve heard far more serious than that.

FAR! We’ll see how much CHC values its ethics and behavior clauses.

Confirming that CH Goalie is 100% not at school any longer

Hill defeats Calvert Hall 11-7.

Cardinals led 6-4 at halftime,. But were outscored 7-1 in the second half.

Could have been uglier if Hill shot better. CH did not make one save in the second half. Not one. Everything Hill put on goal scored. The only time Hill didn’t score were wide shots or pipes.

Pretty serious anonymous attacks on an easily identifiable kid (who still shows up on their roster btw).

Can’t decide if I hope you’re proven right (in which case I guess the attacks are justified but something bad happened) or wrong (in which case the kid’s name gets dragged through the mud but at least something bad didn’t happen).

Most likely it's John Carroll dad trying to sneak back into the convo. Any opportunity he finds to pop a squat on the bigger schools, he takes.

The boarding trend isn't good for the "culture" or the schools but it's miles away from Biff-Palooza's football shenanigans at either Gilman or SFA. And it has zero to do with why your kid from Fallston was the only one of his friends who didn't get accepted to Calvert Hall.

Signed, LB Dad

And yes, we have our own problems. In spades.