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

Canadian team wins AA bracket at Summer Exposure beating BLC, tie with Predators. Team MD plays in A bracket and loses in final.

BLC beat them the first game Refs were terrible across the tournament

Technically true, but misleading: Preds went 1-3-1 on the weekend, and the tie was after the Canadian team was already guaranteed to make the championship game.

what is there to feel bad for Madlax about? They went 3-1-1 against good teams at an elite tournament. Did something happen or is your point that anything short of 5-0 is a bad showing?

Hawks came out slow and a great Freedom team took advantage.

You cannot make money betting on or against Preds...
Beat FCA White for the 1st time
Lost to BLC for the 1st time
Beat, badly, by HLC 2 weeks after beating HLC in the Hoco semis 3 weeks ago.

It's like probability doesn't exist w them.

I guess one could argue that the 3 wins came in pool play against teams that went a combined 5-10 on the weekend, and the reason they only had one loss was that they got knocked out in the first round of the playoffs so didn’t actually face the stronger teams.

Predicted it two years ago, Predators will be the team to beat soon.

Sorry your son got cut by Preds. Talk of town and on the rise up.

Lets keep it real, Refs werent the reason your sons team lost.

They went 3-1-1 according to Tourney Machine, your post doesn’t make any sense.

Freedom is not a great team. They’re a good team. It’s a bad loss for Hawks, prob came out slow but clearly found their footing. Great team.

Really.
Thunder Blue beat LI Express Chucks Sat am, and then Madlax proceeded to beat them 7-0.
They tied BBL, who also went 3-1-1.
They badly beat Sweetlax Upstate, who beat LI Express and lost by one to 3D NE.

True, but that is nothing new. MadLax has the pull to get easy pool games, and then gets beat in the playoff round when they face the better teams. Same story with the 2027 team. It equates to a lot of tournaments with 4-1 or 3-2 records. I assume their team families are used to it by now.

No they won’t.

But they could realistically surpass 91 MD in a year or two. I’m speaking only about the 28 age.

Yeah, as much as I'd enjoy watching ML collapse like I-95 in Philly, I'd say it's still a bit premature. And honestly, BECAUSE they live in the heads of all the other kids (and their parents) from their 3rd grade - 6th grade constant victory tour, talented kids will keep going to the 2028 team each year, and ML 2028 is likely to be "pretty good" down the homestretch of the next 4 or so years.

I personally view this as a virtue and not a vice, but new kids are not flocking to Madlax 2028. The core of that roster has been the same since they were in third grade.

Spot on!!

After playing them numerous times you can see most of their top players are AAA players. After that big drop off to A/B players. That combined with a huge roster of players isn't a recipe for success. Teams with a lot of success (FCA, Hawks, Madlax, Next Level, even HLC) all have A and B teams with roughly 20 kids on the roster. 91 and Predators should take a lesson from these programs.

Is there any reason to believe that the DCE 28 team will be any good considering how BLC struggled in HOCO and the DCE 27 team is abysmal?

WOW! Who wore the nicest socks?

No. They probably will continue to pick off bottom of the roster ML and NL kids. But those additions won’t change competitiveness much.

Step 1--hang on to their good players
Step 2--upgrade the coaching
Step 3--add new players (preferably by poaching from Madlax and NL by offering more PT)

Step 1 already in progress, Step 2 happening (no dad coaches for DCE). Big key will be Step 3. Yeah BLC "struggled" in HOCO but NL was only two wins better than them and I'm sure there's sizable amount of players on that team that would love to be starters. No matter what DCE 2028 will be playing Hoco Elite next spring and they go to good tournaments so if you're more about getting your kid developed and seen on a bigger stage versus W/L then it could be a good spot. If you're already starting and happy at NL/ML then no need to move. There's also potentially some kids at the AAA level that are ready to move up.

Who do you think are great teams?

But the numbers were correct, right?

They won only pool games against what looks like a very weak pool based on the fact that the pool teams (including ML) went 2-7-1 in bracket play against teams from other pools.

Is DCE declining? Is Anzelone still running the show and if not, isn’t that a problem?

Including the 5th grader that they used to beat 3rd graders.

@welcometoyouthsports

Some of you should give this a look after you’re done arguing over what 7th grade team stacked with 14 year olds is better. Maybe one of your kids will be on there soon.

Also, check out his followers.

This has to be one of he most ridiculous and ignorant responses I have seen on here in a long time. Don’t bother looking it up. I did it for you.

Cheating: act dishonestly or UNFAIRLY IN ORDER TO GAIN AN ADVANTAGE, especially in a game or examination.

If that’s not the definition of a holdback or reclass or whatever you people want to call them, I don’t know what is.

Short memory. Madlax won NAL and NLF last summer. Went 10-0 in those events, beat Venom, 2Way etc among the way… not saying they’re still the same team, but it’s not like they’re in oblivion

They have not added an impact player since 47 came along 3 years ago. Not one. No parents in the DMV will let their kids play for that team… they’re slowly hemorrhaging players to NL and BLC

Leaving out these silly all star teams, the great teams are Hawks, Venom, Express North, 2Way,
Next tier down is BBL, Madlax, Freedom, 3D NE, FCA MD, Leading Edge, Texas Nationals
Third tier is Next Level, Dukes, Sweetlax FL, Mad Dog West, Thunder Blue, Laxachussetts, LI Express, Crabs

Top Natjonal Teams are Red Hots, West Coast Starz, JM3, Nations Best, Sweetlax Navy

One year’s team seems like too small sample size to judge and entire program. The 2025 and 2026 DCE teams are both very good, so you might be reading too much into the 2027 results.

Adding non-starters from NL and ML won’t change the BLC/DCE trajectory. BLC’s problem is that they have a roster full of good lacrosse players that aren’t top level athletes. The better hope is that they unearth a couple of high level athletes and hope that is enough with coaching improvements to get them more competitive with the elite programs. But the most likely result next year is a similar level team as the current BLC team (albeit with some new faces) that can beat HoCo AAA level teams, but really struggles against the top elite teams.

The other scenario that could improve DCE would be if some of the impact Madlax players left to Next Level (or vice versa) and the remaining Madlax/NL starters jumped ship to DCE, but that seems really unlikely. NL and ML rosters seem fairly stable among starters and neither team offers a sure upgrade so I bet we seem mostly the same starting lineups for NL and ML next year.

The owner of that site is a lowlife. Personally attacking kids .. KIDS.. who are just playing a game utilizing the current rules. person.

They've changed the rules for 2029. The same rule is still in place for 2028. They are within the current rule. You people whining bring more detest and derision upon yourselves than any of the kids you attack. You attack KIDS. And the moderators of this pathetic forum allow KIDS to be attacked. Shame on you.

Not a bad list but I gotta think FCA Blue should be in tier 1. I think they are a tick better than the tier 2 teams and at the tail end of tier 1.

There are some really good players at 28 in this region. Will be interesting to see where they end up in high school.

DCE is not the same caliber as the other teams in HoCo Elite this year. They are still a top-10 team in the DMV. "Abysmal" is a ridiculous way to describe them.

Which ones ? The ones that should already be in high school next year?