Originally Posted by Anonymous
Originally Posted by Anonymous


I give a lot of credit to WM, especially their coaching. My son plays for Northport and we played them in the 2nd round of the playoffs last year. It was 5-3 at the half and we were right in the game when they came out the 2nd half, made some adjustments and just blew the doors off. We never won another face-off and they just kept coming. Funny is when we played them during the regular season, it was pretty much the same scenario. We were right i the game when they just made some changes and although we only lost 12-8, we still lost regardless. A lot to be said for really smart coaching that knows how to use their players.



I think that you make a valid point about a good program and them making adjustments yet I also believe it has to do with depth of a program. Could it be that your players were playing at their absolute best and 110% of their ability during the first half and in the second didnt have much left in the tank. Great players and teams know when and how to play at 110% when it counts. When a program has more depth they have the ability to run more players at 110% over a longer period of time. As a result as the game moves on they start to separate themselves from the teams that are not as deep. Their star player played 15 min at an average of 90% where your star players played the whole half at 110%. The only reason that this occurs is that they have a few more players at each position they can put in that are not that much of a drop off from the 1st line. As a result they can rest their players just enough that they are fresh in the second half. This not a knock on your program but an observation from watching a lot of lacrosse and seeing teams that looked evenly matched in first half of games then have one of the teams blow the other out in the second half.[/quote]

You make a good point that gets overlooked a lot when people label players from teams as being not as good as other , and it probably translates more in club than HS, especially within the whole A, B, etc thing. At any age, there are top teams that no one argues are the best, and then there are other teams that are dismissed as not being at the same level, and those teams' players are explicitly categorized as such as well, even when such a team plays that top team to a near tie for one half of a game. In reality, many of the top 10 out on the field for the lesser team are right on par with the top team's 10, but it is the depth of the top team that creates the difference.[/quote]


Really in HS it's the coaching that makes the difference. Can the Coach make the adjustments? Or does he just yell at the kids to play harder and execute on what he wants them to do... So much depends on those adjustments. For example: if a team's defense continues to get beat on man to man? Can the Coach switch to a zone and shut the opposing team's O down? Or will he just scream and have his players continue to chase their man and get beat? Does he have the ability to adjust on offense. Can he go to a match up game when you're motion offense is struggling? Can he use his best players in more creative ways to generate points? Will he run his best guys into the ground? When clearly there are kids on the sideline that can fill specific roles to give the best guys a breather? If he has 15 D1 commits maybe he doesn't have to worry about these things? Most teams do not have such luxuries. So in the end it comes down to how effective/creative the coach can be with the players he's got. We've all heard on here how bad these coaches are at using the talent they have. Team's with 20+ D1 commits that can't beat other teams with far less talent. It's the same stories every year. It always comes back to Coaching, or lack there of.

[/quote]

How many high school coaches even know what you are talking about. Lol. Most coaches do not have the experience or abilities to make the changes you mention. There are a few schools that have them and they are lucky. I dont know of many high schools that have the luxury of having teams deep enough to make the adjustments you mention either. There are rare instances where a high school will have the perfect mix of talent and coaching. This is a very rare situation and doesn't happen often.

I think if this were club ball we could talk about zones, slides and offense and defensive sets all day long. Most high school teams have a handful go lacrosse players and the majority of their players just play lacrosse. I hope people understand the difference.

Now if a team has 20 + D1 commits and the can't win a long island championship, then there is a problem with coaching.