Sounds a lot like the soccer landscape in SoCal. The elite clubs like Surf, Blues, Slammers get elite talent regardless of which coach is assigned. The next tier clubs get girls with high ceilings and/or average athleticism with excellent fundamentals, and coaching is what keeps them knocking on the door for the "super brackets" that everyone is striving to get accepted into for recruiting purposes.
I am hopeful that some of the better Western teams (Mad Dog West Elite, Team 180, Tenacity, Grit Dallas etc) can make more trips out East and have some success so that they might change the perception a little about Western lacrosse, and also get them an occasional invite to play against the M&D Black/Hero's/YJ/Monster (ie top 10) caliber teams. Right now it seems the best we typically gain access to is the top 10-20 teams, which is still awesome and significantly better than what we routinely see west of the Mississippi. The problem is that historically, other than the handful of Western teams mentioned above, there is not much depth, so typically when an average Western team comes out it either gets smoked or is placed in a very weak bracket.
At this point, I believe you will rarely, if ever see all the "Dream Teams" in the same pool. Most of the tournaments at 2024 and older are a "showcase" structure with the pools looking like they were seeding for a playoff bracket, except there isn't any playoffs. Therefore, you'll see one or two higher caliber teams in a pool with substantially weaker teams. I believe much of it has to do with politics and money. You cant have Super AAA Club beating Rockstar AAA club and then losing to Jedi Masters AAA - it's bad for business for all of them so the clubs don't want to risk the loss. They'd rather play weaker teams, go 3-0 and claim they're the best without ever having to put their money where their mouth is. At least, that is my opinion on what the girls lacrosse landscape looks like.
