Anybody doing the APEX Youth Games? Did not see a ton of players from the Big 5 Baltimore clubs even though it's right up the road at Cedar Lane. Any past experiences with it?
Daughter is a 2029 on her second day of Apex. Short story: don’t waste your money with Apex.
Apex is $850 plus a cash grab of $150 to be “evaluated as an all American” plus a cash grab of $150 for game film. Plus pressure to book the hotel through their mandatory link (which adds more than $200 to the hotel price with “taxes and fees” over booking directly. So a $550 Two night hotel would be closer to $750).
Apex is no more than quickly assembling teams and playing a tournament with them. There’s a two hour block of 7v7 drills to familiarize the girls with each other, but nothing that comes close to a learning experience. The coaching is among the most disinterested/uninvolved coaching I’ve ever seen. In fact, my kid said that her day one coaches will be replaced on day two due to other engagements. I thought I recalled seeing information about college coach exposure and recruitment at some of the age levels. There are zero signs of that. Zero signs of it attracting any kind of publicity from lacrosse publications also. With hours between games, the coaches simply walk away from the kids rather than saying “hey, let’s learn a play we can implement in the next game.” The level of play on the field is atrocious. It’s nowhere near travel tier. Anyone on one of the top 30 teams will standout as being far better than anyone else. There are basically zero defensive players registered in this experience, so every possession is a girl running up the field and shooting on goal while girls who regularly play middie and attack fill in for defensive positions and get called on shooting space and 3 second violations on nearly every possession. Or the even more classic “get the ball, everyone chase her, and she’ll eventually run into a block of players instead of passing to the number 3 attacker in the country standing open in front of goal.”
This experience is worth the price of a regular tournament that you’d play with your travel team, so $150. Could possibly justify $150x2. This price tag is absolutely insane, but you’ll pay it because of its viral marketing strategy of posting cool pics of the registrants with bursts of color behind them. There are no signs that this is any better for 2028’s. I don’t remember it being disclosed that 2029 and 2030 were combined, but they were. And that’s annoying. Especially when 30’s that aren’t any good are given field time as a matter of routine. Fields are short. Quarters are 9 minutes.
How would I improve this?
Make it invite only, or invite predominant- where defense is recruited for the event. Call invitees “star players” and send the invites to top teams. They’ll bite. Fill the gaps with general signups.
Offer clinics throughout the day. (Backer defense 101, goalie clearing, setting up offense, etc)
Create an agenda of potential meetups for kids at the hotel or at the field pavilion.
Give the coaches a Red Bull and ask them to reduce the “lacrosse bro swag” and teach the kids a thing or two.
Set up team tents and campout areas
OR—just lower the price point and keep things as it is
Don’t have any FOMO over this event.
