Madlax had a kid who was a 26 last year play on their 27 National team at Naptown this summer. He’s reclassing to 27, but Naptown doesn’t allow kids who didn’t play 27 during the school year play 27 in their summer tournament. It was discovered after the first day of games, and the kid had to stop playing.
The kid was a defender - a pretty good one - but not really a game changer. notIntelligent and embarrassing, but I don’t think there was an intent to cheat.Next Level mom has gotten a lot of traction out of it though.
No tournaments allow this practice and haven't for several years. If it makes you feel better, Naptown had the worst cheating from any tournament ever. This tournament was the one pushing NLF and now everyone else into going to an age based system. Hogan was told about ML, started to look at many of the teams and concluded he wouldn't have a 2nd day if he started forfeiting teams.
I wish you were right.
I haven't seen this type of "haven't held back yet" cheating in the DMV but it is rampant in LI, WNY, and CT with the boarding school kids. Saw it with S2S and Igloo? maybe. They hold them back early elementary age in lacrosse (for the parents' ego) and then do the actual academic holdback in 8th grade. And unlike MD elementary / middle school holdback parents who shout "holdbacks are fine, it's within the rules" but also hide the fact that THEIR kid is a holdback, the NY and CT parents are quite open about it - similar to how MIAA parents are open about it, once Jonny makes varsity and it's a better look.
Also, some of the lower level tournaments (including some MDLX events) have a proffer for allowing teams into events based on the AVERAGE AGE OF THE PLAYERS AS LONG AS THE TOTAL DIFFERENCE IS TWO YEARS (for 2028, that would be ages 12-14 on most teams at this moment). Yes this is meant to encourage rec travel teams who use "14U" and "U14" to sign up and send a check, but I've personally seen it blatantly abused by the types of teams you have never heard of until you get to the event, like Black Bear (PA) and 757 Select (VA).
Yep, 2Way is notorious for this practice… their best 2027 player (#8) played down on the 2028 team all last summer and dominated. He was telling kids that he was going to reclass to Brunswick in the fall (and even if it had, it violates this rule). But it never happened. Fortunately, he and his team got rolled in the championship game at NLF.
His parents are a coaches' nightmare..the kid is nice enough.. Then again, the parents there are all LI Storm the Capitol types so maybe nobody cares.
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