CageSage- Thanks again for moderating. Great board! Interested to take up youth team age issues raised by posters. Age, not class year, is the relevant measure of physical advantage, in my opinion. I draw a distinction between youth teams and high school (HS) teams. 2017, or freshman, is our youngest HS team in Virginia. Our youth teams are set according to USLacrosse age guidelines: U13: Born on or after 9/1/00 See bottom of Page 1: http://www.uslacrosse.org/portals/1/documents/pdf/participants/players/2014-boys-youth-rules.pdf We do not set youth teams by class year, although an u13 AA team is likely all 7th graders (2019), and maybe young 8th graders, with a couple of talented 6th graders possibly sprinkled in. 2yrs per age group; U9, U11, U13, U15. I had never heard of U12 or U14 before finding this board. A comparison of ages of U13 or 2019 youth teams drawn from CageSage’s response to my previous post: LI: In WashDC: 12/1/99 or older are U15 or HS 12/01/99 - 08/31/00 ... Class of 2018 ... 8th Grade .... U/14; U15 in WashDC 09/01/00 - 11/30/00 ... Class of 2018 ... 8th Grade .... U/13; U13 in WashDC
12/01/00 - 08/31/01 ... Class of 2019 ... 7th Grade .... U/13; U13 in WashDC 09/01/01 - 11/30/01 ... Class of 2019 ... 7th Grade .... U/12; U13 in WashDC
12/01/01 - 08/31/02 ... Class of 2020 ... 6th Grade .... U/12; U13 in WashDC 8/31/02 or younger is U11 (or U9) in Washington. The ages are very close, but on Long Island our U13AA Orange team would lose its oldest members; those born in September, October and November of 2000. There is no doubt that losing these oldest players would significantly weaken our team. These kids are mostly 7th graders here as our school ages run 10/1 to 9/30 according to state established guidelines. At the youth level, there is nothing sinister going on here, just kids that are in school together playing sports together. It seems odd that there is a 3 month discrepancy per class VA to LI. I am not sure why in practice we differ, except that perhaps our kids start 1st grade earlier. There may be exceptions, but in my experience, within the NPYLL the USLacrosse age guidelines are followed. This is true for all NPYLL teams, even those in Baltimore area—Crabs, Breakers, Hawks, etc. Enforcement is an open question, but it is hard to believe that paid coaches at for-profit clubs would turn a blind eye to discrepancies. Older (and younger) kids routinely play out of class (and age group) because of birthdates that fall outside the guidelines. As it is at the youth level, DC and NPYLL teams hold a narrow age advantage over LI teams since we are up to 3 months older. With reclassings (B.S. in my book), HS may be a completely different story, particularly at the privates. Unfortunately, this reasoning also does not explain Jr’s team getting smoked by the Dune Dogs ;-) -VaLaxDad
