US Lacrosse Community Forum Forums MID-ATLANTIC LACROSSE MARYLAND FORUM Boys 2028 Grads - Mid Atlantic Region

Yes, it appears DCE may have jumped the gun with their big ML package deal as they continue to give up an avalanche of goals.

Hard for ML to crow too much, however, as they are still winless despite their Elkridge Airlift.

It will be interesting to see if the MadLax fly ins continue to come now that they are 0-3. Might be a nice change for 91 or Team Money to pick up a win.

The kids that came over to DCE from Madlax are mostly of average at best size and without blazing speed. Those types of players are nice depth, but don’t equate to wins in the elite division. The crabs model of just take the biggest, strongest, and oldest kids at tryouts is the better path to winning games rather than the kids who have played club since second grade but are average athletes

I assume they will. It's not as if the HOCO finals were going to be broadcast live on ESPN2 or draw college coaches, so whatever convinced them that it was worthwhile to fly in for the prior games should still hold. And as much as it may pain people to admit it, their games have been competitive.

Monday recap: I was basically on point last week. DCE crushed by FCA. NL squeaked by ML with a 4Q goal. I will deduct some points on the basis that I blew the o/u on the ML vNL game. (I’d love to see some analysis on how two teams who have struggled to put points on the board all season was able to put together a 13 goal game)

I believe my analysis of DCE was validated- terrible defense. I’m interested in what the team is going to do about it in the summer- I assume a reshuffle between the orange and black team. Whatever they do they will have to make major changes as you can’t go to top tournaments with that.

As for the totally predictable results from the other games. You have to wonder if there aren’t better teams in the AAA division.

End of the season prediction (unchanged):

1.Hawks
2. Crabs
3. FCA
4. NL
5. ML
6.DCE
7.Team 91
8. Team Money

Maybe they just wanted good competition and weren’t ruled by the glory of winning an 8th grade lacrosse game.

Keep up the Monday recap!

Do you think Madlax will actually play both games next week?
How close will FCA and Team 91 be?
Do you know if DCE Orange would have defenders?

Re-read my comment, that was exactly my point. Something convinced them that it was worthwhile to make the trip and play in these games, and I doubt it was belief that there was some massive upside to winning the Greater Howard Club Lacrosse Conference championship.

Maybe they wanted to play against good comp, maybe they have family out here and it's a good excuse to come visit, maybe the parents and their kids enjoy traveling together, maybe they think CM's support will help position them for showcases or college recruiting down the line, or whatever. They decided this made sense for them so I don't think their losing record would change that.

We have played DCE 4x since October. Last fall, and even earlier this spring, their Defense was rock solid. It kept them in games, and gave our guys fits. But ever since, they’ve been terrible. Not sure if they’re working on something new (if so, they should abandon ASAP), or they lost players, or what. Clearly not headed in the right direction. I don’t know who their coaches are, but the trend is not their friend.

Good theory on paper, but report back in a few weeks whether it bears out.

Yes, because if there is any club that is out there just to have fun and revel in the joy of good-spirited competition, it is definitely MadLax.

My kid has friends on the team and they have not lost players. So that should help you with your answer.

Score predictions for next weekend

NL 13-Money 6
Crabs 15- DCE 6
Hawks 14-ML 7
FCA 14- 91 5

AAA

Clips 20-Blue claws 1
DCE Orange 14-Cannons 2
FCA white 11-Prostart 2
Team Maryland 14- Crabs Blue 6

NOT 100% sure about AAA

Hawks haven't been running it up on people and ML has played low-scoring games overall, so I'd take ML+7. And 19 goals seems like a ton so I'd take Blue Claws +19.

Excellent questions. Answers:

Do you think Madlax will actually play both games next week? No way. smoke and mirrors (ie, fly ins) only works when you win games.
How close will FCA and Team 91 be? not close enough to be in doubt, but closer than you think. 91 has good goaltending, and according to this board, ran a zone defense against the Hawks which helps keep games from becoming blowouts.
Do you know if DCE Orange would have defenders?[/quote] Of course they have defenders (and FO and goalies) and I assume there will be an influx of new players at all positions trying out for DCE Black from both the inside and the outside for summer tournaments and of course summer tryouts. There are only two serious local programs in the 2028 class (NL and DCE) and I expect everyone with college aspirations will want to be on one or the other for high school.

any word on the FCA kid who got injured is he back?

Madlax needs more holdbacks if they ever want to compete with Hawks again!

Madlax hasn't competed with Hawks for a while now and never will again.

Yea not since the 27 team became the 28 team.

Madlax crying about holdbacks is high comedy, since the team was carried by one for years.

The ML dads' strongest argument for 3? 4? years was "He's not technically *quite* a double holdback, and all the kids in his family are big boned." (Cartman voice).

I think the caveat is that there are many 1st and 2nd line AAA kids who are better than 3rd line elite kids. But not usually bigger, to be fair. And at the lower end of elite, certain coaches' sons should not even have made their team, and everybody knows it. Even when the Dad Coaches are Lax Legends lol. So, there's minimum 6-10 kids in Elite ball who we all know shouldn't be there, just based on that metric alone.

The fact that a handful of 2028 AA players (and good numbers of AAA players) have made elite rosters every year for the past four years should make that take not very controversial, but yes it is heresy here on BOTC.

For years there was a CLEAR disparity between AAA and Elite, despite what parents of AAA teams like to think.

However- with the arrival of puberty, and AAA kids holding back— yes, the line is getting more blurred. Some AAA kids will turn into student athletes with puberty and they’ll be more than ready for Elite. And frankly, there are kids at Elite who have not benefitted from puberty— and unfortunately, the Elite division has simply left them behind. It might be another year or two for them to catch up

I don't think there is anyone arguing that AAA teams are generally as good as Elite teams (though I think a Clippers vs. 91 or Team Money matchup would be a coin toss), but the idea that every player on an Elite team is better than every player on an AAA team seems silly.

We've played on AAA and Elite teams, and in both cases there were a handful of kids on the team who were difference makers but the bulk were good but somewhat interchangeable.

By 8th grade most of the kids who are good enough to play on elite teams - have made elite teams.

there are also between 3-5 kids on each of the better elite teams that have no business on the roster and are just there for whatever reason.

Additionally, this matters for a few more weeks then these boys are in high school and no one cares.

This weeks lines for HOCO

No interesting matchups this week as the bottom half of the division faces off with the top half. I would predict that the scores would be closer than expected as I would assume the stronger teams would give significant playing time to bench players. However, that has not been true all season (if anybody knows why I’d like to hear it). On to the match ups:

FCA v team 91. FCA -6 The division’s third best offense faces off against the division’s second worst defense. I expect plenty of scoring on the part of FCA and a lot of disappointment on the part of team 91.

Crabs v DCE. Crabs -8. My analysis for this game is the same as my analysis for DCE’s last game. In eighth grade you score what the defense let’s you score andDCE’s defense allows a lot.

ML v Hawks. Halwks -4. It what passes for this week’s most interesting matchup, perennial championship contender hawks faces off against what is probably the second best defense in the division. This game is make a break for Madlax as a loss with seals their fate and leave them out of the playoffs. Can they pull off the upset? Probably not.

Team money v NL. NL -6. After an amazing 4th come from behind the boys of NL have their confidence back.

Team Money v. ML. ML - 3. It might surprise some people that I have the game at -3 as team money is deservedly in the last place in the division. But ML has a problem scoring and I don’t see that changing this week.

I will omit this week’s final standings prediction as everyone knows what it will be.

Forget the club pipeline @ChillLaxin. Go to HS where you are most comfortable, have friends, are wanted, and can contribute.

Don’t understand your rationale that ML will lose by only 4 to Hawks, but only beat TM by 3.

FCA beats 91 by a score of 12-4, assuming their FOGO is not out with injury

Hawks beat ML 12-4. ML can’t score, and you’re giving Madlax D too much credit against prob the best team in the nation

Crabs 10, DCE 7. Another loss for DCE, but this one will be in doubt till late

NL12, Money 5. Team Money just isn’t very good, and NL boys are riding high. Apparently the theatre was high quality vs Madlax last week

Madlax 9, Money 5. Both offenses are bad. Madlax D better than Money’s Dd

Strongly disagree on score of Crabs v DCE. Crabs have not given up more than 4pts in a game and scoring about 12 points per game. 10-2 crabs.

My bad, I misread what you wrote.

Wait, what is this reasonable admission of a minor misunderstanding on this board?

I'll tell you the truth, I'm a little confused by your tactics. I'm gonna keep acting tough until I figure it out, alright?

NP, I see your point but I just don't think it is true. visiting relatives in DC or Baltimore and traveling as a family is nice, but not for eight weeks in a row. these families are coming for the lacrosse experience, and being on a winning team is fun and a losing team is depressing, especially for the hard core competitive types who would commit to the investment in the first place. I expect that Madlax will have trouble fielding a team for the final half of the season.

If your kid is ready to give up because he lost three games to three top teams by a combined total of five goals, you've got bigger problems than lacrosse.

I mean, if you continue to drop hundreds if not thousands of dollars every weekend on airfare/hotel/car rental/meals to spend every weekend flying in to play 8th grade lacrosse out of state for a soon to be 0-4 team, maybe lacrosse is your biggest problem. Just sayin'.

There is a reason ML rescheduled their game from last week. They rescheduled for the same week they play the Hawks. I suspect ML will have all fly-ins, including kids that have never donned a ML uniform. They dangle two games to make it worth their while. I could be wrong, but give me ML -4.

At this age things change over a few months. I see "B" team kids now bigger than "A" team kids at games from this past fall.

I am curious what changes we might see in the summer tournaments.

But your statement of when these kids are in High School is right on.

For sure there is a motive. Are the rosters accessible? Do the hawks coaches have the ability to pull rosters and check? Does anyone in the league stand up to that program?

In Hoco the roster check process is annoying (I believe $50 cash to the official before first whistle) and the vast majority of country club (or country club wanna be) club coaches consider roster checks "ungentlemanly" and won't do it, even when the players, parents, and coaches know there are violations with the other team. For instance, a 9th grade teacher in the stands for a 2028 game sees 2-3 of her (2027) students suiting up for the 2028 game.

If memory serves (disclaimer), only ML, VLC, and various True teams have been successfully roster checked (violations found) over the years the 2028s have been playing in Hoco. Everybody else operating on the fringe of the rule book has kind of skated by.

You get that $50 back if you're right:

PLAYER ELIGIBILITY
Any team rostering an ineligible player shall automatically forfeit each game in which the player participated
and/or appeared on the official roster. If a team uses a player under an assumed name, that team shall be
suspended from the league. Each game played with that player and all scheduled games not played shall be
forfeited to the opponents.
Protests as to the use of an ineligible player must be made within 48 hours of game time during the regular
season and within one hour of post-season play. A $50 protest fee is required. The protest must be submitted
in writing to the Conference Commissioner. The protest fee will be refunded if the protest is successful.

Hey Cabell.... just sit back, relax, and letttt it happen