There are 2 2017 uncommitted teams with a total of 48 kids. There are at least 26 kids with 1998 or 1997 birthdays on the rosters. So I don't know where you went to school but how is that any where near 3/4 of the rosters being on age? So your statement of being a true 2017 not being a disadvantage is equally misleading. Only true 2017's should be allowed to tryout for a 2017 team, plain and simple. One of the kids on the roster has a June of 1997 birthday! That's not an advantage? He took the spot of a "true" 2017, end of discussion. Nice try though........ [/quote]
I have to believe that pretty soon lacrosse will wind up at what larger participation sports like soccer and hockey do...just make club play age level. U-9, U-11, U-13, U-15, U-17 and U-19. You can go to high school at a 16 year old freshman 2017, but in club ball you play U-17. If parents want their kids home until they are 21 graduating high school, go have at it. But the only field he can play at years older than his peers is high school season.
If all these "reclassified" kids who turned 16 as high school freshmen in Winter or Spring were playing U-17 ball this Summer, I'd wager we'd bee seeing a very different complexion of early recruiting. I am from Baltimore, and with rare exceptions of the local guys down the street at Hop or Loyola, coaches can't go out of zip code to watch high school lacrosse. And even if they are local they can't do much to watch HS ball because of their own season.
If a kid is really all that, and is lit it up as a reclassified 16 y.o. freshman at an MIAA school or a LI school then I say legit. I saw very very few examples of that in MD this Spring. If the evaluation is 16 y.o. lighting it up in 2017 club ball in Fall or Summer, then I say fraud.
I think a lot of the early recruiting drama with the parents on this thread and the early recruiting stupidity of the 2017s age advantage deltas on the field gets made if club ball was just straight up U-15 or U-17. My 2017 could be U-15 still by that and would look like a moose in a china shop. A lot of the preppy kids who are 16 would be getting smoked as undersized U-17s. Stick skills don't save 5'7 and 140 middies in this sport that has evolved a lot.
