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

Chatter is U13 WSYL is back and will be played during the summer of 2022. holdback parents that want to play on age not grade better start looking for teams.

2028 AND 2029 PARENTS BEWARE! Madlax's box league has a number of 2027 players. These are big, strong and athletic players who have just started playing lacrosse and were placed in the younger division to allow them to "develop." I suppose if you are playing in a Madlax league you may know this already and have it built it into your decision process.

What league lets 2027s play down with 2029s (regardless of experience)?!

They will soon be good and realize that it is time to hold them back.

Madlax events and certain other tournament companies use age bracket language like, "graduation year of the majority of your team" instead of "your team's oldest graduation year on the roster."

The signup/waiver language for the Fall 2021 Madlax tournament used this language. Certain clubs like 757 Select (Va Beach) intentionally seek out these tournaments because they can build several multi-age rosters by skill level.

How do you know this? I was there today and didn’t see it .

I want to say BS but anything is possible when Madlax is involved. Disgraceful organization!

"graduation year of the majority of your team" instead of "your team's oldest graduation year on the roster."
This sounds ridiculous. How about you start going by age?

Interesting. So by this logic we could roll out a 2028 team that has a handful of high school players. The stupidity of lax age rules never fails to disappoint!

Yep!

Well bro… probably time to realize a couple things.

1) Cabel Maddox is persona non grata here (you’ll probably need to google that one)
2) You should be studying rather than lurking on this board. Otherwise you’ll need to hold back again.

Does anyone know if Warthogs are having tryouts or playing this season? Have not seen anything about registration for teams, as in the past. Thanks.

Warthogs have been playing for the past two weekends- just completed 14 hour mini camp over 4 days. 6th grade team is ALL Hawks and FCA players. Some of their best. Madlax helmet or two. Couple Team MD players. Their love fest continues it seems…. That team is very very good. Hopes to compete nationally

They have a robust 7th/8th/9th squad and that team is pretty good. Mixed bag of clubs

Good core group of 2030s also- kids learning the game

Warthogs are the best box lacrosse in the dmv by far.. True Canadian style. Not “indoor lacrosse.”

Lol - sorry couldn’t help it but that’s Athan’s MO.

Not sure I follow. Was it just word of mouth to try out?

What league or tournaments will they play in?

Sure. But how did they pick the teams? A try out?

Yes, word was quietly put out to FCA and Hawks coaches directly, who passed on the information to the parents. Other kids playing (MadLax etc) knew to get in touch this time of year. If your friends' kids play for FCA and Hawks didn't mention it to you, lol, you're on the outside.

Frankly all of the "true Canadian box" programs in MD are run very curiously.

And if you think all of those are bad, don't even ask about the way that the "indoor (not box) leagues" are run. No age/year verification and tons of kids who can't catch and don't pass. I've heard coaches say they'd rather the kids put down the stick for 2 months than play "indoor lax" that's poorly coached or not coached.

IMHO I am thankful for the Box coaches and organizers (Warthogs, Arrows etc) for doing "something" for the boys when each of them are successful guys who could sit home and just not do it. It's a good resource for our boys.

If you are going to the Club Lacrosse Nationals in FL it would appear that class act MadLax has not added a new twist to their age verification:
“Further, I attest and can prove if requested to show a school report card to Madlax that my child(ren) is indeed the exact grade now that I have entered above.” Get ready to bring your kids report cards if Madlax starts losing. Basically this tournament’s rule is that if you are a 15 y/o in 6th grade you are good to go. This makes a lot of sense. How can this clown get away with making up rules as he goes along. These clubs and tournaments need to change for non-HS grad years to use age. It’s not hard.

Premier Series at Myers, in house clinics at the FISC in Frederick, multiple tourneys in January, and some national things in the the summer of 2022.

Was not invite only, if you were in the know about the warthogs and on their mailing list, plans schedules have been posted for several months. Warthogs were working out of the new Moose AC in Glen Burnie, since start of the school year, but True took that over entirely I hear.

True. #wemediocremore

How is Crease? Do they have a 6th grade team?

Sounds like it’s too late anyway but just trying to see what’s what.

Why is this bad? This seems like a step in the right direction for class based tournaments. You must be new to the lacrosse and growing class-based sports system or this is your oldest or only child. There is zero incentive to change. I guess it was about time for this age group to start the tired discussion.

While it won’t fix the age discrepancy issue, a tournament requiring players and teams to show *any* form of validation is step in the right direction.

There is a particular program that won’t be named that rhymes with blimey ton that is alleged to have kids reclass in lax only - but still stay in their same grade.

Nobody said it was invite only..........but when you're 1-2 hours from FCA or Hawks practice and the kids who show up are 8 FCA helmets, 6 Hawks helmets, and 2 ML kids, what are the odds that they just "signed up." Cmon man.

And as far as regularly "posting" anything:
Warthogs website last updated: 2020
Warthogs last IG post: February 2021
Warthogs last FB post: December, 2019

Initial emails to FCA & Hawks kids went out in November 2021, not "several months ago."

You're allowed to invite whoever you want, but don't pretend it was some kind of open process.

And yeah, True gonna do True! Special deal on the True Box Helmet I hear!

Doesn’t Madlax have a box league? Is it any good?

Apologies you weren’t invited.

Next level’s fogo number 99 also played well

This is officially the densest post I’ve seen on this board

LOL A little astonished that in our area, parents are willing to drive 90-120 minutes each way so their kid can work out in a box facility in Frederick.

There is one MadLax Player as well. The Hawks FCA thing isn’t too complicated. There are several players who went from one to the other. They left on good terms, still go to school together etc. I doubt there will be some sort of falling out.

You’re right about most of it but it didn’t have anything to do with the coaches.

Something I’ve noticed for a while in 2028, but also across other age groups is that the DC based teams tend to produce better poles than the Baltimore/Annapolis teams and the Baltimore/Annapolis teams produce much stronger attackmen. Anyone disagree with that or have a theory about why?

Not sure how you quantify that. My kid is a middle but I feel like it’s pretty competitive all the way around. I don’t think the ML or NL kids are amazing or weak in any particular area. There were a string of very good defenseman who played for the Hawks/FCA and St. Mary’s who are now going to college or in college at Yale, Lehigh, MD and Georgetown. I don’t know if there were a bunch more who played for Express etc during the same years.

What are the DC based teams? Just ML and NL? Or do we count BLC?

It’s the balance of nature

Baltimore soft but skilled, DC goon but unskilled...Any other questions?

I do think this is true across classes, though there are lots of exceptions. The DC teams (NL and BLC/DC Express in particular) are very aggressive with moving back kids who are fast enough and skilled enough to play midfield to defense. The kids and parents of the kids are happy to go along with the switch because of perceived recruiting advantages. I don’t think there is as much of that with the Hawks/FCA/Crabs, though of course there are exceptions.

There are lots of position moves in college too, not sure why if you’re a middle you would want to move to close defense. Lame I get, but you can always move in college and everyone needs middies.

My 2028 pole has played from A to Elite over the last 4 years so here's my observations.

1. I'd rank the best D units (5-7 poles as a whole) as NL #1, BLC #2, ML #3. And then a steep dropoff to everybody else. But BLC and NL specifically will *impress* anyone who knows how players play at their age.

2. FCA Blue, Hawks, Crabs each have 2-3 really skilled and aggressive poles with good IQ, who could play anyway.

3. Here's the truth bomb, the back half of those 3 D units above, almost all AAA units, and half (ish) of the poles in AA are basically equally talented. They are developing, talented players who on any game day bring 2-4 of the following to the field: Size, speed, stick skills, IQ, aggressiveness. Some days you see a monster kid out there and it's like "Oh he literally cannot run." Or you see a smaller kid out there beating the bejesus out of attackmen......but they can shoot over his head, so.......And then there's some kid out there who looks like Mega Goon and occasionally he just lets a kid run by him with no contact, for no apparent reason.

I have seen poles on A level teams who you could hide at the back of the roster at Crabs, FCA White, KP AAA, Claws, Sidewinders, etc and for the 10-15 minutes they play per game, you would think they were in the right place. I think this is fundamentally different than offensive players. Just an opinion though.

It feels weird to be discussing actual lacrosse on here, but I'd respectfully disagree.

I think it's easier to hide good-but-not-great players on offense because there you generally have the prerogative on who cuts or shoots or whatever, while on defense you have to react to what the other team does so don't get to choose your spot. Most of the top teams will recognize and try to exploit mismatches or make you pay for getting out of position or missing a slide, based on what I've seen.