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

It know it's early for school spring talk, but how are the Bmore area school teams going to look? Gilman, SP, etc, etc....

Thanks much for not being an annoying fool and answering the question.

Some cannot help it.

Did Navy hold the box tournament a few weekends ago?

As this is 2028, are you asking about middle school lacrosse?

If so, it will look generally terrible.

Yes, middle school. Do certain club players gravitate to certain schools? Around the DC area it's a mixed bag with BLC, NL and ML going to pretty much all the schools in roughly equal percentages (Landon, Mater Dei, STA, etc...).

Yes Hawks -> SMA, some to Spalding
FCA -> Calvert Hall
Crabs -> BL
MadLax -> Juvi
Not really as sure about the DC schools but know a bunch of Hawks kids played for St. John’s last year.
There are obviously kids all over the place but those are generally where they go.

Im not from the DMV area. Just out of curiosity, what percentage of the kids attending these schools get scholarships based on lax and what % of the tuition is covered? Or does everyone pay full boat unless they qualify for financial aid or academic scholarship.

0% get any help because of lax.

That’s saved for the tennis guys.

Half of Crabs are at BL.
Half of Hawks are at StM.

Outside that it’s random attendance for middle school.

For high school by now in 7th grade most families have an idea where they want to go.

Elite 6’s schedules are out….anyone familiar with the teams?
Rattlers
Hammers
Chain Bridge All Stars
Team Money

Re 6s. The Chain Bridge Allstars are made up of ML, NL and BLC kids. My son played them in McLean box.

Hammers likely the Club team from Loudoun Co

Absolutely not true. Bullis is still giving aid promised from the old headmaster. SJC gave all the Hawks kids aid and is now only a bit more selective. This goes for all the other schools too. If they can justify just a little bit of need, they give it.

Where's the link? I didn't see it on tourney machine?

At the HS level boys/girls can get aid if they are good athletes and have the financial need. However, if you are a star athlete with means.....very unlikely you will get much of any help (I can't speak for SJCH or Bullis) at GPrep, Landon, Gonzaga, of St Albans.

That woosh is the sound of the joke going over your head.

So you're saying this is the holdback Elite 6 team?

FCA def most kids to Calvert Hall, Gilman, etc., Crabs to BL and McDonough, Preds-St. Paul's/McDonough/BL. Do these clubs even have public school kids playing?

It's intentionally shrouded in mystery (my 2028 gets financial aid).

At the middle school level there is generally no "sports specific" aid. There is a small amount of merit aid, and potentially generous need based financial aid, but that said, the schools generally expect parents to pay a minimum of 10% of their household pre-tax income to tuition. So if mom and dad make $250K combined, they may not pay $40K for Johnny Lax's tuition, but they probably pay $25K-35K.

At high school, the average kid on varsity lax gets somewhere in the neighborhood of $0 to $3K sports scholarships. HS tuition ranges from $15K to almost $40K. Very, very few kids get big lax scholarships before 11th grade. However since most lax kids are decent students, it's not uncommon for them to have other types of financial aid as well.

Of course they have public school kids playing. How silly.

I think one of the most ridiculous myths going in MD/DC lacrosse is the idea that these elite clubs at the youth level are going to give the above-average lax player some kind of advantage getting into elite high schools. Loyola, CH, Gilman, BL, and McD have all had varsity players wearing Breakers uniforms in the last 3-4 years. Now, are the Breakers kids starting at MIAA school lax teams? Certainly not. Do MIAA Breakers kids play in college? LOL yes they do.

If you want to be recruited to upper D1 on a substantial scholarship, then yes absolutely you should be at a private school and playing for ML, Hawks, NL, Crabs, FCA, 91. If that's not the goal, let your kid play other sports. Let him blow up the HoCo AAA or AA league as an all star. Get him off-season training with coaches who aren't looking to train and trade kids like horses, which is most of them.

I was with you right up to the end.

What do you mean by “train and trade kids like horses?”

Skills coaches (and public school coaches offering training) who provide "meh"/decent quality training - and use the presence of these club kids to boost their career or coaching prospects. Which by itself happens every day and so what. #clublax #hitthewall

But then these specific guys get what they want and quickly dump the kids because, well, let them explain why I guess.

The kids end up wondering what they did wrong in the relationship that went from 100% "OMG this kid is amazing, so thankful to have these kids....look at all these Hawks helmets" to "yeah you're not a good fit, buddy"/not returning phone calls in the span of 3-6-9 months. I'm not talking about the cycle of club tryouts either.

It's happened twice - that I know of - in Baltimore/Howard County in the last six months. Not including regular club tryouts.

And the word used by one of the coaches was "horses" as in "I'm bringing some horses from (unnamed rec club)!"

Team Money won the last one I think. If it’s the same team I think they were Freedom/Philly kids.

Not 100% sure it’s the same team. Kind of think that team was “Free Money”?

So it sounds like you are saying there are trainers who decide they didn’t want to train kids anymore after working with them?

OR you are saying a coach was offering training for kids and had a team and then didn’t pick up the kids he was training on said team.


Maybe the kid isn’t good enough or there were just better options to joint the team? I mean wouldn’t the trainer know first hand the kids skill level?

I get what the guy is saying. Coaches will build rosters as part of their side gigs and then suddenly use those kids as a chess piece to go do something "more elite" from the coaches perspective.

let's face it, kids get cut (or "not invited") and it is very (too) transactional. In some cases it is demonstrably shady but that's just opinions.

To the Dad Complainant.......... I will tell you that if your kid is working out with coaches who try to be your buddy, promote your kid in the short run, and so on..........it is going to end with a bad taste in your mouth, I can 99% guarantee it. I think I would have used the word "pawn" instead of "horses" but whatever.

My kid played with some buddies, they got rolled…. there was a team made up of primarily Hawks kids, but they didn’t play as “Hawks.” There was also a team full of Crabs, they might have been the Free Money team? FCA played as “FCA,” doesn’t look like they’re back for this episode

Team Money won that 6es tourney. Money is a central PA team with a very talented top 5-6 2028 kids some of who were "late start kindergarteners" generally speaking (early 2009 birthdays, in holdback parlance). The club is run by the Bergeys, who I think were both MLL players and their dad is Jake Bergey of Eagles (NFL) fame. The club is well situated geographically, with all the Philly clubs 1.5+ hours east and Red Hots and True Pitt about 1.5 hours west of them. Relatively talented squad though not deep, they lost the HoCo AAA championship to VLC. Quality coaching too.

Team Money gonna get laundered on Sunday

How about the Rattlers? They play Chain Bridge All Stars first game. Someone said that’s a Madlax/Next Level team. Hammers are the 4th team, they’re likely a lot of the old Cavalier kids.

Chainbridge Allstars took the 'ship in OT. Very intense game. 6ers is fun

Any recommendations for a summer lacrosse camp (Day or Overnight). Apex, Aces, First In Class, National ID, etc.?

Chainbridge coach was a complete clown. Didn't know the rules and was constantly chirping. Madlax must go out of their way to find these guys.

I didn't think National ID goes this young?

I have sent my kids to almost every one of these events at least once. Why you're sending them to camp matters.

If it's for "athletic day care," you really can't go wrong with the all day sports camps at any MIAA school who offers it. Price is right, usually the kids get to work out all morning and swim all afternoon. Decent deal. Will your kid get better? I mean he won't get worse.

But if it's to actually help their lax skill, I have 3 big rules for camps:

1. If they can't tell you who (exactly) the coaches will be, the camp better be cheap (<$300/week)
2. If it's primarily games and not skills coaching, the camp better be cheap
3. If you check out the social media for the camp, and the "highlights" are all 4v3 or even 4v2 shooters going nuts on open goal, the camp better be cheap. Not all reps are good reps.

On that note, I guess:
4. If the games and reps don't mirror realistic in-game situations, the camp better be cheap.

Apex: Primarily games. "PLL players will coach them" but no disclosure of who. Not a huge need for PR/visibility for MD players. EXPENSIVE

Aces: Primarily drills and small sided games, with 10v10 at end of each day. Good coaching, led by BL coach. MD camp is in Towson, beltway traffic is a pain from DC/Annapolis. EXPENSIVE.

FCL: Completely drills and small sided games. Very good coaching when the FCL adult staff is around, not so much when the random MIAA HS kids are "coaching" (aka on their phones). EXPENSIVE

USNA: Still haven't done this one, and we live in Annapolis lol. May go this year.

Nike: (McDaniels or Gettysburg): Still haven't done this one. Not going this year.

Nationals "Camp" (NC?): Unnecessarily complex drills, but well coached and extremely high speed. Cost is moderate. Would go back.

Team 18 Camp/Tryouts: Like Nationals but weirder vibe. No sense that they enjoy having the kids there. Most expensive camp aside from IMG.

IMG: Wish I could tell you!

This post likely from the clown who was the disgruntled Hawks dad who was wearing Uggs that matched his wife’s and couldn’t stop screaming the entire game until his kid suffered his second defeat of the day. Finally shut his mouth at that point. You know who you are. Dude, you were wearing Ugg’s!!!

Chainbridge is not part of Madlax, sore lost. It's just a group of friends from ML (largest % of team), NL, BLC and others. Also includes A and B team players.

Too bad u can't handle a loss in what I thought was a great game.

Was a great game. Didn’t think the coaches from either side were “clowns” or even obnoxious. Quite the contrary. The parents were quite animated on the Team Money sideline, but who cares— it was a super, super competitive game and the kids had fun. That was my takeaway.

Can we please get back to holdbacks, this stuff about actual lacrosse and kids “having fun” is getting tiring tbh

knock yourself out:https://www.backofthecage.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/243877/17.html