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

Try outs start next week. This is the year where your son gets replaced by the out of state tournament player…get your popcorn ready!

And it is a fact that if MD had 1 all star team with no holdbacks and reclasses they would not be in the top 10.

I'm at BIC with my son. There is a Jan 08 kid here. Now that's a holdback....

"They'll never guess with this goalie," that's a theme...one of the mentioned True Baltimore violations - I'm sure - was them using an undersized 2027 goalie for a 2028 team...he played games for both teams at Troy Park on the same days lol. Parents....be better!

what number?

in our home town...and the club dues are less...and the players really seem to like the coaches...maybe it's better than what we're getting at True."

The collapse of True Ches was brutal, and clearly made it difficult to put back together a Mid-Atlantic based national team for 8th grade. In general, parents of players at every level from B to Elite become more savvy every grade year, and (except for a few hard heads), aware of the realistic range of their kid's play. "OK he's the featured shooter at AA but would ride the bench at Elite." Once you really have this info as a parent, the True sales pitches don't hold much water.

"Really....you're going to get my son "more exposure" than the Instagram Clippers? How would that even be possible."

"We train more!"

"OK, but my son played 2nd line True AAA last year, and he's playing 2nd line True AAA this year, and the team somehow got worse and should be in AA."

"Ahh maybe you don't understand - we train more!"

It's a far more appealing sales pitch when the boys are in 3rd-5th grade.

2way and Express practice just a few miles apart. So 2way isn’t necessarily the only AA team in Connecticut. Maryland could and should always be in the top but the culture tends to lead to constant team jumping and parents being toxic. If I understand correctly it seems Pennsylvania and even Maryland players are starting to travel North for higher level experiences. That should be a red flag. Naptown, World Series and Crabfeast did not have great showings from Maryland clubs. I think the years of assuming dominance have past.

Let’s be honest. Certain clubs have figured out the hack. Beat a crappy team by ten to bust your rating. The rating system as is allows for manipulation. Or worse, if you do poorly or are missing some key players, just change your name. I’m less concerned with national teams being included because you can simply take them out of the equation. But I can see multiple examples 50-100 that just aren’t accurate.

Wrong. You're still living in the 90's when MD and NY were the only states that cared about lax. CT and NJ are both have way more 2028 high end talent than MD. MA and CA might also.

You're in a HOCO echo chamber where everyone tells each other how good each of your teams are. Then you play teams from other states in the summer and make excuses.

You may want to consider a PG year on top of your reclass year.

Kids from PA aren’t traveling North, their teams are rising up the rankings in every age group; nice try FLID.

Incorrect.

There's nothing but corn and maple trees and big sturdy women north of PA so this is partly true. But it's also partly true thst several of PA'S top players are headed north to boarding schools.

Ex birth and 2Way use kids who were in high school this past spring. That is pathetic.

Well Maryland plays New Jersey in the first game of the Nike All Stars.

Let’s see how it goes.

Got to see yesterday up close the overrated red hots golden boy over celebrate a showcase scrimmage win at BIC. Reminded me why I’m glad he won’t be in school with my kid. Good call staying home.

Only dominate MD team has always been and always will be Crabs. Period,

He is the epitome of a holdback. His strength and speed are 1-2 years ahead of his class. Should be interesting when he plays against kids his own age in high school. My guess is slightly above average midfielder.

Correct, And that is why he is a holdback. He has gone from a decent unknown player on age who may struggle at times to an above average player that is in the discussion. Holding back works and always has for many. If you want to play at a D1 level, you have no choice, hold him back. Sad but true state of lacrosse now.

The rules should be changed to letting everyone a on age play down a year of the Sept 1 on age start of school.

That way it is by a certain date and every holdback can play with his grade ( one of of the holdback complaints) and anyone on age that wants to play like a holdback can. In the future the on age may want to holdback.

Red Hots 2028 appears to be caput.

If I’m a club director/coach, I’d be telling my players, you’re welcome to go play on a team like red hots if it doesn’t interfere with your main club team. But if you start missing practices or tournaments to go play on Team Insta, you’re gone. Make a choice.

Player on Chucks decided RH was a better option and skipped a tourney in MA, see ya!

Says whom? Aren’t they releasing the rosters on Insta?

Not so sure about that. They inquired about my son in the last 24 hours.

I think he means Red Hots MD is folding.

Didn't realize there was a RH MD.

You mean Madlax plays New Jersey? Not really a fair comparison for the DMV.

There are also several who are playing MIAA.

The NJ Nike team is literally just the Leading Edge team (plus 2 kids). None of the BBL kids are on that team. And most of the LE kids don't tryout for the New Balance All American team. So there is no true NJ all star team unfortunately.

A combined LE/BBL team would be tough.

Well some local clubs may loose that choice. Unfortunately for them but good for us because our kids have a lot more options. Clubs need to up their game to keep all their players not just lookout for the studs. Clubs make and break too many promises, take money and don’t play kids, play favorites, have bad coaches who don’t develop and sometimes even break kids down to the point that they don’t want play. We all know the flavors of each of these clubs and now we’re also exposed to other families with older players so we know which clubs hosed them when recruiting time came. So why pay several thousand when you can pay a few hundred and play on a national team where the coach is happy to have everyone there and the kids get exposure, even the UPenn’s head coach’s son plays for RH (and Freedom) met him at BIC good guy. Not to mention everyone is new to the team so there aren’t favorites and they want to get on the map so they seem to promote their kids (a lot of national helmets at BIC) which like it or not I don’t care how good your kid is without support from a coach making or at least answering calls for you kid from colleges, they’re not getting recruited. The only downside of these teams was lack of practices, but they are now holding monthly practice camps. Even with the expense of travel, you’re still not at the same price as a lot of these local clubs and a lot less drama with more support. Local clubs need to wise up and start to do better or they’re going to start to disappear. You already seen it in the rankings. All that stuff is important but most important is when my kid has played on those teams he actually looks like he’s having fun and the next day when he gets home and wakes up, he wants to hit the wall on his own.

Maryland is mostly Crabs and FCA with 1 or two Hawks and a couple others.

No, there is a Maryland team and a DMV which should be called "Capital Region" because it's really not Maryland. And if DMV is is all MadLax they are going to have a tough tournament.

The other downside is just that it's too much lacrosse. My son plays on one of the HOCO teams and gets invited to guest play with other teams all the time. This year we've had to say no to most opportunities just to keep him from getting worn out. There's no point in playing 7+ elite tournaments a year. Your kid probably plays 3-5 with his club team then guest plays a couple with a RH or another club and the kid is just done. Injuries don't heal, each game means less and less and they lose the joy of playing.

If your kid plays for an elite club, and an elite MIAA school, playing for RH or other pickup teams doesn't make a lot of sense after the first tournament or two. They already get the exposure they need and there are diminishing returns for playing your 7th or 8th tournament in a summer.

Just my opinion.

Add in a few who play for 2way

Accurate, but only about 90 2028s play elite lax AND go MIAA-A (or DC equivalent) (the rest of the MIAA roster spots are filled by A, AA, AAA players). There's a reason (Besides high profit margin) that mid level teams like Koopers, Predators, Green Turtle, Looneys have existed over the years). Gotta get your #2 FOGO and #5 goalie from somewhere....

I think as dads and coaches we need to be a little more cautious on this type of advice....."exposure?" Recruiting is changing dramatically. There were 100+ lax players in the transfer portal a month ago. They are bigger, faster, higher lax IQ than your 2028 Crabs player will be in the summer after 10th grade (even if he's 18 at that point). Plus the transfer kids have a year of college maturity and grades to show they're ready. Unlike some of the MIAA's 2.5 GPA ballers.

The recruitment of top 2025s has not looked AT ALL like it was "supposed to" and if I'm the owner of an elite lax club, I'm probably freaking out a bit - I don't want recruitment to move away from 10th-11th grades because the story of "this college junior transferring to Duke, played for our club 4 years ago! Let's Go Braydenn!" is too long and random. By the way.....Duke alone has picked up 6 transfers from the portal this season. That's six fewer HS commitments needed for the 2025s. I can name 3 clubs (2 in MD, 1 in NJ) who openly sell their club dues based on the near 100% of past players that received at least one D1 offer. Curious how they update their sales pitch.

But all that yada yada is to say that even thinking about "exposure" with incoming 9th graders is no longer even really a thing. But to your point, sports burnout is a thing. Getting worked over by hostile/angry coaches after you flew across the country to play for them, and then being like "that's it," yeah that's a real thing. Re-thinking all of it when a coach who promised to stick with you just stops returning your calls, that's a real thing too. Adding these additional tournament teams to the mix for our boys can open up a world of more lax and more fun, but there's potential down sides too.

One of the coolest sales pitches I heard was from Crabs, talking about their prohibition on playing for tourney teams: "We'll get you as much lacrosse as you can possibly want." That club has plenty of drama and problems I'm sure, but that is a solid sales pitch to parents and players.

“Duke alone has picked up 6 transfers from the portal this season. That's six fewer HS commitments needed “
Yeh but that opens 6 spots at the schools they transferred out of. Portal or not the same number of kids graduate each year and spots open for H.S. Kids.

How many 2028’s are reclassing to 29?

Are those the same kids who played for 2way in the World Series?