Kleizaster wrote: ↑Sun Jun 11, 2023 11:03 pm The HS lacrosse season and careers are coming to an end for 2023s and recruiting is in full swing for the 2025s. i'll just share my thoughts cause i follow HS lax closely. Good class in terms of talent but not as good as 2022, which might be shaping up to be the best since 2017.
2023 Class
With all that Cuse will lose next year, i expect a lot of the incoming players to get their chances. Ashlee Volpe out of NY is really good and has the potential to be a star attacker for CUSE and should have been ranked much higher. Their 2024 class will be their strongest in recent memory but until then they'll have to navigate a bit of a regression next year
We all know Chloe Humphrey by now who's ranked #1 in the class. I've been singing her praises forever but she's next level and has cemented it this year. Kayla Treanor level talent. The way coaches speak about her is rare. Fueled Darien to being undefeated and ranked #1 in HS lax for almost the entire year, having beaten 7 or 8 ranked teams. Will be interesting to see how Levy utilizes her with her all her other shiny toys but let's just say she won't be coming off the bench.
This is actually a good class for Maryland. Good players coming in but they're all Middies and no quality attackers, which is what they desperately need.
BC will go in a bit of a rebuild. You could see that they're out of gas. This is a good place to start introducing some younger talent starting with this class, which will be crucial because their top recruits in 2021 and 2022 have barely seen the field or given meaningful contributions. This will catch up to them eventually.
NW is in a similar position to BC. But NW is interesting because even though they don't land recruits as talented as the other programs consistently, KAH gets the most out of them because she knows how to mold raw athleticism and develop players. So from year to year the drop off won't be as steep. This class is really just another average NW classes full of athletic players.
2025 Class
Too early to get a complete read on this class but most of the top players are being recruited currently and will be committing in September. I think NW will do well in this class as a result of the championship bump and land more top players. Spallina's kid was anointed #1 pretty much since she was in middle school but there's another girl from Connecticut Gabby Lauretani who i think has surpassed her and is the best in the class. I think Spallina is CUSE bound. that or SB. can't see her going anywhere else.
This is a strong class for Long Island kids. Levy scheduled a bunch of camps specifically for Long Island kids and a lot of them attended and posted happy smiling pictures on social media with their parents. So expect her to land a couple of the top Long Island kids she has a bit of a pipeline there
I have to come to BC’s defense here. They’re definitely not rebuilding heading into next season, because, assuming the eligible grads take their extra year, they’re only losing two contributors (Medjid and Welch) from last years’ team. Obviously Medjid is a big loss, and Welch has been a solid defender for them the last few years, but they’re still retaining the vast majority of their offense, all of their contributing midfielders, and nearly their entire defense.
Also, to say they’re out of gas is a major reach. Sure, they got blown out by Northwestern in the championship game, but NW was clearly a juggernaut, and losing to them doesn’t really tell the full story. The reality is that they were easily the second best team, especially during the second half of the season. Prior to the NW loss, they closed the year on a 13 game winning streak, including beating both Syracuse and Norte Dame twice and beating UNC to win the ACC tournament.
As far as the 21’ and 22’ classes, it’s definitely fair to say that they haven’t gotten as much production from their top recruits as they would’ve liked. Particularly with the 21’ class, Hasselbeck hasn’t lived up to her top rated recruit status, and Agostino was completely underutilized and is now in the portal. However, to say that they haven’t gotten meaningful contributions from the two classes is not really accurate. McKenna Davis was one of the best facilitators in the country last season, finishing the year second in D1 with 62 assists. Shea Dolce had an outstanding first year in net, beating out Rachel Hall for the starting job and winning ACC freshman of the year. Also, Shea Baker was one of team’s best defenders as a freshman, with a ton of huge performances down to stretch including completely locking down Meg Tyrell in the national semis. Abbey Herrod also filled in well as the backup draw taker and has a good chance to take over as the lead option in that role next season.
Overall, I doubt BC is going anywhere next season, and I’d be surprised if they aren’t right back in championship weekend and competing for a national championship. In addition to all the production they have returning, they’re bringing in arguably the nation’s top recruiting class with 3 of the top 8 ranked 23’s on Inside Lacrosse.