LaxPower Back-Up Stick

No, that is very normal. The age thing is ridiculously, every year, beaten to death. I turned 19 in October of my freshman year. I did not PG or reclassify. These days the vast majority of top high school male athletes, not just lax players, graduate high school well after turning 18. This is not due to reclass or PG but pre-school and elementary school. If any of you have younger kids the age difference between boys and girls in the same class in elementary school is striking. This is not to say there are hoards of parents holding their kids back in pre-K after finishing nursery school in order to give them a lax advantage. It is to say many top lax areas are fairly socioeconomically prosperous and competitive towns and there are hordes of parents seeing all of the other boys being held back and holding their own back so they are not at what they perceive would be a disadvantage, be that socially, academically or athletically. So are the boys older on average at a West-1 or MIAA school than publics? Yes they are. Is the average difference more than 6 months? No it is not. Does that much of an age difference matter in any appreciable way? No it does not.
PGs most certainly confer an advantage but it is NOT due to their older age, it is due to who they are. Players such as Michael Kraus or Bubba Fairman or Justin Guterding or Joey Manown or countless others did not excel during their PG year in West-1 because they were 6 or 9 months older than the non-PG seniors they played against nor was it because they already had a diploma. They excelled because they were Michael Kraus and Bubba Fairman and Justin Guterding and Joey Manown!!! Colleges have to recruit by projection. No matter how good a kid looks in high school, you have to try to project how he will do against college competition. PGs in the vast majority of cases have already demonstrated that they excel vs high school competition so when you bring them in there is no need for projection. They are going to excel because they have already self-selected as some who excels at high school lax! That is the advantage, bringing in a sure thing, NOT because you are brining in an older kid. The PG year is wonderful for many kids' development and I support these schools being in the rankings. Is it "fair" vs non-PG schools? No. Are private schools playing and being listed vs public schools "fair"? No. (And I would say an MIAA school has a lot more of an unfair advantage vs a Maryland public than Deerfield would have vs that MIAA school because of PGs). If you want separate Private and Public rankings I would not argue with you. But if you are going to include Culver, where virtually the whole team is re-classified, and Hill, which is not even really a high school but a sports academy, in the current ranking system there is no reasonable basis for not including PG schools.

We have a handful of prep players in NE who will start college as 20 year olds. Is that ok?

The re-classing and PG’ing is obviously a major sticking point for myself and others.

Why not keep in simple. You get 4 years of eligibility in HS?

MA Lax Fan wrote: ↑Fri Apr 05, 2019 3:01 pm We have a handful of prep players in NE who will start college as 20 year olds. Is that ok?

The re-classing and PG’ing is obviously a major sticking point for myself and others.

Why not keep in simple. You get 4 years of eligibility in HS?

You do, but NE West isn't HS. The only subject this pertains to at all is rankings and rankings mean nothing anyway. For the 1,000th time, in NY you can't have reached your 19th birthday before your sport starts. There are very few if any 19 year olds playing sports in NYSPSAA. IMHO, age means nothing from 18 on. Guys play in the NHL at 18. Freshmen throughout D1 hockey are 20. It's strictly a ranking and HS vs Prep thing and it happens every spring

HS BOYS: Yesterday's two biggest games, Saint Ignatius Prep (CA) beats St Margarets Episcopal (CA) and Saint Andrew's (FL) beat Benjamin School (FL).

All teams with 5 or less games have one foot in 2019 and one in 2018. Take their Ranking with a grain of salt. Including #1, #2, #3, #12, etc. Soon they'll have 6 games and everyone will be in 2019.

Numerous new teams added and Computer Rankings updated.

MA Lax Fan wrote: ↑Fri Apr 05, 2019 3:01 pm We have a handful of prep players in NE who will start college as 20 year olds. Is that ok?

The re-classing and PG’ing is obviously a major sticking point for myself and others.

Why not keep in simple. You get 4 years of eligibility in HS?

Yes, yes it is. Your handful is indeed a handful a year in New England, if even that. As such a minuscule number does nothing to change any competitive balance, who cares? Agree with flyerfan, age at that point doesn't matter so much, a 19 year old (who has not gone through a college strength and conditioning year) is very little physically different than an 18 year old. If you want to talk about having the ability to bring in established high school stars as conferring an advantage I don't think you would get much argument from anyone but the age gripe is bogus.

MA Lax Fan wrote: ↑Fri Apr 05, 2019 3:01 pm Why not keep in simple. You get 4 years of eligibility in HS?

It's Friday and I have a half an hour to kill before I go out to over imbibe so I'll engage in your thought process for a minute-

Simply stated this Age/PG/reclassifying issue is a moot point and only has life because people think that their team, school, or kid isn't being treated fairly.

MA Lax Fan, in a perfect world that could be a solution but I suggest that four years of eligibility solves the problem is flawed on its face in the real world.

What happens if you miss your senior year because you blew out your ACL? You would get another year right? Can't do it in a public school but you could PG and capture that lost year. Oh wait you'd be another year older sooooo.

What happens when you go to a large public school and play on the JV team for 1 or 2 years before you play Varsity. By my calculations you have 2 or 3 years of eligibility left? This could help the late bloomer open some doors that weren't open earlier for him but wait, he's 18 now.

Have you ever noticed when an announcer of a high level college game- whether football, basketball, hockey, or lacrosse- makes a special reference to a player being a "true freshman"? There is a reason for that- because it's rare. Most kids coming out of HS are not true freshman by the time they get on campus- and those few that are, are quickly redshirted because they're not ready. This is the real world.

May I suggest you let go of the need for the Ranking and the Age/PG/reclassifying issue will disappear.

I'll throw some more wood on the fire...

I think it was "pcow" who referred to some specific players who were good/great not because they were PG's but because they were just GOOD!

What's your excuse if you're guarding Brennan O'neill right now? He's too big, too good, etc... Ok, there you go. He's not a PG.

I'm going out on a limb here but just saying... I bet the coaches and even players from most schools that don't have PG's or repeats as standard issue actually love the fact that the Prep programs do. Here's my thought process, it's a win, win playing against them. They get to play top tier teams and talent. If they win, awesome, if they lose, well that team was loaded with 19 yr old PG's...

And if you're concerned about rankings, start training your kid up and have him do a PG year at one of the top lax schools!

There's a perfect world, and then there is the world in which we live. PG/reclass isn't going anywhere, especially as a lot of colleges seem to be getting some kids to PG as a de facto redshirt year.

As for the polls, they're just entertainment. To make them truly "fair" they'd need to do about five polls covering everything from a sports academies poll to public schools with under 250 boys enrolled. If any of the publications who release these polls had the time, energy, or interest to do that then we'd see it.

It's gotta be brutal for public schools to lose some of their best players after a kid's sophomore or freshman year, but not everyone wants to be a hometown hero. Especially if the ACC or Big Ten is sniffing around.

My freshman year in college, our face-off guy was 30.

That, I will grant, is abnormal.

admin wrote: ↑Fri Apr 05, 2019 3:55 pm HS BOYS: Yesterday's two biggest games, Saint Ignatius Prep (CA) beats St Margarets Episcopal (CA) and Saint Andrew's (FL) beat Benjamin School (FL).

All teams with 5 or less games have one foot in 2019 and one in 2018. Take their Ranking with a grain of salt. Including #1, #2, #3, #12, etc. Soon they'll have 6 games and everyone will be in 2019.

Numerous new teams added and Computer Rankings updated.

St. Ignatius is heading north.Scheduled a few teams in the NY Metro Area.

Until someone proves otherwise, I think this is St. Anthony's year.

Of course they have to travel west to Chaminade this Wednesday, and all bets are off when these two square it up, one of the storied rivalries in all of HS lacrosse. Long Island has an embarrassment of lacrosse riches; St. A's versus Chaminade, Manhasset versus Garden City, etc... This is a year when the teams on the Island are as good as I can recall, and I am from Maryland.

Would love to know if this game is streamed Wednesday.

Peter Brown wrote: ↑Mon Apr 08, 2019 10:32 am Until someone proves otherwise, I think this is St. Anthony's year.

Of course they have to travel west to Chaminade this Wednesday, and all bets are off when these two square it up, one of the storied rivalries in all of HS lacrosse. Long Island has an embarrassment of lacrosse riches; St. A's versus Chaminade, Manhasset versus Garden City, etc... This is a year when the teams on the Island are as good as I can recall, and I am from Maryland.

Would love to know if this game is streamed Wednesday.

The game will be streamed on News12Varsity.com, and usually requires that you are subscribed with an affiliate cable provider. The Woodstick will also be streamed there later on in the year (I can't remember if the Regs Rock game will be too, but it would seem like a good bet).

Another big LI game this week that is sneaking under the radar is WM vs. WI. That always seems to be a rivalry where you throw out the records: the Lions took a vintage Patriots squad to OT last year with a weak team by their standards. They are much improved this season (and light on seniors, so watch out in the coming years) -- should be a really good game.

Random: can you confirm what my friends are telling me about this year’s St Anthony’s? They aren’t exactly neutral so I’m asking you. They’re saying this might be the best team (by which I mean they play as well as a team can) they can recall at StA. Obviously you have some great individual talent, but what they’re saying is this squad is all signed up to teamwork and team play. Adding a great FOGO has given them confidence to take chances and support each other unlike perhaps in years’ past. Any thoughts?

HS BOYS: Wins have been Normalized to "3 Best Wins" and Teams with 5 games or less still have one foot in 2018. e.g. Brunswick, St. Anthony's, Ward-Melville, etc.. We currently have 2,397 teams in our... Computer Rankings.

Peter Brown wrote: ↑Mon Apr 08, 2019 12:38 pm Random: can you confirm what my friends are telling me about this year’s St Anthony’s? They aren’t exactly neutral so I’m asking you. They’re saying this might be the best team (by which I mean they play as well as a team can) they can recall at StA. Obviously you have some great individual talent, but what they’re saying is this squad is all signed up to teamwork and team play. Adding a great FOGO has given them confidence to take chances and support each other unlike perhaps in years’ past. Any thoughts?

Time will tell, and I hate to make those kind of judgments so early in the season, but yes my assessment is similar (although I'd note that Naso was their FOGO last year -- he is not a new addition). This is as talented a Friar squad as I can recall, and it seems almost a certainty that next year's squad will be even better: the 2020 team could go down as one of the best high school teams ever.

I would like to give a quick shout out to the 2016 St. Anthony's squad, which was very light on star power compared to most Friar squads, but had a phenomenal season backed by a stifling defense and the brilliant FOGO play of Kyle Gallagher (whose transfer to Penn this year was quieter than TD's to Yale, but might end up being more impactful). They lost nail biters on the road to vintage Darien and Delbarton squads, but won their other 14 games, many of them in dominant fashion (including an 18-5 thrashing of Chaminade in the Catholic League Championship).

Random--that 2016 team was very good,but lacked the offensive punch of this team. I was at the Darien game (which St. A's should have won). Great contest. Trying to figure out how to get to a game this year to be able to compare.

random observer wrote: ↑Mon Apr 08, 2019 5:29 pm

Peter Brown wrote: ↑Mon Apr 08, 2019 12:38 pm Random: can you confirm what my friends are telling me about this year’s St Anthony’s? They aren’t exactly neutral so I’m asking you. They’re saying this might be the best team (by which I mean they play as well as a team can) they can recall at StA. Obviously you have some great individual talent, but what they’re saying is this squad is all signed up to teamwork and team play. Adding a great FOGO has given them confidence to take chances and support each other unlike perhaps in years’ past. Any thoughts?

Time will tell, and I hate to make those kind of judgments so early in the season, but yes my assessment is similar (although I'd note that Naso was their FOGO last year -- he is not a new addition). This is as talented a Friar squad as I can recall, and it seems almost a certainty that next year's squad will be even better: the 2020 team could go down as one of the best high school teams ever.

I would like to give a quick shout out to the 2016 St. Anthony's squad, which was very light on star power compared to most Friar squads, but had a phenomenal season backed by a stifling defense and the brilliant FOGO play of Kyle Gallagher (whose transfer to Penn this year was quieter than TD's to Yale, but might end up being more impactful). They lost nail biters on the road to vintage Darien and Delbarton squads, but won their other 14 games, many of them in dominant fashion (including an 18-5 thrashing of Chaminade in the Catholic League Championship).

Thanks. I'd really like to see a game of theirs on stream (I don't live in NY). I think the two games this year that have the makings of the two best games to see in HS lacrosse in 2019 might be two Darien games: one against Brunswick and the other against St. Anthony's.

I would add Salisbury-Brunswick to that, an absurd collection of talent, Wick out for revenge for last year, a historically very hostile (at times over the line) environment and the most expensive tailgate this side of Harvard-Yale. Darien is lacking the stars from the past 5-6 years and should be down a bit (but they always reload the machine). I would expect St. A and Wick to both beat them by a few.

I'd really like to see a game of theirs on stream (I don't live in NY). I think the two games this year that have the makings of the two best games to see in HS lacrosse in 2019 might be two Darien games: one against Brunswick and the other against St. Anthony's.

Unfortunately, I think that both of those matches will fall short of expectations.

I’ve seen Darien this season, both in scrimmage and game play, and they aren’t the same kind of team as people are accustomed to. They’ll get better as the season progresses, but right now they are just a good/solid team.
Brunswick and the Friars should both handle Darien, as Salisbury did when they scrimmaged (w/starters).

IMO, games that should live up to the hype of the “Best in 2019 matchups” would be St.Anthony’s vs Chaminade and Brunswick vs Salisbury. Last week’s performance against St. Anthony’s probably puts the Manhassett vs Garden City on the list as well. I’m not dialed into the MIAA scene, but am sure that there a couple of games there that would meet the “best of” category.