Maverick wrote: ↑Thu Feb 15, 2024 10:50 pm
My favorite stat about the miaa is pretty crazy. Two years in a row the #1 team in the country was #2 in the miaa. Referring to BL and Gilman, with loyola winning both titles. The way Steele silenced that BL crowd ("your brothers better your brothers better") 7 goals and 2 assists later that side of the bleachers at Unitas got quiet real quick. I may be biased but it's hard to beat miaa lacrosse. Right now there are 3 teams in the top 11 and if MIAA teams didn't have to play each other they'd probably have much higher national rankings. Love what Charles st, lake Ave, and reisterstown rd (and the rest of the div) bring every week. We are blessed to get the lacrosse that we do. No where else do teams play the level that they do game after game. Would most
Miaa teams win games against the top ranked teams? Maybe, and they have. Would those top ranked teams survive an miaa schedule? The world will never know
Yes, the top ranked teams would do very well, not just 'survive', an MIAA schedule. No doubt.
Certainly the best programs with PG's and the best programs from the Island, DC, Philly and a smattering of others from around the country.
However, you're likely still correct that no other single league set up has the overall game after game after game quality of match-ups as the MIAA. However, individual programs do schedule their own murderer's row of games that test their mettle against the very best. They'd all thrive if in MIAA.
I'm likely older than you, so I recall when it was the MSA and the A division had just 6 teams, Loyola and Calvert Hall, Boy's Latin and St. Pauls, Gilman and McDonogh. Each team played the other twice, two games a week. We also played the best publics from Baltimore County and Anne Arundel, plus the independent program Wroxeter which was a predecessor to programs like IMG and Hill Academy. They pulled from Anne Arundel and DC predominantly and were a tremendous program which traveled up and down the East Coast rarely beaten.
My senior year at Gilman we began the season by trouncing the best public in MD that year, Dulaney, in a game-like scrimmage. However, we then lost our first two MSA games each by a goal, but then ran the table thereafter to win outright as everyone but McD managed to beat each other up that year. We locked the championship with a win over St.P at Gilman on a Saturday in front of 4,000 fans. We then played Wroxeter which had been unbeaten playing the best from New York, NJ, PA, DC etc, indeed they had no close games. The papers all predicted they would trounce us, their attack and fast break were unstoppable; indeed they were really, really good...we won 16-9 with many of our scores off of our own fast breaks...
We didn't travel beyond MD in those days, however, so it was only the rare game/scrimmage versus a top Long Island team when they came down on spring break. The year before we'd played Huntington High, the eventual Island champs in early March and won 16-1, but it was their first weeks outside, so not at all the team that eventually won the Island. These days numerous teams do more travel so there are more opportunities to test, and the caliber of top notch play has spread to many corners of the country.
