#1 HS team vs. Top club teams

[sohotrightnow]

Sorry, I tend to agree with Alumnilax. Just because you are 5'9 and you are playing against a 6'3 defenseman, it doesn't mean a thing. Anyone ever hear of Mark Millon or Mike Powell? I don't think they were intimidated by a 6'3 defenseman when they were in high school or college. Besides that point, that 6'3 defenseman playing Division B club ball is probably an oaf who can't walk and chew gum at the same time. I'm sorry, but it's true. I think that there are several players in the MDIA who could in fact play NCAA lacrosse and perform well, but that does not necessarily mean that a collective group of players from one of the better teams from the MDIA would beat, let alone destroy Boy's Latin or Ward Melville, etc. I think it is time that people involved in the MDIA get off their collective high horses and take a whiff of reality.

Mr. Genck, if the score between Colorado State and Landon would be 22-6, and you claim that St. John's would pound Landon, then perhaps you should set up a game between St. John's and CSU? It sounds like it would be a competitive game given the so-called "facts" you present.

[Gopherlax29]

dangenck, i played in MN, where did you play?

[AlumniLax]

sohot is right. i've just thought of a way to end this arguement right now. screw top HS programs. lets take that out of the minds right now. let's do this. take the ten best players from both div. a and div. b, make two seperate teams. then i want you to set up a game between this years maryland select, empire, and va allstars (i think). this would end the arguement right there. best team the mdia can put forward and the best team each region can put forward. i bet only 1 out of 5 games the mdia team would win, IF THAT!. if this set of circumstances isn't enough for you, take the u-19 team from last year. best players in the country and play them against the mdia. the results would be worse i would have to say.

basically what it comes down to is this, the people that play in this league love lacrosse. they love it so much that they wanted to still play, but without the formality of ncaa ball. next you have to say that most people in this league, club was the only alternative. most of us just weren't good enough to make the push to ncaa programs. all of us are ok with that reality. i just wish that we could stop comparing ourselves in these useless debates (both mdia vs HS and mdia v. ncaa). i think its great that this league keeps improving and slowly but surely turning heads along the way (fall face off for example along with whittier last yr). i think these debates bring us down instead of bringing us up. people in this league need to realise that the laxpower bunch does come over here and they live to see us debate this because it makes us look silly.

good luck to those playing ncaa programs such as fsu this weekend. thats how we will get this league the press it needs.

my ploy to all of you is this, lets keep doing what we are doing. improve as a league and they are forced to recognize us. until this happens however, lets drop this comparison bs.

[bste_lax]

Guys, pretty simple to find where he went with USLIA.com's new roster info.

[DanGenck]

People seem pretty defensive about how awesome their high school teams are... and no, I don't think St. John's and Colorado State are comparable. My score was merely a joke... I seem to have not gotten the memo that the message board is no longer about having fun with posts

I stand by my comments about high school and college lacrosse. The size and development of college players would be too much for high school kids to compete with. While I understand that some teams have 6-10 kids going Division I, I don't think that means a whole lot. I played with Division I kids in high school and their development was nothing shocking while they were only 17/18 years old. I think Colorado State would take a high school team to town and I think St. John's would do the same with most programs. Would our games against Landon and others be close? Sure, but I don't think we'd be kicked around... that idea is beyond my comprehension. In fact, I think it's downright disrespectful to the MDIA to assume we would lose to high school kids.

In the end, it doesn't really matter. I'm just sticking up for my lacrosse playing college friends so they don't have their peers bashing them on this board and saying they aren't as good as high school kids...

[AlumniLax]

i dont know whay you are taking this so personal. im not bagging on you. i am bagging on both div. a and b. this isnt a personal thing. come on man.

but facts are facts here. div. a is much different than div. b. nothing personal, just facts.

i think we all should just drop it because this going south quick, and just like JP said, it is becoming embarassing.

[MackLax]

I think alot of people on this topic in this thread and similar ones in the past underestimate the readiness of the most elite HS players have for the college game upon their arrival. Look at Mike Leveille at Cuse, Peyser and Rabil at JHU, and many others. Many of the best players in D1 are frosh and soph. The best of the best make the quick adjustment during fallball and have their confidence and head ready to compete at their potential in the spring. Several top-level college players have the peaks of their careers in their 1st and 2nd college years as burnout sets in for some after that.

When it comes to the size issue, the person who brought up Millon was right. How many times have you seen a nasty offensive player light it up and then after the game you see him without pads or even a shirt and he looks the least like an athlete? Size isn't everything in this game, while speed and quickness are everything. Just the same, many D1 prospects are huge in physical stature in their later HS years and are man-children in comparison to many other players. Players in the MDIA are older, yes, and sometime bigger, but the best college prospects are readying their bodies for the college game from ages 14 and on and by senior year in HS, they are already pretty big. You don't typically get recruited to play D in D1 now unless you are over 6' and 200lbs.

With all this in mind, the best of the best HS teams in the MIAA and LI and (very few) other areas have players that are ready to make the immediate jump to the college game even when they are still in their spring of senior HS year. These players, who in a matter of months will be impact players on top 20 D1 NCAA teams, are literally in another league than the vast majority of players on even the best MDIA teams. Yes, there are some great athletes in the MDIA, but the incidence of great athletes on the most premier HS teams in the nation is higher than that of the best MDIA teams and I will stand by that. Now in talking about being a "lacrosse player" aside from being an athlete, I would say there is no contest there either. Many of the best players in the MIAA and LI and upstate have been smoking good college and post-co players in summer tourneys and winter leagues since they were 15 and 16. Our sport has the great feature and privilege of players of all different levels being able to match up in the variety of events, leagues, and tournaments available almost anywhere at almost any time in the off-season. No offense to CSU or any MDIA program, but an attackman for Landon has dodged better defensemen than the best in the MDIA not only in his spring HS season but also in the summer tourneys and leagues in MD.

This all comes down to preparation and expectation. Most of the players on top MDIA teams have not been preparing for the last 5-10 years to play lacrosse at the highest levels, while the players on the best HS teams in the USA wouldn't make those teams' rosters unless they were preparing to be the best. It is through the culture and tradition of these top HS programs that makes the players who they are, and who they are is defined usually by the level they ultimately compete at in college. The MDIA players on the best teams are coming from an entirely different place and perspective. The 5th attackman from a top 5 HS program can usually start for many NCAA programs. I would not say that many of the best MDIA players did not start in HS.

Yes, there are probably a small handful of very good lacrosse players on each of the top 5 MDIA teams that could be successfully transplanted to the elite NCAA level and be impact players, but just how many of these are there on each of those teams? The difference now comes down to depth of talent, and the best HS teams will be much deeper in talent and athleticism than the best MDIA teams. The coaching, preparation, skills, and self-expectation of the best HS teams in the nation are uncomparable to even the best MDIA teams. If you don't believe so, take a top 20 national HS team from last year and look where their seniors went to school and how many of them went on to the highest levels, and most importantly how many of those kids are starting and playing impact roles on top teams in their first two years. The best HS teams in the country remain the best feeders to the best teams in the NCAA. No contest between top HS and top MDIA.

Lacrosse has grown at such an unbelievable rate in the last couple years, even the last two. The top NCAA programs have players from all over the USA. But this growth is recent, while these traditions, cultures, and expectations of certain top programs in HS have been in existence for much longer than the dawn of the lacrosse explosion. If you don't believe this, compare it to hockey. Do you think the best HS hockey programs in the country would not blow out the top club hockey teams in the country? And if you are not aware, club hockey at major US universities and even smaller schools is pretty organized and similar to the MDIA.

[KerrLax]

Along the lines of AlumniLax's idea.....lets take the Division A all-americans and send them to Champ Camp next summer (if they'd be willing). Then we can see how they stack up against the best highschool players in the nation. This is all considering Warrior would let them, but still, that'd be the best place to have them all compete.

[Coach Peterson]

As an organizer of top summer tournament post-collegiate teams, someone who lived and refereed in the Washington DC area, a post-collegiate player in the DC area, multi-year Vail participant and staffer and coach of a current A-division team, I've seen great HS teams play ball and seen everything else from bad Division B teams to elite-level MDIA A league teams and played with and recruited just out of HS and college level players to play with us in elite summer tournaments. My view is that few, if any HS teams anywhere (including LI and Baltimore) would compete and would rarely win against a CSU or a UCSB.

I agree that a few of these top HS players are ready to make an immediate impact on their college teams and would be one of the best players on a CSU or UCSB squad. I've had a few incoming freshmen play with us in Vail, younger Peyser (JHU) among them and he played well for us, but he wasn't a star for us. However, Peyser is the exception, rather than the rule even on an elite level HS team, a player ready to make an impact as a freshman in College D-1 ball. Give me a bunch of guys with good lacrosse experience in HS and 2-4 years of good college coaching and experience like players get at UCSB or CSU and they'd routinely spank any HS team (maybe not a HS All Star team) in the country. They'd lose 1 in 10 or 20 games perhaps.

(handing the whip to another person to flog this horse some more)

[CyLaxKeeper00]

I'm going to officially place a "WHO CARES" stamp on this discussion.

[sohotrightnow]

Apparently you do.

[Nick B]

hey just cause we read the whole thread doesnt mean that we really care... ill flog this horsie once more... yall need to take your east coast hs pride back home... no way in hell would any hs team hang with a top mdia team, bottom line... allstars might put up a fight.

[KerrLax]

But how can you say they cant? Think about it, a highschool team where all the starters and more are going to DI schools would have more talent than a college team where probably none or one kid was recruited. They've been playing lacrosse since they were in elementary school, compared with kids who picked it up in highschool. Size wouldn't have that big of an impact, and it might actually hurt the college team, since they'd go into the game thinking theyre so much bigger and would dominate. I'd still like to see CSU or UCSB go up against Landon or St. Pauls.

[champlaxer]

I agree. Its a ridiculous and irrelevant comparison.

[Dulax31]

I think alot of people on this topic in this thread and similar ones in the past underestimate the readiness of the most elite HS players have for the college game upon their arrival. Look at Mike Leveille at Cuse, Peyser and Rabil at JHU, and many others. Many of the best players in D1 are frosh and soph. The best of the best make the quick adjustment during fallball and have their confidence and head ready to compete at their potential in the spring. Several top-level college players have the peaks of their careers in their 1st and 2nd college years as burnout sets in for some after that.

I agree with that comment to a point, but I would think that the Leveille's, Peyser's, and Rabil's improved greatly when they got to college. Tell me if I'm wrong but isn't most D1 players improvement in their lacrosse skills done in their freshman year at college? I would have to think most "D1 recruits" work their butts off to get to a point where they would be good enough to see the field. If you compared their skills from when they were a junior or senior in highschool to their freshman year in college, i would think that there would be no comparison for size, speed or skills just based on how hard D1 athletes work year round.

I would love to see a top 5 program in our league play one of these top HS teams....

I'd put my money on the USLIA team.