2026 Private School Boys Lacrosse Commentary, Scores, and Updates
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Anonymous
Honest question - What is the difference between GZ having a down year or DM having a down year and SSAS having a down year? |
Anonymous
How active and bitter the parents are on DCUM? |
Anonymous
King's best year has been a 6 loss season. The difference is now there has been little chance at a regular season title as the years progress and now there is little chance to even make the finals of the WCAC tournament. With the presence of BI, DOJ, BM, there will be zero chance of being in last place. |
Anonymous
| Gonzaga plays too hard of a non conference schedule |
Anonymous
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Anonymous
said nobody |
Anonymous
It’s already happening, but let me tie a couple of posts on this thread together to provide a more complete picture of what GP is up against and for that matter many other schools. 1. The Hilgartner Situation: First, GP didn’t have any real options other than Hilgartner. Is he a good coach? Definitely but not a great one. The proof is that McDonough didn’t try to keep him. People invest in value and quite simply price versus performance wasn’t clearly apparent to McDonough leadership. McDonough throws a ton of money at its lacrosse program so it’s interesting as to why they didn’t try to maintain the relationship. Hilgartner was brought in to resurrect a program. Strong performance equals strong donations from alums which translates into a growing endowment. Endowments are what pay for facilities and programs. Not tuition. Hilgartner will cast a wide net for talent and as stated above that will displace locals. For those who subscribe to posts on this forum saying that GP needs return to the GP of the 90’s, pull your heads out of the sand traps at CCC. GP Lacrosse is going to follow the same model as the other teams like football and basketball. Quite frankly, if those players were available within the belt way Hilgartner’s work would be easy. Competition for quality students is high within the DMV. The implosion of GP Lacrosse in specific has given families permission to look at other schools than GP where the value proposition might be more interesting. 2. GP Boarding: First of all, GP is not a boarding school. It is a day school that incidentally lets 20% of its students spend the night. That is a much different experience than Lawrenceville, Choate, Taft, or Andover. The pervasive “locals only” attitude is a real turn off. Kids talk and from what I hear the dorm experience leaves a lot to be desired. Locals antipathy towards boarders is manifest everywhere certainly on this forum so there is going to be tension between the landed gentry and an administration/coaching staff that has divergent ideas regarding the direction for the program. Families are looking for value and there was a great post comparing the tuition and room/board prices of the various elite boarding school. Turns out GP was one of the most expensive. That creates a real recruiting problem for Hilgartner and GP. Take this example, my kid is a strong student with a solid reputation in lacrosse and we live in Baltimore. It’s too far to commute. He has to board. I do some research and find out other schools aren’t more expensive, have better academics, consistently ranked higher in lacrosse, and are feeders to the IVY league and other top universities. I don’t even have to look far from home. Boys Latin had more IVY League commits than GP this year. That says a lot. Then, I come to site like this where I see GP parents denigrating boarders and transfers. I’m not letting my kid be subjected to that treatment even to the point of singling. The answer is a clear one. Hilgartner has taken on a monumental task. Whatever he’s getting paid he is going to earn every penny. I just don’t think nat this stage of his career he is up to it. |
Anonymous
| GP boarding is a money maker to attract extra full pay international students. No lacrosse stud is going to GP to board. There are so many better options. |
Anonymous
Three starting attack already are. |
Anonymous
| King had some bad luck in 2022. Undefeated and had won against McDonough, Culver, I think Boys Latin, Prep (when they were really good ) Bullis and several other national programs and were ranked #2 in US behind one of the best teams ever—SJC. Then the best offensive player and 5 star player decides to lower his shoulder on a ride again a Heights player….and never played again that year. Had a very hard time generating offense after that. If Matan doesn’t get hurt Gonzaga may have beaten SJC (they were still close with them in title game to end season). |
Anonymous
Taking advantage of an opportunity to provide an alternative perspective on a few items in your post about Prep. 1. Prep coaching search - it's not accurate to suggest they had no other options. They had a couple of good candidates they could have potentially hired if Hilgartner hadn't said yes. It can be argued that the school did a poor job of timing their move away from Urick (the reality is that was pushed heavily by alums more so than the administration and it took a while for the ball to start rolling downhill). Waiting until summer probably altered the approach a bit, but they still had options. Having not scoured DCUM for all posts related to this topic, I can't unequivocally say you're wrong, but it seems like a lot of the talk of Prep parents being upset or wanting things to go back to how they were in the 90's is coming from people outside of the Prep community in many instances sharing "what they've heard". There are comments on these boards about drama with past, current and future parents at every school and it has to be recognized that some of it's driven by people who aren't associated with those schools either sharing what they hear or wanting what they're saying to be true. 2. Prep's old dorms were antiquated which may have made the boarding experience less attractive for students, however, despite that, the school didn't have an issue attracting boarders. Historically, Prep has always had a larger international boarder population versus US boarders. There are a lot of families from Asia and South America that have a tradition of sending their sons to Prep for a Jesuit education (the new dorm was only made possible b/c of a very large gift from a family from Asia who had multiple generations attend the school). The new dorm has not only transformed the living experience for the boarders but it has also serves to better integrate the whole day student / resident student experience. I'm not sure how that translates to the dorm experience leaving a "lot to be desired" but having sons who went to the school, this is accurate (doesn't mean the situation is perfect, or that no Prep boarder is unhappy, but it's a stretch to say it's undesirable). In terms of tuition, it has to be said that spending $70K plus on HS is a lot of money and good for those that can afford it (or whose kid has earned assistance), but using your list of other boarding schools + adding Deerfield b/c it has become a popular boarding destination for lacrosse players in this area, Prep boarding tuition sits right in the middle of that list in terms of boarder tuition. 3. Don't know much about Boys Latin - sure it's a great school that sends kids to fantastic colleges and know there is a rich lacrosse history there. Doing a quick look at their lacrosse instagram page and IL, I don't see the commits' to IVY league schools for 24, 25 or 26 (perhaps there are 27'S that just aren't posted yet). That doesn't mean it's not true, but BL isn't posting it and it's not reflected elsewhere. I believe it's accurate that Prep currently has 2 starting attack at Princeton with a 26 and a 27 committed to go there plus a 27 commit to Brown (I'm not sharing other commits to schools like Hopkins b/c your comment was limited to the IVYs). Even if other schools are sending more kids to the IVY's for lacrosse, that's not a bad track record for Prep. There's no arguing Prep's lacrosse was going in the wrong direction the last few years and alums & parents weren't happy (not sure that would be different at any other school). They had a fantastic team a few years back b/c they had a group of great seniors with some strong underclassmen... once that class graduated, the team failed to repeat that success. Small part due to talent drop, large part due to coaching - it happens, just look at the comments on this board right now about Dematha and Gonzaga coaches. Talent hides a lot and when it graduates and the teams don't do as well, parents are quick to become unhappy and parents from competing schools are quick to pile on and escalate - it's what makes DCUM so popular! Lastly, it's fair to comment on Prep parents b/c a number have earned that, but it's not as if Gonzaga, Landon, St. Johns, Boys Latin, McDonough, etc.. don't also have some parents that fall into the same category. No school can escape the unfortunate sports parents. Every once in a while, there's a great class of kids and parents that can set a tone and minimize the volume of the undesirables, but it's awfully hard to avoid it on the regular. So yes, it may be true that some Prep parent, whether it's at CCC or Millies or McDonalds, might be grumbling about something, but no one can say that the same isn't true of the other schools parents as well, so it's a little disingenuous when that is used against Prep like it's unique. Perhaps we let this season go deeper than 3 games (all wins btw) before deeming the Hilgartner experiment a failure and Prep an unattractive destination for any and all local lacrosse talent moving forward. |
Anonymous
Very well said, and I agree 100%. |
Anonymous
Rare quality post but if I may add something, not sure PP was saying Hilgy is/will be a failure, he just said there's some structural issues that he would have to with through to be successful. I'm "neutral" in that I'm not a prep dad and I hate every other school but this is a good debate. |
Anonymous
| McDonogh 11 Gonzaga 5. Bad Clearing and way too many unforced turnovers by both teams. Going to be long year for King and the Purple Eagles. |
Anonymous
Last year the DM seniors rolled Severn. This year they got trounced. No adjustments made the whole game. They need to schedule more B and C level teams or it’s going to get more embarrassing. At least GZ will have an easy W |