Anonymous wrote:PP here. As far as OP's question, part of the reason may be that the privates around here recruit the best kids from publics. That's how our DS ended up at private as did several girl lax players he knows. Historically lax has been huge up north for much longer than down here. It took awhile to expand beyond Maryland and has but now Colorado, Dallas, CA, FL and OR/WA and spots in the midwest are starting to make in-roads in East Coast dominance of lax.

So do they give your child a full scholarship to play lax at their HS?

Anonymous wrote:Howard county publics have excellent lacrosse teams, especially on the girls side.

Yes but outside of two schools we get housed by the good privates. The problem is generally depth. We might have 5 or 6 D1 commits on the field and a few more who are high D3, but there are girls getting significant minutes who aren’t anywhere near either level. You either keep the starting midfield in the entire game or the difference starts to show. The privates we play have lots more depth.

Howard county publics have excellent lacrosse teams, especially on the girls side.

Anonymous wrote:The reasons why VA and MD public schools for boys lax in the area aren't strong is a little different in MD than in VA. In VA, the primary problem is that better lax players are really spread out geographically. If you take a roster of VLC or Madlax, the kids will be from all over Fairfax, Loundon and PW (particularly for VLC), Arlington, and Alexandria. So no specific school has that deep of a pool of serious players. A school could theoretically overcome this if it created a strong feeder program, but this hasn't really happened in a completely robust way like you see for the elite LI public schools (Ward Melville, Chaminade, etc.). And then some of the better players in NoVA also go to the traditional lax privates further weakening the pool for the VA public schools.

In MD, there is a concentrated group of kids that play lax in the Whitman, Churchill, and even BCC clusters. So those schools have deep enough pools to be really deep and good. But a high percentage of these kids go to Landon, Gonzaga, GP, Bullis, or St. John's rather than the public schools, so those public schools can't compete. The reason for the high concentration of private school lax kids in MoCo is because lax is passed down through families a lot and it becomes self-perpetuating, a lot of the good MoCo lacrosse players are Catholic and were always going to go to a catholic school, and if you play on a MD club or Madlax you meet a lot of kids from the privates and make friends and so people sometimes move from public to private for small things like that.

Chaminade is an all male Catholic high school.

The reasons why VA and MD public schools for boys lax in the area aren't strong is a little different in MD than in VA. In VA, the primary problem is that better lax players are really spread out geographically. If you take a roster of VLC or Madlax, the kids will be from all over Fairfax, Loundon and PW (particularly for VLC), Arlington, and Alexandria. So no specific school has that deep of a pool of serious players. A school could theoretically overcome this if it created a strong feeder program, but this hasn't really happened in a completely robust way like you see for the elite LI public schools (Ward Melville, Chaminade, etc.). And then some of the better players in NoVA also go to the traditional lax privates further weakening the pool for the VA public schools.

In MD, there is a concentrated group of kids that play lax in the Whitman, Churchill, and even BCC clusters. So those schools have deep enough pools to be really deep and good. But a high percentage of these kids go to Landon, Gonzaga, GP, Bullis, or St. John's rather than the public schools, so those public schools can't compete. The reason for the high concentration of private school lax kids in MoCo is because lax is passed down through families a lot and it becomes self-perpetuating, a lot of the good MoCo lacrosse players are Catholic and were always going to go to a catholic school, and if you play on a MD club or Madlax you meet a lot of kids from the privates and make friends and so people sometimes move from public to private for small things like that.

Anonymous wrote:Lacrosse is popular around here for mostly kids who can't play other sports.

Cut from baseball, go to lacrosse, cut from basketball go to lacrosse, cut from soccer, go to lacrosse, sure there are some good players, actually really good ones but the majority of them are just kids lining the pockets of the clubs.

This is the typical attitude of too many DMV area Lacrosse parents. You never played the sport, your son or daughter likes it because it is popular in the area and they have friends that play. You try to learn but are too old to really understand the game yet scream all the rules and watch youtube videos to think you are an expert. You secretly hate it because you don't understand it. Yet, you follow a board like this and comment??? Here is the thing parents like you will NEVER understand. Kids play lacrosse because it is FUN! The greatest football coach of all time stated that football practice is NOT fun. Yet, he loved practicing lacrosse. It is a sport you can make yourself better at by working hard enough. Your son or daughter loves playing because it is fun and best of all you do not understand it which makes it special.

"Plus, as for the priavte St Chris, it has not played a "tough schedule" as its hasn't met a single top teams from north of DC (Kiski Prep in PA doesnt cpount - they suck). Sure, they beat SSSAS boys but so have a lot of teams this year. Give it up."

A lot of teams beat SSSAS? HMMM who didn't????

Anonymous wrote:I’ll bite. Like many sports a passion for lacrosse and early training is the result of parents who care and used to play. DC is full of transplants from the rest of the world and rest of the country from non lax playing areas. That’s true to a much lesser extent in PA and Baltimore.

Curious to know the # of private schools per capita in the DC area vs. Long Island and other areas where public schools rule. I'm betting there are more private options here.

I’ll bite. Like many sports a passion for lacrosse and early training is the result of parents who care and used to play. DC is full of transplants from the rest of the world and rest of the country from non lax playing areas. That’s true to a much lesser extent in PA and Baltimore.

I grew up here and its always been mainly a private school thing.

Anonymous wrote:According to the latest WP HS ranking two public schools in the top 5. Are you claiming this is fake news?

Omg ... Yes it's fake news

They do it in every sport. They take a few public's and sprinkle them in.