Summer Tournament Teams
In our inaugural year, TeamTiger placed 5 teams from U11 to Varsity levels into 9 tournaments up and down the northeast. While we had varying levels of on the field success, the important thing to realize is that it was our first year and we must learn, adjust and make incremental improvements each year while remaining true to our philosophy.
At the core of our philosophy is a very simple concept … we must provide a competitive outlet for our dedicated lacrosse players with the overriding goal of keeping our most dedicated lacrosse players together from the youth through high school levels. If we learned one thing at the High School levels, it is that there is tremendous value in keeping our players together. We saw time-and-time again that our “All Northport” team was able to compete with and beat all-star teams from all over the country… often beating teams that clearly had more raw talent, but could not match the play that came from that unexplainable connection our players had with each other simply because they have played together for so many years.
At the U11 and U13 levels, our biggest challenge revolved around tournament brackets — we often played up, and more often than not, we played all-star teams. And while we may have had tournaments with a less-than-desired number of wins, we more often than not, competed against older, more skilled teams… and one thing is for sure, as these kids get older, they too will acquire that connection that players make only when they’ve spent years together. The other challenge at the younger levels is identifying talent and making sure as many dedicated kids — at all ages — get a chance to play should they be qualified. Often that’s tough to do in a weekend roughly 7 months before our first tournament, but it’s even tougher on the kids when you are on the younger side of the U11 or U13 levels.
With that said, this year we will make some adjustments to address some of the challenges we faced in our first year. Adjustments that better align with our core philosophy and our end goal of winning Suffolk County, Long Island and State Championships.
More Teams/Smaller Rosters
In 2010, we attempted to field A and B teams at the U11 and U13 levels. The perception was that 10 year-old and 12 year-old boys were at a disadvantage. And we assume, after the “A team” was selected many of the younger players lost interest in the “B teams.”
For 2011, we will attempt to field teams for U10 (4th Grade), U11(5th Grade), U12 (6th Grade) and U13 (7th Grade) levels. All teams will feature coaching staffs made up from current Northport school district coaches and current/former college players.
Since we will have teams for each grade level, we are looking at team size. It may make more sense to have fewer kids on each team to maximize game time and team competitiveness.
In addition to our youth teams, we will continue to field U15 (JV) and U17 (Varsity Teams), but because we have such a large number of kids competing for U15 spots, we will also field a U14 (rising 9th grade) TeamTiger Tournament Team.
Tryouts
U10, U11, U12 and U13 Tryouts will take place from 11am-3pm on Saturdays November 6th, 13th and 20th at Vets Field. Exact time slots are to be determined and will be posted on our TeamTiger Tryout page but we wanted to get this information out as soon as possible so you can mark your calendars. We will also leave some spots open on each team that will be filled towards the end of the spring season. This will allow some kids to use the spring season to develop. TeamTiger Directors will work closely with Northport Lacrosse Club spring coaches to fill these additional spots.
New For the November 6th, 13th and 20th tryouts: we will also include select 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th grade Northport Lacrosse Club Youth coaches as evaluators. Our feeling is that these coaches have seen these boys play — in some cases — for several years. This should proovide valuable insight and improve the evaluation process. If you’re an NLC coach interested in participating in the tryout process, please let us know.
There are no tryout sessions for U14 (rising 9th grade) and U15 (rising 9th/10th grade) and Varsity (rising 11th/12th grade) teams. School district coaches will name players to U15 and Varsity teams based on regular season performance.
U9 tournament teams will continue to be handled by Northport Lacrosse Club and parent volunteers.
Tournaments & Brackets
Having U10, U11, U12 and U13 teams will eliminate the challenges we faced by grouping 2 grades onto one team.
We are also looking to replace some tournaments we’ve been doing for years with some newer, better organized and more competitive tournaments. We are also looking into an overnight tournament …
Youth Level Travel?
For 2011, we are exploring taking our youth teams to an out-of-state tournament. While this will add to the expense, we feel this may further solidify the passion and camaraderie between players and families we see develop at the high school levels. The Varsity team participated in the Mid-Summer Classic at the University at Massachussets and had great success. On the adjacent facility was the New England Lacrosse Tournament and featured U10-U14 age brackets. We’re currently exploring this tournament as a possibility for our U10-U13 teams.