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Youth Leagues
Girls Articles
Your son or daughter wants to play lacrosse and you have no idea where to start. Northern Virginia has a wide selection of opportunities to choose from so it can be very confusing for the first time laxer or even for an experienced lacrosse player new to the area. This article serves to help you find your way through the lacrosse community serving NOVA and provide enough information to help you make your decisions about where to get instruction and play.
Lacrosse is a year-round sport here. The competitive season is in the spring with Lacrosse being a spring sport in local high schools and the primary youth leagues. Organizations in the area also provide camps and clinics as well as off-season leagues that are played in the fall, winter and summer. This article will break down the seasons starting with the spring season and describing the opportnities available to you.
SPRING SEASON
Spring is the major competitive season for lacrosse. Both the Northern Virginial Youth Lacrosse League (NVYLL) and the Virginia High School League (VHSL) kick off their seasons some time in February with evaluations and try-outs. Teams are selected after this process and the season begins with games usually starting in March and lasting into June. The NVYLL is a youth league for girls and boys ages 9 through 16 with the bulk of the teams being U9 (under 9), U11, U13 and U15 and with a few teams that are U17 made up of high school freshman who didn't make their high school teams and want to continue playing. High schools in Northern Virginia have sanctioned Junior Varsity and Varsity teams with some schools sponsoring a club Freshmen team. In addition to these two primary leagues there is a third league made up of non-league travel/select teams called the National Premier Youth Lacrosse League (NPYLL) that plays its games in the Spring as well.
The Northern Virginia Youth Lacrosse League
If your son or daughter is under 15 as of December 31 of the prior year then this is probably the best league to start your Lacrosse career. The league is organized into clubs, each club being a separate non-profit organization serving a particular high school pyramid. That is, you select the club to join and play based on the public high school your son or daughter will attend. Each club manages its own sign-ups, evaluations and team selections and depending on the numbers of players for each club they determine the size and number of teams. Each age group has its specific teams and within an age group teams are segregated between A,B and C teams where A teams are the most experienced and most skilled players and C teams are the first time and lowest skilled players. This segregation helps to develop players at their own speeds and levels. The NVYLL games are typically played on saturdays.
CLICK HERE to view the current NVYLL high school pyramid in order to select which club you should contact. After find the club you should join CLICK HERE to get the contact information.
High School Lacrosse
Spring sport tryouts and practices typically begin on the third monday of February each year. All high schools follow the same schedules. Each school will have their own process and meetings for the students who are interested in playing lacrosse so please contact your high school coach for this information.
CLICK HERE for boys or CLICK HERE for girls to find the website for your school
The National Premier Youth Lacrosse League
This league was created in 2008 as an alternative for more advanced players. The league is made up of select teams from clubs not only in Northern Virginia but in Maryland as well including the Baltimore area. The games are typically played on sundays and some players are on teams in both the NVYLL and NPYLL.
CLICK HERE to view a list of participating clubs in the NPYLL.
SUMMER, FALL AND WINTER SEASONS
Summer lacrosse is a time mostly devoted to camps and tournaments. Fall lacrosse also has several annual trounaments as well as youth and high school leagues. Winter lacrosse is mostly indoor league play (both box lacrosse and modified field lacrosse) with a few indoor tournaments that some teams participate in.
For high school players many of the recruting tournaments and camps where college coaches come to evaluate players take place in the summer and fall. There are organizations that run summer/fall travel teams and have their own evaluation and team selection schedules as well as a schedule of tournaments they will play in. In some cases, high school and youth league coaches will organize teams to play in tournaments as well. You should ask your coaches about summer opportunities since each coach will have their own ideas about what will be best for your son or daughter.
Summer Leagues
These leagues tend to be less demanding in that there are no practices and most players miss a few games due to vacation and other summer schedules. TripleEDGE Lacrosse offers a laid back "house" style league for youth and high school ;boys and girls players to simply show up and split up into teams and play some lacrosse, a good easy way to continue to work on your game. The Metro Elite Lacrosse League (MELL) offered by MAD LAX is a more competitive league for boys high school players in the DC metro area.
Summer Camps & Clinics
There is a large variety of summer camps and clinics available and that many NOVA lax players participate in. Usually participation is organized by the youth and high school coaches since it is beneficial to participate as a team. At the high school level many players select camps given at colleges and universities that they are interested in potentially playing lacrosse at.
NOVALacrosse.com maintains a growing list of camps for both BOYS and GIRLS in our directory.
Summer Tournaments
Summer and fall are when the more competitive tournaments are played around the nation. Most tournament participation is organized either by spring season coaches or through select travel teams in the area. These tournaments serve as a competitive extension for the youth aged players and for college recruiting for the high school aged players. If you are interested in playing in summer tournaments and need to find a team, first contact your NVYLL club representatives to see what your coaches might be doing or find a Select Team (BOYS / GIRLS) and check their tryout schedules and availability.
Fall Leagues
These leagues tend to be less demanding in that there are no practices. TripleEDGE Lacrosse offers a more competitive league than their summer league for high school and youth players including boys and girls. he Fall Elite Lacrosse League (FELL) offered by MAD LAX is a more competitive league for boys high school players in the DC metro area. The Piedmont Lacrosse Leqague is another competitive fall league for high school boys.
Fall Tournaments
There are several fall recruting tournaments that the travel teams participate in and you can get that information from your travel team coach. Fall is also the time for several local annual tournaments that local youth teams and high school teams participate in as well as other teams that come from outside the Northern Virginia Area. NOVALacrosse.com maintains a list for these particular tournaments for BOYS and for GIRLS.
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