Clueless

D getting into women’s lax and was wondering about the recruiting process as we are more familiar with soccer. She is heading into so yr. she academically strong and would be looking for solid academic D1 or D3 school. Again, I’m more familiar with soccer but how do girls typically get recruited for lax? Is it through clubs, high school, tournaments or college camps? I’ve heard demonstrated interest through camps plays a much larger role than it does for say soccer. Any truth to this?

I’m concerned as the state we live in has a few women’s lax clubs but it’s west of the Mississippi and certainly not as strong as other states and regions.

Thanks for any help/thoughts

Recruitment for lax changed this year. It used to be very much like women’s soccer with kids as young as 13 ‘committing’ to schools. Now, coaches can’t contact or make offers to anyone until Sept 1 of Junior year. At camps, they cannot talk about recruiting. They never really did talk about recruiting at the tournaments. Students can still take unofficial visits but can’t talk recruiting until junior year.

Recruiting is mainly done through college camps and the 4-5 national tournaments sponsored by the IWLCA. These are with club teams and the teams have to register on the first minute in order to get in. Some teams in the tournament will be short players and will take ‘orphans’, so if your daughter is good and her team doesn’t go to the tournaments, she could go solo. Unless she’s really (really) good, she won’t get much playing time. There are also tournaments sponsored by UnderArmour and Brine with regional ‘all star’ type teams, with tryouts at the local level and then regional tournaments with the winners going to finals in Baltimore/Philly.

Camps at all the big program schools - Maryland, Duke, Northwestern, Denver, Ivies, Syracuse, and really all over in the summer. Most of the camps have coaches from 10-15 schools. Some of the camps are the week before the big IWLCA tournaments, so look for them near Midlothian, Va the week before, or in NE the week before that tournament.

Many more teams in the east, although the PAC 12 now has enough schools to play a conference schedule. The coaches have a network and feed players to their friends. There are ~500 schools that offer lacrosse at the D1, D2, D3 and NAIA levels, plus a lot of Club level teams that are very competitive, especially in the west. Your daughter is going to want to find an academic and athletic fit.

@bclv, my advice is to get your D on a club team that has some track record of getting recruits to the sort of schools your family is interested in if possible. Make a highlight video and get your list together. As @twoinanddone says, the rules have changed so 2020s aren’t getting offers until 9/1 of their Junior year.

Your job is to make sure that the schools you are interested in know your level of interest. Send them emails with your D’s schedule for tournaments and try to attend a camp this summer at a school of interest or two and/or a showcase camp like Triple Threat or Top of the Class.

There are no guarantees but if you are realistic about your school selection in terms of lacrosse and academics, there are definitely matches to be made.

ETA: Be prepared to spend significant money on travel. If you are from a not-bed area (as we are), you will have to go to where the action is, i.e., Maryland, VA, NY, NJ, MA, and FL for Presidents Cup. Soccer activity is much more evenly distributed across the country but to get recruited from a state with limited home-grown competition you will need to go to where the games are.

I agree with the others – we are fortunate as being from South Jersey the big tournaments were not huge trips. My D played on a club team between junior and senior year, and she started writing coaches early during her junior year. Once we narrowed down the schools where she had a fit and coaches wrote back showing some true interest, she attended a few camps at the schools (during Junior year). She also made sure the coaches of her best fits and top picks knew her tournament schedule AND she followed up with them after to see if they were able to see her play.

She got a few offers, in all divisions including a lower ranked D1 team. She is a good solid player, a bit late to the recruiting process, played on a top 15 in the country high school team. She is playing for a top 20 D2 team this fall as a freshman.

You said D1 or D3 - why not D2? Some West and Midwest D2 schools are very competitive – that said even they come to the LAX hotbed to recruit (NJ, NY, MD, VA). My D is a very good player though I feel like next to some of her NJ teammates it didn’t seem that way! Her HS senior class ended up going to big name D1 schools - every one of them and they were recruited early. But D was persistent and realistic about where she would fit and did fine!