Getting ready for Charlotte

Bamalax is ready to hit the road this weekend heading to the Southern Sizzle in Charlotte. Summer time tournaments are great but it is always tough to get good quality practices in with so many camps and vacations to plan around. Bamalax has entered teams at U13, U15 and high school elite. Our U13 and U15 teams have had a few more practices than the high school team but most of the high school players have been attending camps and tournaments so they should be in decent shape. Our high school team is down a few good players but overall I think we should be OK. Losing our top face off guy will hurt but if we can get over that hurdle and our defense and goalies step up, we should be able to contend for the championship. I'm excited to see our U15 players, I think we have a good shot at that age group as well as the U13 division. Alabama is slowly getting there, with players now starting in first grade and high school players with 7+ years of playing experience we are able to compete with most teams out there and often surprise teams that don't expect Alabama to have quality players. Our high school team has 9 players that attended Top 205 rising junior or senior camp and at least 3 legitimate division I prospects which is a far cry from where we were just 3 short years ago. As quickly as we are improving, everywhere else in the country is improving just as quickly so we have to work even harder. The number of good players in the US and Canada is staggering, I don't know how college coaches can keep up. One of the boys who came back from 205 said that players were complaining about a new DI program's coach because he never returns e-mails and I was thinking with only 56 DI programs, how could he keep up ? Every player thinks he is better than he probably is and pushy parents probably don't help the recruiting process by overwhelming coaches with videos and e-mails. My goal is to just create a legitimate program with the best possible talent so when I contact a coach about a player he knows I'm not wasting his time. We still have a ways to go to accomplish that but with the athletes we have coming up I think we will have several players playing at big time programs in the very near future. Having Brye French at the Naval academy next year will certainly help raise everyone's awareness about Alabama lacrosse and open doors for the younger Bamalax players coming up following in his foot steps