Lacrosse Insider: Where RI's Top Boys' Lacrosse Players are Going to College?

Lacrosse Insider: Where RI's Top Boys' Lacrosse Players are Going to College?

The top Boys' Rhode Island lacrosse player (or players from RI playing for prep schools) have made their decisions and are headed to play intercollegiate next season. On the positive sign - one player has signed with national power North Carolina. However, on the down sign both the number of student-athletes being recruited from Rhode Island is both a small number and despite the growth of the game not much improved over the past decade.

In the past 15 years, Rhode Island lacrosse has exploded. From a sport played at just a handful of private schools to now played at 23 high schools as a varsity in Rhode Island on the boys side and a number of schools such as Coventry and Westerly now have club team, the sport is by far the fastest growing sport in Rhode Island. At the youth level, thousands are playing across the state with programs like East Bay and East Greenwich with nearly five hundred playing in each program.

Today, players from Rhode Island are playing at some of the top programs at Division I,II and III. Next Lacrosse Inside will cover where Rhode Island grads played and how they performed this year in the NCAA season.

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The 2011 report on commitments comes from LaxPower and while it may be omitting a player or two, the top Rhode Island players are getting to college via out-of-state prep schools and not from RI schools.  LaSalle is dominating Division I, but to date LaSalle reports no college commitments.

According to one high school coach, "We have realized tremendous growth, there are more kids playing than ever before, but player development is lacking at the youth level." The need is to continue to develop the sport with more experienced coaches working of fundamentals. 

Five of the top commited players are from Portsmouth Abbey. Most of these players are not RI kids and were not developed in RI programs.