• Acknowledgement of the USL recommendation with regards to player segmentation and its goals of increasing fairness and player safety.
• The current CONNY system is a mix of grade and age-based programs, with the majority of teams being grade-based but the majority of programs classifying by age. This creates confusion in scheduling and makes finding appropriate match ups more difficult. A unified player-segmentation system across all of CONNY would help reduce these issues.
• The recommendation at the meeting was to create a unified player segmentation policy, to be put in place for the Spring 2017 season. This policy is a modified version of the USL recommendations, which is grade-based but with an age filter. Grade-based because we believe this encourages participation, as most players would like to play with friends in their own grade. However, the age-filter would force old-in-grade players to play up with a more age (and development) appropriate group.
• For players in grades 5-8, CONNY is proposing a grade-based system with an age filter, utilizing the USL Sept 1 cutoff date. Players would play in their grade unless they were too old, in which case they would play with the next oldest grade. Players who were young-in-grade would have the option to remain with their grade or play down with the younger grade.
• Where possible, programs are encouraged to utilize single-grade teams. If the numbers do not support that, then two grades can be combined, but only within divisions (i.e. 7th and 8th grade Seniors, 5th and 6th grade Juniors).
• As the date used for CT schools is Jan 1 of the following year, using the Sept 1 date would allow for a maximum of 15 months age spread between players in a single grade system (assuming young in grade players remain with their classmates).
• For 8th graders, a point of emphasis was to allow all 8th graders to continue to play for their town programs, primarily to encourage their continued development but also to limit the opportunities for pay-to-play programs to pop up to attract these players. As a result, the age cutoff for 8th grade players was moved back to 3/1.
• 8th graders who still do not make that 3/1 cut off can petition CONNY to be allowed to play, and it is expected that these petitions would be granted with rare exception.
• In the CONNY team tiering spreadsheet, an additional column will be added for 8th (or combined 7th and 8th) grade teams to show the number of players who did not meet the March 1 date and their birthdates.
• Other old in grade players can also petition to remain with their grade. However, it is expected that this would only be granted in unusual cases.
• For players in grades K-4, there would be no age cutoff enforced by CONNY, giving programs the option to use the 9/1 cutoff date or to keep all players together by grade. It is expected that most Fairfield County programs will keep 4th graders by grade. Separating the youngest players by ability rather than grade also has benefits and should be considered, especially in K-2.
Off topic, but related to this, was the idea of having all programs use the same format when naming teams: Town/Program, Gender, Grade, Identifier (A/B/C, Blue/Red/Green). i.e. Cheshire Girls 6A, Greenwich Boys 8A.
Also discussed was the implementation of 7v7 play for 3/4 Lightning in the 2017 season. This is strongly encouraged. A subcommittee will be formed to enhance communication and consistency in the application of 7v7 rules for the Lightning Division (boys and girls), as well as K-2 Bantams, which may adopt other US Lacrosse Athlete Development Model small-ball versions.