About 989

Fall 2025 Changes for 989

989 Lacrosse was started in 2014 with a varsity team of players from Midland. The next year we added youth teams and expanded to draw players from Midland, Bay City, Saginaw, and Flint. In 2016 we merged with the newly-formed Momentum Lacrosse that was launched by a previous Alma coach who lived in Midland. We went dormant when Momentum fell apart in the fall of 2019 and COVID wreaked havoc with 2020. In summer 2021 we relaunched to again provide a local, low-cost option for travel lax and a continued commitment to find a place for everyone to have fun and get better at lacrosse regardless of skill level and experience.

We've now completed our 5th summer since the re-launch. We've been successful in our main mission that each summer 60-100 players have gotten better at lacrosse. However, reflecting back on those five years, we've concluded that we haven't been accomplishing that mission in the most optimum and efficient way that we could, and therefore we've decided to make some changes.

Quick Summary

• Starting this fall, our tourney teams that play at the large, competitive tournaments will now be selected by tryouts and player evaluations. We'll continue to charge as low registration fees as we can to minimize the cost to players while aiming to break even financially as an organization.
• Players who are not selected for the tourney team rosters ("house/practice players") will still play games and scrimmages, but they'll be games arranged with similarly skilled teams from Flint, Detroit suburbs, etc. at smaller events (like the Mitten State Lax event we've organized in Midland in recent years). This will allow us to play teams that are a better match for our newer and less-skilled players, make adjustments if we need to for roster size (for example, playing Sixes instead of full 10v10), and keep the cost for house/practice players extremely low (e.g., something like $20 for a season). House/practice players will also have the possibility of being added to tourney team rosters if open spots arise due to injury, lack of availability, etc.

Explanation

As of spring 2025 we were very happy to observe that each of the high school teams and youth clubs in our area now has a mix of highly-skilled experienced players, less-skilled experienced players, and relatively new players. Because 989 has aimed to serve both experienced and relatively new players in a one-size-fits-all travel-tourney program, our summer and fall teams have similarly been a mix of highly-skilled experienced players, less-skilled experienced players, and relatively new players. On rare occasions we've even had brand new players who played their first ever lax game ever in a summer tourney against highly skilled travel teams...a situation that did not serve those new players well. Additionally, because the tourneys (for example) require rising seniors to play in varsity divisions, it forced us to put them on the varsity roster (even if their skills were more suited to JV) and to balance the roster numbers by putting younger, more skilled players on JV (even if their skills were in reality a better match for varsity). We've also generally struggled with numbers to field teams at each age group. Varsity has (usually) had an adequate number but on the low end of a workable roster size and has generally competed well at tourneys. The JV and youth teams have usually been very low on number of players and struggled to compete against other tourney teams.

This situation hasn't been ideal for highly-skilled players. In the summer, preferably we'd be able to place them on a team full of highly-skilled peers rather than a broad mix of high, medium, and low skills like their spring teams...to give them a better experience and help them continue to grow in skill. We'd hope that the tourney teams rosters will evolve to include many/most of the most skilled players from each of our high schools and youth clubs...Midland/Bay City/Saginaw "all-star teams" you might say.

The current situation has also not served new and low-skilled players well. Playing against highly skilled teams and getting whipped at tourneys...or at best struggling to compete with them is not very helpful for improving the skills of those players. Paying relatively large summer tourney registration fees to do so makes it even less worthwhile. Instead, these players would benefit most by building skills and fundamentals in practice and in games/scrimmages against more appropriately-matched opponents rather than playing at big travel tourneys.

In the late summer of 2024, in response to requests from some of our more highly-skilled players, we entertained the idea of launching "989 Elite" teams and had some player evaluation sessions for that purpose...but it wasn't clear how we could make that work while continuing to serve our other players in the same way without a large increase in the number of registrations...which (perhaps not surprisingly) did not happen.

However, as we have now come to realize that the status quo isn't ideal for any of our players, we think that the new plan described here will better serve all.

Let us know if you have any questions via email at 989lacrosse@gmail.com