Glacier Peak Lacrosse Club youth K-8 moving from North Sound to Greater Eastside youth league
GPLC youth (K-8) will move from North Sound Youth Lacrosse League (NSYL) to the Greater Eastside Youth Lacrosse League (GELL) for the 2025 Spring season. This decision was made by the GPLC Board after several discussions, and we believe the move is in the best interest of our players and families. As we depart NSYL, we wish their teams a great 2025 season and continued success.
Some advantages we'd like to highlight as we join GELL:
- Moving from a home address-based youth league to a school enrollment-based youth league, with no variances. This will ensure a more robust pipeline of youth that will attend GPHS and play for our premier varsity team.
- More opportunities with more opponents. GELL is more than double the size of NSYL.
- Additional guidance and structure around how teams are split, when an organization has multiple teams at a particular level.
Moving to a vertical feeder youth program.
GELL is organized as:
- Vertical model: The program for which a player is eligible is determined first by the school they attend and second by their home address.
These rules are intended to create an equitable environment in which teams can compete, prevent athletic recruiting and prevent program shopping (choosing programs based on a coach or perception of competitive strength). Further, these rules seek to promote a local, grass-roots approach to building the quantity and quality of lacrosse in our region.
GELL is organized into the following divisions primarily based on grade, with age limitations as noted. Each division has specific play time recommendations and roster rules noted in the table below.
FAQs:
Q: How will this change affect the eligibility of my child(ren) in K-8th grade to continue to play lacrosse with GPLC?
Our club has been working towards a vertical model for several years so the vast majority of families will not be affected by this league change and will be able to continue to play with GPLC. In order to play for GPLC your child MUST be enrolled in a GPHS feeder school.
GPHS feeder schools:
Cathcart Elementary School
Little Cedars Elementary School
Seattle Hill Elementary School
Totem Falls Elementary
Valley View Middle School
Q: How far will we have to travel for games now?
The GELL is comprised of 23 youth lacrosse programs in the greater Seattle and Puget Sound region of Washington State.
The GELL boundaries span:
North to Snohomish
South to Auburn
West to Bainbridge Island
East to Tahoma
Q: How will this impact our participation in tournaments?
A: The GELL provides a full 10 week game schedule every Saturday from March through mid-May. Unfortunately, this does not allow for participation in tournaments during the season. Therefore, we will not be participating in the Three Rivers Shootout in 2025, but we feel that a stronger weekly schedule will be a great compromise. The Harvey Cup falls outside of the regular season window so GP will absolutely still be participating in the Harvey Cup for 2025.
Q: My child was a ref with NSYL. How do they get connected with GELL to ref?
A: Reffing is managed by the Washington Lacrosse Officials Association and is independent of any youth league our club is in. Nothing will change with regards to those boys that would like to continue to ref and we highly encourage all HS boys to do it.
Q: Does joining GELL for youth affect our high school program?
A: No. Youth and High School leagues are completely independent and this change will not impact our HS program.
If you have any other questions, please reach out to our GPLC Athletic Director, Ryan Jensen, at ryanjensen1@gmail,com.