Spring Travel Evaluations for 3rd Grade

Spring of 3rd grade provides a new option for LUSC soccer players: the Travel program. It is an opportunity to play on skill-based teams against similarly skilled teams from other towns within the BAYS league. There will be 5 home games and 5 away games played in nearby towns. For more information, see the team formation page. Note that the In-town program continues to be an option for 3rd graders.

Travel team placement is skill-based, so it is important that LUSC carefully assesses each player’s skills to provide the best experience (https://lexingtonunited.org/team-formation/). Because Travel is new to 3rd graders in the spring season, the 3rd grade spring team formation process resembles the more complex fall team formation process of the older age groups. An independent evaluation is a critical component of this process, so it is important for your child to attend evaluations if they are considering registering for the Travel program. It is important to note that the evaluation is not a tryout as anyone who registers for Travel will be placed on a team. Attending evaluations is also not an obligation to register for the Travel program, so even if your child is leaning toward participating in the In-town program, they should attend evaluations if they might register for the Travel program.

Evaluations will be held on Sunday, November 12th at the Center Track Field

Boys (2 sessions)
12:00 to 1:30 (boys A through K)
1:30 to 3:00 (boys L through Z)

Girls
3:00 to 4:30 (all girls)

Common Questions:

What if my child can’t attend the evaluation, can they still play travel soccer?
Yes. Although we encourage any, and all, players that can attend the evaluation to do so, we recognize that sometimes this is impossible due to other conflicts.

How will my child be placed if they can’t attend the evaluation?
LUSC will use coaches’ feedback from the fall to try to best place a player that misses evaluations. We typically look for similarly rated players by coaches and compare them with the evaluations ratings and try to find the proper team. The goal is to place players properly as described on the team formation page.

Is there an evaluation make-up?
No. We bring in independent evaluators to view all players within a division. It’s nearly impossible to hold a second evaluation that would have the same set of conditions with the same set of evaluators to replicate the experience that all players that attended the evaluation were rated under.

What if we are still deciding whether or not to play travel soccer next year?
Attend the evaluation. It’s always helpful to have the data in case you do decide to play travel soccer. If you decide to remain in-town, your child will have experienced an evaluation and have less anxiety about them in the future.