New Lacrosse Tournament Deals With Name Confusion, Expects to Grow

OK, let’s help out all the lacrosse fans in this area with a few facts:

Fact No. 1—the Pikesville Lacrosse Tournament is brand new and just took place for the first time last weekend.

Fact No. 2—Lax Max is NOT the same tournament. While that tournament used to be in Pikesville, it is a different event.

There, now we’ve cleared up some confusion.

When those who organized the new Pikesville Lacrosse Tournament, held at Pikesville Middle School, started putting things together last winter, they kept running into the confusion of people who automatically thought it was Lax Max.

Yes, Lax Max was here for a number of years and grew into something big. But it’s not played in Pikesville any more, and the Pikesville Tournament is something different and IS played here.

The name recognition problem was a big one for the organizers and will likely be something they run into several more times in the future.

The reason? They are starting a tournament in a place where another one had been. That’s a tough task.

But those putting together the new tournament, such as co-chairs Bruce Scherr and Tom Crompton, along with the folks at Pikesville Rec, took a smart approach.

They just wanted teams and programs to come to take a look at them and see what the tournament was all about.

Crompton said they weren’t doing this first competition to make money but more so just to get people here and build for the future. About 500 kids participated in this event—not too bad for the first time around.

Using this strategy was a gutsy move for a recreation sports tournament. Most of them, in any sport, no matter what they tell you, are all about money. Nothing more, nothing less.

But the organizers really were looking down the road. There were questions to answer, fires to put out. They had to play through an early-morning rain storm, needed to have teams play a number of games in just one day.

But what they did this year is going to help them get bigger next year.

They are hoping to see this become a two-day event instead of just one day and bring more teams and programs. But much of that growth would come from the realization that it’s better to start small because it's easier to control things.

This will help speed their growth—and end the confusion about which tournament is which.