USYS Seasonal Age Change for 26/27 Season

We wanted to reach out to discuss this coming season. As you may have seen and heard, we also shared it on our FB Page, USYS has decided to move to Grade Based Ages for the 26/27 Season; well they’re calling it Seasonal Age Groups, as the date range will change from January 1-December 31 to September 1-August 31 to be more in-line with keeping kids together based on their school grades. 

This change started picking up steam over last Fall, to the point where many felt it would go into effect for the 25/26 Season, but USYS decided to give it another year to implement. With that said, we know there will be many questions from parents, and honestly we will have the same questions as well, so we’re all waiting for follow-up info on how this will be implimented moving forward; please have patience with us as we are waiting for the same answers/guidelines from USYS, EPYSA, and our Leagues.

With that said, our plan is to NOT jump ahead of it and put the new ages in place for this season, but we may also look at it as a case by case basis, feeling that the 11v11 groups may be the easiest to try it out with, but that won’t limit us to any of the smaller sided either. This is not saying we are, but what we are saying is as we roll into try-outs, we may decide to combo a couple of the age groups to have a look. For the first try-outs, still show up at your age group’s day and time, and if we decide to combo them for the 2nd tryout we will let you all know in advance. If we do implement the Seasonal Ages to any groups this year, there will be plenty of communication amongst the board, coaches and most importantly the parents in the decision making process.

We feel moving to the Seasonal/Grade based ages will have it’s benefits in the long run, but we also hate that we are going into this season, sort of a “gap year”, where teams as you know it could play their last full year together. We think kids will be allowed to play up with the new age rule, but again can’t say that confidently until we get more info from USYS; we will all cross that bridge together when we know.

As soon as more detailed news is given by USYS we will pass it along.

Let this also be a friendly reminder that Try-Outs are open, so please get signed up and it’ll help us navigate any potential changes.