WELCOME to the homepage of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Youth Lacrosse Association (“SEPYLA”).

Here's a playoff update:
 
1. The A1 and B1 regular season needs to end by this Monday, May 23rd.  All teams need to report their scores to Jerry Price or Carol Spiker by Monday night.
 
2.  8 teams will make the playoffs in each division and the opening round games will be played during the week of May 23rd.  The preferred nights to play are Tuesday, May 24th or Wednesday, May 25th since bad weather will still give us Thursday, May 26th as a rain date.  We don't want to play on Friday, May 27th because of Memorial Day weekend.  Each team is responsible for paying one official.  Game times for the first and second round should be 6:15 p.m. or 6:30 p.m. (unless the home team has lights).
 
3.  The second round games will be played during the week of May 31st, with the preferred dates being Wednesday, June 1st or Thursday, June 2nd.  Each team is responsible for paying one official.
 
4.  The SEPYLA semifinals are Saturday, June 4th and the finals are Sunday, June 5th at the SPARK complex in Upper Dublin.  Game times on Saturday will be A1 semi at 10:00 a.m., A1 semi at 11:45 a.m., and B1 semi's at 1:30 p.m. and 3:15 p.m.  Game times on Sunday are 12:00 p.m. (B1 final) and 1:45 p.m. (A1 final).  We use 3 officials for the semis and finals and each team pays an official and SEPYLA pays the third official.
 
5. If a lower seed upsets a higher seed in the first round, the highest remaining seed gets the lowest remaining seed in the second round (i.e. if the 8th seed beats the 1st seed in the first round, the 2nd seed gets to play the 8th seed in the second round instead of having to play the 3rd seed - the 3rd seed would play the 4th seed in the second round under this scenario).

Here's the final first round schedule for the North A1 and B1.  Please note that Wissahickon's home schedule is different than what was posted in my last email.
 
Tuesday, May 24th
CBAA B1 vs. TBA at Herbst Field at 6:30 p.m.
Crooked Crosse B1 vs. TBA at SPARK at 6:00 p.m.
Crooked Crosse A1 vs. TBA at SPARK at 7:45 p.m.
Horsham B1 vs. TBA at Cedar Hill Road Field at 6:30 p.m.
 
Wednesday, May 25th
CBAA A1 (Vetter) vs. TBA at Herbst Field at 6:30 p.m.
Warriors A1 vs. TBA at Meyer Way Field at 6:15 p.m.
Wissahickon A1 vs. TBA at Wissahickon High School Turf at 6:45 p.m.
Wissahickon B1 vs. TBA at Wissahickon High School Turf at 8:00 p.m.

The Southern A1 and B1 first round schedule will be posted soon.


Six boys’ lacrosse organizations formed SEPYLA in 1987 to encourage the growth of the sport at the youth level and ultimately to develop strong high school programs in the greater Philadelphia region. Today, almost 25 years later, SEPYLA has over nearly 40 member organizations and has spawned youth leagues in Chester County, Lehigh County and New Jersey.  The high school programs with players from SEPYLA’s members rank among the most competitive in the nation.

Since its inception, SEPYLA has focused on the creation of community-based programs generally consistent with school district boundaries. SEPYLA has and continues to believe that teams will only improve if they play the best competition available.  Consequently, SEPYLA’s rules encouraged members to field teams in its most competitive divisions and discouraged players from playing outside their community in order to provide a competitive schedule for its member organizations and ultimately spread and improve our great game. At the same time, however, SEPYLA recognizes that unique circumstances sometimes warrant exceptions if such circumstances creates an opportunity to play lacrosse where one would not otherwise exist.

In recent years, players’ desires to play on the “best teams” have increased the conflicts with SEPYLA’s organizing principles and goals. Thus, SEPYLA found it necessary to revise its rules regarding eligibility/locale of players.  Below is the new rule.

Eligibility/Locale: No member organization of SEPYLA shall permit a player to participate in any SEPYLA game who does not reside within the member’s school district boundaries or such other boundaries established by SEPYLA’s By-laws unless expressly authorized by the Competition Committee for that season only and such player may not participate in a league game until expressly authorized by the Competition Committee.  All requests for exceptions must be submitted directly to the Competition Committee by the player’s parent or legal guardian. No request from a member organization is permitted. Recruiting of players from outside a Member’s boundaries is prohibited.

If a player wishes to ask for an exception to this rule, the parent/guardian of the player must email Mr. Bill Shields, Vice President of SEPYLA and Chairman of the Competition Commitee, at with specific reasons why an exception should be granted. There will be two periods where Mr. Shields will accept exception requests:

Period #1:  October 14, 2010 to November 30, 2010.  All exceptions received by November 30th will be reviewed and answered by December 15, 2010.

Period #2:  January 15, 2011 to February 15, 2011.  All exceptions received by February 15th will be reviewed and answered by March 1, 2011.

Since exceptions will be granted in cases of severe hardship, it is difficult to offer any guidance on the specific facts that might lead the Competition Committee to grant an exception. However, the Competition Committee offers these examples of circumstances that the Competition Committee would not grant an exception:

-player did not play for his home club last year (no grandfathering)

-player has or had a relative who coaches or coached in the non-home club

-player has school teammates, summer club teammates, or friends on the non-home club

-player attends school within the non-home club area

One of these reasons, by itself, would not normally be grounds for considering an exception. If other factors were involved, the request for the exception might be considered.

Players who live in an area that currently does not have a youth lacrosse program participating in SEPYLA, Chester County League, Lehigh Valley Youth League, Berks County Youth League, South Jersey Youth League or Delaware Youth League are eligible to play for SEPYLA program that is adjacent to their home area/school district*.  If that player wishes to switch to another SEPYLA program in the future, an exception must be granted.

*The city of Philadelphia is broken into areas based on zip code and the SEPYLA Competition Committee will determine which SEPYLA programs are adjacent to where a player lives.