What to Do If You Don't Make a Senior B Lacrosse Team

Not making a Senior B team in your first year out of junior is one of the most common experiences in Ontario box lacrosse. It is also one of the most misunderstood. Getting cut does not mean your game is broken. It usually means the team already has too many good players at your position, and someone has to go. Here is what actually happens at Senior B tryouts and what the smart play is if you are on the wrong side of the final cut.

This is evergreen stuff. It applies whether you just aged out of junior A in 2025 or you are reading this three years from now and wondering why the team you tried out for never called back.

The Three-Tryout Rule

Most Senior B teams run on a three-tryout baseline. You run three times before management makes a final decision. It is not a formality. Coaches and GMs are using those three sessions to watch conditioning, system fit, attitude under pressure, and whether you can be coached between plays.

A single good session does not earn you a spot. A single bad session does not lose you one either. What earns you a spot is consistency across three tryouts plus a realistic sense of where you fit on a 20-man roster.

The other thing three tryouts gives management is time. If a team already has 17 quality defenders and can only keep 10, the decision is not only about you. It is about how you fit into a roster the team has been building for years. That is the piece most cut players underestimate.

Cut for Talent vs Cut for Numbers

There are two different kinds of cuts, and they feel the same in the moment but mean very different things.

Cut for talent means you are not yet at the level the team needs. This is rare at the Senior B level because most players trying out already have solid junior resumes. It happens mostly to players stepping up too quickly, or players who have not trained seriously since high school and show up hoping to find their old game.

Cut for numbers means you are good enough but the team is stacked at your position. This is the more common cut. A Senior B team that is deep at defense can let go of a strong D-man who would start on most other rosters. The player hears "sorry, we had to make cuts" and walks away thinking their game is broken. It is not. The roster math just did not work.

The giveaway is in the coaching staff's post-tryout message. If they tell you to keep working and invite you to come back next year, that is almost always a numbers cut. If they suggest you play at a lower tier to develop, that can go either way.

Why Senior C Is Not a Demotion

Senior C was built in 2019 specifically to give junior graduates a place to keep developing. The league was designed to absorb the flood of graduating junior players who did not have spots on the 12 available Senior A and Senior B rosters at the time. It is a developmental tier by design, not by accident.

Playing Senior C for a year or two does three things for a player who got cut from Senior B. First, it gets you used to playing against grown men. There is a real physical gap between junior and senior, and Senior C is the gentler introduction to it. Second, it keeps your game sharp during a season you would have otherwise spent watching from the stands. Third, it puts you on the radar for Senior B call-ups.

Real examples help here. Johnny Powless went from getting cut by the Rebels to making the Six Nations Arrows. Players on every Senior B roster have stories about stepping down to Senior C for a season, putting in the work, and getting the call the following year. The pathway exists. It is just not instant.

How to Handle Getting Cut

The first rule is do not blow up your phone at the GM the next day. Coaches and managers take notes. They remember the players who handle cuts with maturity. They also remember the ones who do not. Future call-ups, future tryouts, and future opportunities all flow through those same relationships.

The second rule is to ask for feedback once. One message, short and respectful: "Any advice on what to work on before next year?" If you get a reply, you get real homework for the off-season. If you do not, you learned something about the team and you can move on.

The third rule is to pick your next step with purpose. Senior C on a strong team. Masters if your age group makes sense. Men's league or the Arena Lacrosse League (ALL) to stay sharp during the winter. A serious off-season conditioning plan. Any of these are better than sitting out a full year and hoping the rust will not show at next year's tryout.

What GMs Actually Want to See

If you ask a Senior B GM what separates the players who make it from the players who do not, you usually hear the same three things. Show up ready, not hopeful. Be coachable. Accept the role you are given.

Show up ready means off-season conditioning, a stick that has been worked on in a garage all winter, and a realistic sense of where you fit. Be coachable means taking in-practice feedback without visible frustration. Accept the role means if the team wants you as a third-line transition player instead of a first-line scorer, you play that role hard and earn more later.

Players who treat their Senior B tryout like a job interview tend to get the job. Players who treat it like a showcase tend to get cut, even when their individual skill is high.

The Path Forward

Getting cut is not a verdict. It is information. It tells you where the team is, where you are, and what the gap between the two looks like right now. Players who take that information and act on it almost always find a team somewhere in the system. Players who take it personally and disappear for a year usually do not come back.

Senior B will still be there next summer. So will Senior C, Masters, and every league in between. The real question after getting cut is not "why me". It is "what now".

This article is based on Episode 38 of The Creator's Game from Beyond Pryde. Listen on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts.