When the boys' soccer season began this spring in Washington, Eastlake High School in Sammamish, was without two of its top players. Nearby Snohomish High lost three team members, including its goalie.

It wasn't a rash of injuries or disciplinary suspensions that sidelined the athletes. Rather, the Crossfire Premier Soccer Club had told its players they could not participate on both their high school team and the club team at the same time.

Crossfire, a U.S. Soccer Development Academy Program, wants its players to focus on the club team and give up high school competition to reduce the risk of injury. By concentrating on just the club team, organizers say the players are provided "a meaningful training and competition model."

The new policy has high school coaches and athletic directors in the state fuming. "I think it's extremely unfortunate that these kids are being put in a situation where they have to choose between one or another," Snohomish Head Coach Dan Pingrey told The Seattle Times.

"The really talented kids will probably benefit from concentrating their efforts on the elite team," says Brent Kawaguchi, Athletic Director at Eastlake. "But the kids who aren't exceptional and are persuaded by their Crossfire coaches to pick the club team are the ones that this will hurt the most. Those kids won't make the national team, but could help their high school teams a great deal."

Some potential Crossfire players chose to play with their high school teams, including one of Eastlake's team captains who switched to another club team. "I had committed to my high school team and I had captain responsibilities and I felt I had to fulfill those," senior Tyler Klein told The Seattle Times.

"Our league's athletic directors have talked about the situation as a group, but we haven't yet come up with an answer to fix the problem," Kawaguchi says. "We're going to look into communicating with this club to see if they will switch their training months, but that's the extent of our problem solving right now."