The phrase "young lad" refers to a boy or young man who is still considered to be relatively young or in the early stages of growing up. Full definition
My son was a healthy young lad, a blessing to our house, but the two daughters I bore since never made it through their first winters. (rachelheldevans.com)
He introduces the village monitoring team, young lads who get up daily at 3:30 A.M. to patrol the streets for open defecators and try to persuade them verbally: «It's easy to build a toilet, so why don't you? (scientificamerican.com)
There are a lot of young lads in the team at the moment and they're all in a similar situation to me so that's helped me to settle in. (trulyreds.com)