In what should be ranked in the sports world as we know it this year, the Lacrosse team of the United States closed the gold medal in the world games of 2025 in Chengdu, China with a 16-8 victory over Canada.
The victory gave the States a degree of revenge on the Maple Leafs, who defeated the United States three years ago during the last World Games event in Birmingham, ALA.
The tournament and its results have yielded a number of Hot Takes, which follow below:
In contrast to three years ago, the United States did not bring anywhere on the second level to the World Games. The World Games 2022 took place just a few days after the Lacrosse Place World Championship and two separate gratings were formed for these two tournaments. Canada, on the other hand, had a lot of overlap between the two tournaments and their senior field Lacrosse -athletes were phenomenal in the tournament.
The results of this competition are a bit stunning for me because of the game level of some teams. In the last four minutes of the game, Australia had to make a huge comeback to draw level and reach overtime.
England, a team that was the best Lacrosse nation on the planet 50 years ago and has always been the best in the world, did not make the medal around this tournament, a pretty amazing development.
I think the only non-Noord-American team that made the biggest impression was Japan. The Suns had the amazing few Negai Nakazawa and Kororo Makazawa, two talents who have sharpened their skills at the University of Louisville. They were really fun to watch.
Has anyone in terms of National Team had a better recent series of results than Charlotte North? She now has a medal from World Championship winner from 2022, a World Box Lacrosse Championship from 2024, and now a World Games title in the Sixes discipline.
North was not a leader for the American team, but she was the loudest player in the Huddle during Timeouts and water breaks. She becomes a great leader for this American program for as long as she pulls an American kit.
Oh, and she had 16 goals and 13 assists for 29 points, second in the team.
However, leading the American team in points was the experienced captain Marie McCool. She ran great snow birds in the course of the tournament and scored 20 goals and 12 assists in the tournament.
Another player who excelled from the end of the attack for me was the American player who did not have her name on the back of her sweater: attacker Ellie Masera. She was the only player in this World Games team who also stood at the Silver Medal-winning World Games side three years ago and played as if she were on a mission.
The American side was a Lacrosse ‘Dream Team’, which also included the current Tenwaaraton Trophy winner, Chloe Humphrey. She had 13 goals for the States in this tournament and an unforgettable score at the end of the third quarter against the Czech Republic.
During the piece, Taylor Moreno brought the ball into the game while the clock tapped to less than 10 seconds. She launched an outlet pass to McCool, who brought through a pass to Humphrey, who had her back to the goal.
With the time that time was demolished, McCool lowered the head of the stick and hit the ball to the cage between her feet and past the Czech keeper.
Golazo!
The World Games Sixes Tournament consisted of 18 games.
I will be blunt here: most of them were blowouts. Only two games ended with a victory margin of fewer than five goals. Two.
However, one of them was a roller coaster of a competition between Japan and Australia for the bronze medal. Japan had a lead of three goals with 4:39 in regulations, but Australia received goals from Mim Suares-Jury, Stephanie Kelly and Georgia Latch.
During that comeback, Japan had the chance to stonen the bleeding with a large score of nozomi Tanaka’s stick, just to let the shot go away, and the referee put in the back pocket to remove a red card.
You may have seen this before in other forms of Sixes Play, where the responsibility is to the player to shoot safely, because there is no shooting space call in Olympic rules. But this was a critical call, one that Australia gave a two-minute power play with 2:01 in regulations.
That was exacerbated by the fact that Negai Nazakawa received a green card in the last seconds of the regulation. The resulting Power Play, which led to overtime, resulted in the goal of Latch that won the bronze for Team Koala.
The Tanaka Red Card was not the only one in the medal round. Canada saw Jordan Dean in the second minute of playing the gold medal match forward to hitting an American player with a shot on goal. In a tournament with only 12 players in a selection, losing a player for the rest of the game is a hard, if not draconian twist, events.
Perhaps this is a rule that World Lacrosse has to investigate in the years before the Olympic Games?
#August #Golden #Takes