COQUITLAM - The United States clinched first place and remain undefeated at 3-0 after a 17-3 win over the Iroquois Nationals that included a 16-0 run in the final 65 minutes of the game. Team Canada moved to 3-1 and clinched second place with a dominant 17-3 victory over Australia at the 2016 Federation of International Lacrosse (FIL) Under-19 Men's Lacrosse World Championships on Day 5.
Meanwhile, Taiwan won its first official international tournament game with an 8-7 win after five sudden-victory overtime periods, seven overtime periods in total, in a morning thriller on Monday. Israel also clinched first place in the Red Division, defeating Germany 12-7 carried by strong pole play and great goalkeeping. China set up a battle for first place in the Green Division on Tuesday against Ireland, after defeating Scotland 12-5.
CANADA 17, AUSTRALIA 3 - BOX SCORE
Canada clinched second place in the Blue Division paced by a balanced offensive attack as they closed out the round-robin in dominant fashion defeating Australia 17-3.
Ryan Lanchbury (4G, 3A), Jeff Teat (3G, 2A), Ethan Walker (3G) and Riley Curtis (2G) led the Canadian offence, while Ben French and Dylan Follows also pitched in with one goal and two assists a piece. Singles came from Tanner Cook, Ryland Rees and Clarke Peterson. Australia got one goal each from Gordon Purdie Jr, Keegan Davies and Pius Bonjui.
"I think we met our goals. We challenged our guys to come out and really push the tempo but make great decisions early on, and we did that," said Canadian head coach Taylor Wray. "We felt like we needed to be a little bit tougher with getting to the middle of the field, and running through checks and getting ourselves between the pipes with some of our shots. I thought we did a pretty good job of that today."
"We knew that Australia, from watching them in some of their games so far, they're a team that they can have the ball for long stretches of time. So we felt like we needed to put some pressure on them in the ride and make it difficult for them to get the ball in their offensive zone," Wray said. "And that worked in our favour, too. I feel like we had the ball for a lot of the first half - I'm happy with the result."
"There are still as always things we can improve upon," Wray said. "We're starting to get better and starting to add some new elements to our offence and defence and that's what we hoped to do as as we go through round robin play. I felt like we had a lot of different scorers today and we were rolling our defensive players through, and trying to help all of them build chemistry."
USA 17, IROQUOIS NATIONALS 3 - BOX SCORE
The United States scored 16 unanswered goals in the final 65 minutes of the game and survived a shaky opening 10 minutes to clinch first place in the Blue Division and earn a bye to the semifinals on Thursday night. Alex Roesner (5G, 1A), Mac O'Keefe (4G, 1A), Jared Bernhardt (3G) and Simon Mathias (2G, 2A) led the U.S. offence. Single goals came from captain Timmy Kelly, Dox Aitken and Ryan Conrad (1G, 1A). Brad Smith added three helpers and star attacker Michael Sowers was held to just one assist. The U.S. won 21 of 23 draws - Austin Henningsen went 12-for-13 and Christian Feliziani was 8-for-9 on draws - and dominated the possession game.
Austin Staats had all three goals for the Iroquois, all coming in the first 15 minutes.
The U.S. (3-0) will face England (0-3) on Tuesday afternoon at 4 p.m. The U.S. semifinal will be played on Thursday at 4:30 p.m. The Iroquois (1-2) will battle Australia (1-2) for third place in the Blue Division on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. Both games will be played at the Stadium.
CHINA 12 SCOTLAND 5 - BOX SCORE
China got six goals from Eric Wang, and four goals and two assists from Kurtis Shum of Vancouver to set up a game for first place in the Green Division on Tuesday. Martin Ma and Matthew McIlwrick added one goal each for China, while Scotland had two goals from Corrie Bruce and singles from Josh Richardson, Josh Gray and Colin Uyeki. China (2-0) will face Ireland (2-0) at 12:30 p.m. at Field 2 with first place in the Green Division on the line. Scotland (0-2) will face Korea (0-2) for third place in the Green Division at 9:30 a.m. at Field 2.
TAIWAN 8, MEXICO 7 (7OT) - BOX SCORE
Shu-Cheng Lin scored in the seventh overtime period to lift Taiwan to its first win in FIL international tournament play, 8-7 over Mexico. Min-Hao Cheng and Hung-Wei Liang added two goals each for Taiwan, Bo-Yi Wu, Bing-Ruei Chiou and Yu-Hung Hu added singles. Alec Gastony, who played the first half in net, scored three goals for Mexico including the overtime forcing sixth goal and one in the first overtime, a non-sudden-victory period. Adolfo Castro del Castillo scored twice for Mexico and Tlaloc Orozco-Cohen and Federico Serrano Castro de la Torre each added one goal. Taiwan (1-3) are in fourth place in the Red Division, while Mexico (0-3) is locked in for fifth place in the division. Mexico plays Israel (3-0) on Tuesday morning at 10 a.m. at the Stadium.
ISRAEL 12, GERMANY 7 - BOX SCORE
Israel clinched first place in the Red Division thanks to strong defence, excellent transition play from the long poles, and goaltending, along with a five-goal day from Nick Schulkin (5G, 1A) and three-goal effort from Alon Berkowitz. Singles came from Yotam Drori, Ilan Hascal, Zachary Ornstein and long pole Noah Knopf. Germany had two goals from Soren Spiegel, with singles coming from Per-Anders Olters, Lukas Kins, Franz Munzing, Florian Werner and Lukas Tophoven. The teams were tied at 2-2 after the opening quarter, before Israel scored five in the second quarter and never looked back. Germany (2-1) will face Hong Kong (2-1) on Tuesday at 1 p.m. at the Stadium for second place in the Red Division.
