Good morning. Here’s the latest from around the lacrosse world:
1. The U.S. women’s national team improved to 2-0 at The World Games with a 14-6 victory this morning over Great Britain in Wroclaw, Poland. Check back to uslaxmagazine.com for more from this game, which started at 4 a.m. Eastern, and the others today.
2. Team USA’s 20-0 victory Thursday over Poland may have seemed anticlimactic from afar, but in Wroclaw, Poland, lacrosse’s debut at The World Games was celebrated as a historic occasion — and a significant milestone in the sport’s quest to return to the Olympics. U.S. attacker Alyssa Murray, who had three goals and nine assists in the opener, wrote about the magnitude of the moment in the latest “Mission Log” blog.
3. The Denver Outlaws clinched a Major League Lacrosse postseason berth and home playoff game with a 12-11 overtime win Thursday over the visiting Chesapeake Bayhawks. Attackman Eric Law scored the game-winning goal in OT for the Outlaws (9-4), who have now made the playoffs in 12 of their 13 seasons of existence. The Bayhawks (6-7) had tied the game with six seconds left in regulation when Rookie of the Year candidate Josh Byrne (four goals) finished a Matt Danowski feed. Denver goalie Jack Kelly made a career-high 24 saves.
4. The Charlotte Hounds (6-7) moved into a tie for fifth place with a 16-12 win over the Boston Cannons (3-9), whose lost season only got worse with rookie midfielder Sergio Perkovic landing on the injured reserve list with a wrist injury. Boston rookies Cal Dearth (Boston University) and Tim Muller (Maryland) made their MLL debuts in the game, while goalie Jack Murphy, a 2014 draft pick out of Fairfield, made 20 saves in his first career start. Hounds midfielder Mike Chanenchuk scored two 2-point goals, including one from way beyond the arc.
5. The MLL playoff race will come down to the wire. After Thursday’s results, six MLL teams are separated by one game in the loss column in the race for likely two playoff spots behind Denver and Ohio.
6. Kevin Rice found an MLL team willing to put his underrated talent to use — and he has flourished with the Atlanta Blaze.
7. The college coaching carousel keeps spinning. Colleen Shearer, the former longtime Virginia women’s lacrosse assistant who left to become the head coach at Division III Bridgewater College, is back in the Division I ranks as a volunteer assistant at James Madison. On the men’s side, BU tabbed Max Silberlicht, the former Hobart goalie who spent five seasons as an assistant at Division III Bowdoin, to coach goalies and assist with the defense. Former Cornell head coach Matt Kerwick, meanwhile, has landed at IMG Academy in Florida as director of lacrosse. A head coaching vacancy remains at Canisius.