SPARKS, Md. — The U.S. men’s U19 team will continue its tryout process with a training weekend against a pair of powerhouse high school lacrosse programs at Ohio State University on the weekend of Nov. 16-17.
The U.S. squad will play Culver Academy (Ind.) on Saturday, Nov. 16 at 3 p.m. and then play The Hill Academy (Canada) on Sunday, Nov. 17 at 10 a.m. Both games will be played inside Ohio Stadium on OSU’s campus in Columbus. Admission is free of charge.
“I am fired up to get our USA group of 32 together for the next big step in our effort to build this national team,” said U.S. U19 head coach Nick Myers, also the head coach at Ohio State. “Many of our men will have experienced their first fall of college lacrosse and I look forward to seeing their development. The weekend will feature our first outside competition and give our 32-man training roster an outstanding opportunity to compete, be challenged and grow through adversity.”
Culver Academy was the No. 1 rated team in the nation in the final 2019 Nike/US Lacrosse Boys’ High School ranking and its dominant faceoff specialist, Alec Stathakis, now a freshman at Denver, is one of the 32 players on the U.S. training team. The Hill Academy is the top high school program in Canada and routinely sends star players to the NCAA ranks.
The process for selecting the 2020 U.S. U19 team, which will compete in the World Lacrosse Men’s U19 World Championship in Limerick, Ireland next July, began with a tryout featuring more than 100 of the nation’s top young players this past June.
From the initial tryout, 50 players were selected to move onto a second tryout in July at US Lacrosse headquarters. A total of 32 players from that round of tryouts were named to the training team. This will be the first event for the players since that tryout.
Will Tominovich, a senior defenseman at St. Mary’s (Md.) committed to Georgetown, has been added to the initial training team roster as an injury replacement for Harvard freshman Gregory Campisi.
The U.S. team will have additional training weekends in January and June before next summer’s world championship. Myers and his staff will eventually have to narrow the final roster to the World Lacrosse mandated maximum roster size of 23 players.
The U.S. has won all eight previous World Lacrosse men’s U19 championships dating to 1988. Myers was the head coach for the most recent championship in 2016, leading the U.S. to a dramatic 13-12 come-from-behind victory over rival Canada.
The U.S. men’s national team trains and plays using best-in-class products provided by Nike (apparel and footwear), Warrior (equipment), SISU Guard (mouthguards), Pearl Lacrosse (balls) and DJO (sports braces).
In addition to these partners, Greenfields, Hudl, MedStar Sports Medicine and Sports Performance Tracking are official sponsors of the U.S. national team program. Team training is also aided by products from Motive Pure, NormaTec Recovery and Athletic Republic.