USA Lacrosse Invites 50 Players to U.S. Men's Training Camp

SPARKS, Md. — U.S. men’s national team head coach John Danowski has invited 50 players to participate in a training camp from Sept. 23-25 at USA Lacrosse headquarters in Sparks, Md., in preparation for the 2023 World Lacrosse Men’s Championship. The majority of players invited to the training camp participated in a tryout session last month.

The training camp roster features plenty of international experience with 18 of the invitees having suited up for a USA senior, U19, box or Sixes team in official World Lacrosse competitions, including seven members of the 2018 U.S. men’s senior team that won gold in Netanya, Israel — Trevor Baptiste, Jesse Bernhardt, Michael Ehrhardt, Marcus Holman, Jack Kelly, Rob Pannell and Tom Schreiber. 

Ehrhardt, Pannell and Schreiber were all named to the All-World team in 2018 with Ehrhardt earning MVP honors. Bernhardt, Holman and Pannell are all attempting to make their third U.S. senior team roster.

Numerous other players have participated in USA events as part of the training process for both the 2018 and 2023 U.S. teams. 

The September training camp opens a key period in the selection process for the final 23-man roster that will represent the U.S. at the world championship. The U.S. team will play in the Fall Classic at USA Lacrosse headquarters the weekend of Oct. 15-17 and will have one more camp before the end of the year.

“Part of this thing is about the team building and figuring out chemistry,” said Danowski, who led the U.S. to a gold medal in 2018. “Building a team is not just getting a group of all-stars together and playing a game.”

This year’s team figures to be much younger than the 2018 team, which featured 11 players who have since retired from the Premier Lacrosse League and nine players who lost to Canada in the 2014 world championship game.

“The older guys who have a little bit more experience, it meant a little bit more to them as they were coming to the end of their careers,” Danowski said. “They really liked each other. I think that was really sincere and they wanted to play for each other. That’s a hard thing to judge with younger guys. It’s incumbent upon our older guys that know that to show our younger guys that the way we go about our business for each other and the team is paramount to what we do. We’ve only got a few weekends to promote that and live it.”

The 2023 World Lacrosse Men’s Championship will be held in San Diego, Calif., from June 21 to July 1, 2023. Snapdragon Stadium, a new 35,000-seat stadium slated to open this fall on the campus of San Diego State University, will be the site of the opening and closing ceremonies, the opening game, the semifinals and the medal round games. The University of San Diego’s Torero Stadium will host the majority of featured games, and fields on both campuses will be used for the event which will feature 30 nations and more than 100 games.

The World Lacrosse Men’s Championship traces its roots to 1967 when the United States won a four-team invitational in Toronto that was held in conjunction with Canada’s centennial lacrosse celebration. Since 1974, the event has been coordinated by World Lacrosse and its predecessors (the International Lacrosse Federation and the Federation of International Lacrosse). Overall, the U.S. has won 10 of the 13 championships conducted with Canada claiming gold three times. 

The U.S. men’s national team trains and plays using best-in-class products from Nike Lacrosse (apparel and footwear), DJO (sports bracing), Game On mouthguards and game-changing, high-performance equipment from Cascade Maverik.

In addition to these partners, Gatorade, MedStar Health, National Center for Safety Initiatives and Stryker are officials sponsors of the U.S. national team program. Team training is also aided by products from Athletic Republic. 

Here’s the full list of U.S. team players invited to the training camp: