by Gary Ahuja/Special to Black Press Media
Four teams sit at 2-0 following two days of action at the 2019 World Lacrosse Men’s Indoor World Championship.
Friday’s games saw Canada, Finland, the Czech Republic and Serbia all win for a second straight day as the games continued at Langley Events Centre.
Orange Group
It was another dominant display for Finland’s offence as they erupted for another big game.
The Finnish team followed up their 20 goals on day one for another 23 as they hammered their Swedish neighbours 23-6.
Finland potted 10 goals in the opening quarter and never looked back as they improved to 2-0. Sweden was playing their first game of the Championship and now sits at 0-1.
Tyler Crompton (five goals, six assists), Roope Jokela (two goals, eight assists) and Robert Raittla (six goals, four assists) all had double-digit point games.
Kevin Powers (two goals, two assists) and Thomas Johnson (three goals, one assist) both had four-point games for Sweden.
The other Yellow Group game saw Austria defeat Costa Rica 18-0 behind a shutout performance from goalie Patrick Falb. Gerhard Probst (one goal, six assists), Klaus Hauer (four goals, three assists) and Adrian Balasch (five goals, two assists) all had seven-point games as Austria improved to 1-1.
Costa Rica fell to 0-2.
READ MORE: Canada bests U.S. in day 1 of international lacrosse championships in Langley
READ MORE: VIDEO: World Lacrosse Men’s Indoor Championship begins in Langley
Green Group
An 11-goal second quarter helped the Czech Republic defeat Slovakia 17-3, improving to 2-0 in the process. Slovakia now sits at 1-1.
Pavel Dosly led the way with two goals and seven points while Jiri Loskot, Tomas Prochazka and Petr Poupe had five points apiece.
Soto Cernak led Slovakia with a hat trick.
Germany made their 2019 Championship debut and struck for 25 goals, dropping Mexico to 0-2 with a 25-6 win.
Philipp Broz (three goals, eight assists) and Gustav Weber (four goals, seven assists) had matching 11-point nights while Kieran Garland scored four times and set up five others.
Charlie Frattini III led Mexico with six points, all assists, while Juan Contreras had three goals and a helper.
Yellow Group
Serbia scored the game’s final five goals – all of which came with under 10 minutes to play – to erase a 9-6 lead and win 11-9 over Netherlands.
Serbia improved to 2-0 while Netherlands fell to 1-1.
Illija Gajic finished with two goals and eight points in the victory with Spencer Kriss, Nik Bilic, Alex Gajic and Aleksandar Jovanovic potting two goals apiece.
Richard Haan (four goals, one assist) and Joshua Toguri (three goals, one assist) paced the Dutch attack.
Ireland bounced back from an opening day loss to post an 18-2 victory over Hong Kong.
Brian Gillis was the top scorer on the game with five goals and 10 points while Luke Coppinger had five goals and nine points and three other players (Brendan Farrell, Conor Kelly and Luke Moloney) had five points apiece.
Bryan David Houghton will go into the history books as the first Hong Kong player to score at the World Lacrosse Men’s Indoor Championship. He finished with a goal and an assist.
Blue Group
While Thursday’s opener saw Canada use a strong first quarter on their way to victory, this time it was a dominant second quarter. Canada led England 4-1 after one quarter before putting the game out of reach with an 8-0 advantage over the second 15 minutes as they prevailed 18-5.
Canada leads the Blue Group at 2-0 while England sits at 0-1.
The quarter of Dane Smith (two goals, seven assists), Curtis Dickson (four goals, four assists), Dane Dobbie (three goals, five assists) and Eli McLaughlin (five goals, one assist) combined for 14 goals and 31 points.
England’s Lyndon Buino led his team with two goals and one assist.
In the later Blue Group game, the United States sit at 1-1 following a bounce-back 18-10 victory over Israel, who fell to 0-2 with the defeat.
Kieran McCardle paced the American attack with two goals and nine points while Joseph Resetarits added four goals and eight points. Anthony Kelly (a late addition to the team as an injury replacement) struck for three goals.
Israel’s Jean-Luc Chetner led the team with three goals and five points while Adam Wolf scored once and set up five others.
For full tournament information, visit www.wilc2019.ca.
Photos courtesy of Vancouver Sports Pictures
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