Ireland knocked off England, 10-7, in the final of the Men’s U20 European Championship in Wroclaw on Saturday evening.
Ireland claimed its first championship in the second edition of the event, dethroning the defending champion England, which won in 2019 in Prague.
The game itself was a trade-off of runs in the first two periods, with England cutting a 6-3 deficit to 6-5 at halftime. Then Ireland reeled off a four-goal run to pull away, and saw out a late England effort.
Darcy Rybinski led Ireland’s attack with four goals and two assists while Emmet McDermott added two goals and three assists. Christopher Burnetta chipped in two goals and two assists. Ireland’s defense only allowed nine shots on goal the entire game.
Joshua Clegg posted three goals and an assist for England.
Sweden capped off an impressive campaign to take the bronze medal with an 8-5 win over Germany on the final day.
Russell Carlson tallied three goals and goalkeeper Niklas Kindblom made nine saves on 14 shots on goal.
In the third game of the day, Italy bested Latvia to claim ninth place. The full placement of the 13 teams can be found below:
- Ireland
- England
- Sweden
- Germany
- Czech Republic
- Netherlands
- Israel
- Poland
- Italy
- Latvia
- Switzerland
- Denmark
- Belgium
Burnetta and Rybinski finished in the top ten on the attacking points leaderboard, as did Hugo Peel, Clegg and George Shonfeld for England.
Cayden Petr Bartusek of the Czech Republic led the tournament with 23 goals and eight assists.
Full results from the tournament can be found here.
Many of these teams will be in action next year at the 2025 World Lacrosse Men’s U20 Championship in Korea, on Jeju Island. World Lacrosse will announce the field of teams set to compete in the coming months.
