Overnight, the quarterfinals for the World Lacrosse U20 Women’s World Cup were contested.
Now, to nobody’s surprise, the two top teams in the competition, the United States and Canada, won their games to make the last four of the competition, currently taking place in Hong Kong. The U.S. beat Puerto Rico 31-6 to have the right to face Australia in tomorrow’s semis.
In the other half of the bracket, Canada stopped Italy 25-2. But the other semfinal offered up one of the great stories of this championship: the story of Team Japan.
Japan has never won a medal in a major lacrosse championship at any level, but came out of Pool D winning a tiebreaker with England and Ireland; all three teams had 3-1 records at the end of pool play and England and Japan advanced on a tiebreaker.
Japan, led by Louisville star Negai Nakazawa and Yale star Megan Kitagawa, had beaten England last weekend in the third round of pool play and, this morning, beat them again by a score of 12-6.
This is surprising, given England’s dominance in world women’s lacrosse circles for much of the 20th Century. Indeed, it’s a far sight from when a Great Britain/Northern Ireland touring team handed a Long Island women’s all-star side a 40-0 defeat in 1967.
One could speculate about the reasons why the current England junior national team is seemingly at a lower level of competition. But I think two reasons can be found within the United Kingdom. Back in 1967, women’s team sports participation was pretty much limited to sports like lacrosse, field hockey, and netball.
The two field sports which inflame the passions of most Britons — soccer and cricket — were pretty much in their infancy in the 1960s. Women’s soccer was not sanctioned by The Football Association until 1976. Cricket, despite having a promising start in the 1930s, had only sparse participation and competition; England only played four Test series in the 1950s, and only professionalized the game in 2014.
I don’t have the numbers, but I am sure that there are now more athletes looking to play these sports, leaving behind the stick-and-ball sports of field hockey and lacrosse.
Which kind of reminds you of what has happened to American field hockey since the first U.S. international soccer match in Jesolo, Italy in 1985. Meanwhile, the American lacrosse juggernaut continues.