Joel White's U-19 ILF World Championship Blog
Syracuse longstick midfielder Joel White will blog periodically for SUathletics.com while in Canada for the ILF U-19 World Championship. Joel's observations and updates will give fans a personal perspective on his experience.
Sunday, July 6
The past two games have been very different. Yesterday we played Japan. They came out and competed hard, but we won 27-0. Today’s game was a much bigger test for our team as we played a very good Canadian club.
To prepare for the game, our coaches took us to a nice breakfast at a local Denny’s because the breakfasts in the dorms aren’t the most pleasant. Afterwards, we gathered in the common room of our dorm and watched film on the Canadians and went over the game plan. Going in we knew that it was going to be a dogfight. Although it wasn’t a medal game, and there’s a possibility we could see each other again, we wanted to make a statement and come out with a win.
The game didn’t go as it was drawn up at all. It was actually the total opposite. We scored the first goal and the scoring went back and forth throughout the first half.
Then, in the second half, Canada started to pull away and it looked like they were going to blow us out. We were down 14-7 with three minutes left in the third quarter when things started to turnaround for us. We got some quick goals to make it 15-12 with about three minutes left to play, but we caught a bad break and went two men down. Canada threw the ball away and we killed those penalties. It was a big momentum swing for us.
We were pretty fired up after denying them on the man-up and proceeded to score twice in the next two minutes. We were still down one with a faceoff to come. We won it and scored with 26 seconds left on the clock to tie the game at 15-15. We also got a chance to win it in regulation, because after the tying goal, a Canadian player threw his stick which resulted in a penalty, but we couldn’t get a goal before the end of regulation and the game went to overtime.
Overtime in the international game is two four-minute quarters and you play both of them no matter how many goals are scored. We got a goal in the second overtime to go up 16-15 and the score stayed that way to give us the win.
It was an unbelievable game to be a part of. I’m really proud of all of my teammates for hanging in there. It showed we had the heart to come back against a good team after being down seven goals late. This team is getting better and better as the tournament goes on. We have one game left in pool play and then the semifinals. Hopefully we can keep it going.
- Joel
Thursday, July 3
We arrived in British Columbia two days ago (July 1) and spent the last couple of days practicing in preparation for today’s opener against the Iroquois. We didn’t play the best game today, but managed to win, 20-15. You could tell it was our first actual game. We were a little rusty, but we got better as the game went on. No doubt Coach Apel will have plenty to talk to us about before we play Australia Friday.
After the game, we showered up and attended the Opening Ceremonies. Each team was introduced and walked around the track into the middle of the field and listened as all the teams were welcomed by the tournament organizers. It was pretty cool to have all teams in one place. It was quite a collection of talent.
When the ceremonies were over we were allowed to go with our families to eat if we wanted to. Some of us stayed and watched Canada play Australia. Canada, which is coached by Syracuse women’s coach Gary Gait, ended up dominating. They won, 25-7.
There really aren’t any malls or anything near our campus so we pretty much hang around our dorm when we aren’t at the stadium. Our team has made good friends with the English team. We met them the first day we arrived here and our two teams are cheering for each other to do well (except when we have to play against each other of course).
Big game against Australia coming up and I need to get some sleep. Talk to you later!
- Joel
