2024 WJLC Day 3 Recap

The Scottish Thistles pulled off arguably the biggest upset in IIJL World Junior Lacrosse Championship history Monday night, delivering a 16-15 blow that has the potential to derail the United States' hopes of defending their gold medal. 

Stearns picked up the rebound of a Ruskoski shot off a three on two and calmly reached out to tuck it past goalie Jackson Curtis with 3:11 to play to break the ninth tie of the game with what proved to be the winning goal. 

Day 3 Recap

SCOTTISH THISTLES 16 - UNITED STATES 15

hThe Thistles, one day after losing 19-5 to Canada, got a pair of goals from Bartos and one from Ruskoski in a span of 2:23 to forge a 3-1 lead. That stunned the US, who had pummelled Australia 21-3 on Sunday. The Americans appeared rattled at times, but they kept pushing the pace and actually had a 7-6 lead at one point in the second quarter. 

Scotland swung the momentum with 4 straight goals to go back ahead by three, but then the US special teams kicked into high gear. They got a power play marker for the final goal of the first half, then opened the third quarter with a shorthanded goal from Benjamin Pousak (who leads the tournament with 19 points through three games) followed by 2 power play goals from Ian Wick, which helped to push his tournament-leading goal total to 13. 

The game continued to swing back and forth. Rafael Katts scored on back to back bombs a couple of minutes apart to produce a 15-14 lead for the United States with 6:36 to play. They continued to pepper Scottish goalie Jawor with shots, but he was spectacular down the stretch to keep them from scoring any further. 

Bartos got his fourth of the game to tie it up again exactly two minutes after Katts had pushed the Americans in front. That set the stage for Stearns' stroke of magic. 

The Thistles still had to hold off the US for another three minutes and they looked to be hanging on by a thread as the Americans pushed for another tying goal. Jawor simply would not let another shot get by him, and the Thistles were able to make it to the final buzzer for the win. 

CANADA 28 - POLAND 1 

The game winning goal was scored 1:17 into the first quarter. That is how one-sided this game turned out to be. Canada went up 2-0 on a transition breakaway goal by Weatherby followed by Smith ripping a rocket to the bottom right corner 28 seconds later. 

Poland got the next goal. Luke Walski was checked to the floor from behind right on top of the crease, drawing a delayed penalty. But Walski popped back up near the boards and tossed a perfect pass to the unrushing Alfred Miklos III, who tucked a shot home to the far top corner. 

That would prove to be all the scoring Poland could muster, though, while Canada just ramped up their offence by the quarter: they scored 5 goals in the first quarter, 6 in the second, 7 in the third and 10 in the fourth. 

Smith wound up with 7 goals and 1 assist, Thomas (5g/3a) and Tomkins (5g/2a) each had 5-goal nights, and Elliott put up a goal and 8 assists to lead all scorers with 9 points. 

Day 4 Preview 

Poland (0-2) vs Australia (0-2) 5:00 PM EDT

The winner has the inside track to the bronze medal game.

Canada (2-0) vs United States (2-1) 8:00 PM EDT

The US needs a win to keep control of their own chances of making it to a gold medal rematch against the Canadians.

The much-anticipated US vs Canada game tonight (Tuesday, August 6) takes on even greater importance now. If the Americans lose, they will a lot of help from other teams to have a shot to get back to the gold medal game, which will pit the top two teams from the round robin standings against each other on Thursday night at 8pm ET. 

The US has their bye day on Wednesday; with a loss to Canada Tuesday, they would need to see Poland beat the Thistles and score at least 17 more goals against Scotland than Canada does against Australia.