Kevin Crowley led Canada to just its third gold medal at the International Lacrosse Federation world championships.
The New Westminster midfielder scored five of Canada’s opening six goals, including a highlight over-the-shoulder marker and the eventual game-winning tally at 9:05 of the third quarter, en route to an 8-5 victory over the United States in the gold-medal final before nearly 12,000 partisan fans at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park in Commerce City, Colorado on Saturday.
“World champs, world champs. Yesterday after the game, people were interviewing me. It hadn’t really sunk in, but (today) world champions sounds pretty good,” said Crowley on a long-distance call to the Bunaby NOWon Sunday. “In 2010, for me in Manchester (England), I was a late addition. But this time around, I made sure I was prepared for it. All my preparation was for this gold-medal game.”
It was the third world title for Canada, which also won gold in 1978 and 2006.
For the Americans, it was a bitter defeat in front of their hometown fans to not win a record 10th world championship title.
“It was unbelievable to see (the U.S.) faces after the game and to starve them of possession,” said Crowley. “We had like a blue collar mentality. We carried our own bags to the game, unlike the Americans. … it was really special to take it to them.”
Canada dominated the ground game in the championship final, scooping up 35 ground balls and maintaining possession of the ball for long spells in the game.
The Canadians led 3-1 at the half and 7-2 heading into the final quarter.
The loss was the first in the tournament for the U.S. squad, which beat Canada 10-7 in the opening day of the championships.
Canada goalie Dillon Ward made 10 stops in the final and was named the tournament’s top keeper and the first keeper to ever win the overall championship MVP. Ward fashioned a 63.3 save percentage at the worlds.
Other local players –nicknamed the “604 Boys” – included all-world team attack Curtis Dickson, with a single goal, Jordan Hall, with two assists, and Wesley Berg of Coquitlam.
Burnaby’s Matt Brown, an assistant coach at the University of Denver, was an assistant coach with Canada’s national team.
“We had the best coaching staff in the world,” added Crowley. “There was something about winning it with our Canadian guys. And to have my family come down, it made it that much more special. It was important to me.”
In other final placement games, Jordan McBride of New Westminster helped Scotland to a best-ever sixth-place finish, scoring five goals in a 15-13 loss to England. McBride led Scotland with a team-best 28 goals and 38 points.
Scotland teammates Kyle Buchanan, Matt MacGrotty and younger brother Jimmy McBride, all of New West, joined Jordan on the 10-member President’s team. Jimmy McBride garnered 20 goals in tournament play, while Buchanan had 16 assists.
Scott Janssen, also of New West, scored four of his 23 total goals for the Netherlands in a 9-6 loss to Switzerland in a battle for 15th place overall.
Tyler Buchan led all goal scorers with 35 markers for the Chinese national team.
