After falling short of the postseason, two members of the Ithaca College men’s lacrosse team decided to take their talents across the world to Seogwipo, South Korea to celebrate their heritage and compete in the 2025 World Lacrosse Men’s U20 Championship.
The championship brought together players from 19 countries and five continents, including first-year midfielder Jack Murphy on Team Ireland and junior goalkeeper Jameson Wong on Team China. Games were held from Aug. 15-24, with each team hosting brief camps for teammates to get to know each other’s style of play before the tournament.
Tom Prior, head coach of Team Ireland, has been involved with World Lacrosse since the 2002 World Lacrosse Championship in Perth, Australia. He began as an assistant coach under Kevin Moran, an Ithaca native who played lacrosse for Cornell University. Prior said the short training period presented a unique challenge when putting a team together.
“Getting them to play together and play lacrosse with a high IQ in a few days, and then to play on the world stage, is a real challenge as a professional,” Prior said. “I always found it rewarding, when it’s the fruits of your labor. … As a teacher, as a coach, I get to watch kids develop.”
For World Lacrosse, which held the first Men’s Championship in 1967, international competitions do more than showcase the top talent the sport has to offer. According to the organization’s website, its mission statement is to “positively impact the lives of participants and communities by leading, promoting and developing the sport of lacrosse globally.”
Wong experienced this community outreach firsthand during Team China’s training camp in Shanghai. Between attending team meetings and exploring the city, Team China head coach Brendan Mullin led the team in scrimmages with Shanghai Lacrosse, an up-and-coming sports league in the country. The team also had brief training with a youth lacrosse club called Shanghai Lynx, which Mullin described as a great event for all parties involved.
“I’ve been playing since second grade,” Wong said. “A lot of these kids were a little bit older, but for them, [they’re] first picking up a stick. It was great to go to local club teams and be able to help teach them and really grow the game that I love.”
Despite their jam-packed schedules, players found time to talk with members of other teams during the competition. Murphy said he was able to meet Wong, who he was introduced to while visiting IC during the spring, and his Team China teammates for meals.
“[Wong], being an upperclassman, he was telling me about some of the stuff that I might have been missing [at IC],” Murphy said. “Being like, ‘You’re not missing much, no classes or anything.’ He was good help to have over there, made me feel more comfortable.”
Connecting his experience abroad with his time at IC, Wong said the championship was a great opportunity to prepare himself for the upcoming season.
“Even though lacrosse is a spring sport, we still have a pretty rigorous fall schedule,” Wong said. “Being able to be away and play lacrosse almost every day for the past three weeks helped me to be in the best lacrosse shape I could be in coming in for the school year.”
While Murphy is new to the Bombers, this summer was far from his first experience with World Lacrosse. He played with Team Ireland in the Men’s U20 European Championship, where Team Ireland took home gold after a tight final against Team England. For Murphy, the experience was more than a game.
“Winning gold was very, very special to me because of my dad,” Murphy said. “He was never really into lacrosse as much because he’s from Ireland, never grew up knowing anything about it. He had a lot more joy and pride and compassion about the sport than he ever has because I’m playing for his country. And we actually got to beat England, which was a bit of a boost.”
Prior said the team’s 8-0 run in the European Championship has bigger implications for lacrosse in Ireland.
“To beat England in a tournament, in a European tournament, was a tremendous feed for our program,” Prior said. “We thank England for doing that because they got the best out of us that day.”
Mullin, who has lived in China since 2017 and served as head coach of the men’s national team since 2019, said that youth programs have grown exponentially since then. He said the number of players aged six to 15 has gone from less than 100 to around 3,500.
World Lacrosse encourages cross-team interaction by providing players with pins and lanyards to exchange with opposing teams after games. Murphy said many players take this a step further and trade parts of their own uniforms.
“You get to trade t-shirts and shorts and jackets and whatever gear you get,” Murphy said. “In my opinion, the most important part is getting lacrosse out to other places so that people can experience what lacrosse is really about. At the end of the day, it’s a sport. It’s supposed to be fun.”
One thing that affected the games’ lighthearted atmosphere was the dedicated social media team who posted game footage across Instagram, Youtube and TikTok. Wong found himself in the spotlight after a full field goalie goal in a 17-4 triumph over opposing Team Chinese Taipei.
“I had all sorts of friends I hadn’t spoken to in a while reaching out to me and telling me how awesome that was,” Wong said. “A few of my buddies were out at restaurants and saw the clip playing on TV, and they were like, ‘Oh my God. That’s one of my best friends.’ … I’ll remember that for the rest of my life.”
Going forward, Murphy said his dream is to qualify for Team Ireland in the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games. World Lacrosse announced in 2023 that the International Olympic Committee had approved lacrosse’s inclusion for the first time since the 1908 London Olympics. Prior said that he anticipates a lot of overlap between the players he has coached and the future Olympic team.
“There’ll be less spots available, but I’m sure much of my bunch of guys that played for us will be trying out,” Prior said. “The Olympics is probably the biggest stage, and it’s gonna be a natural attraction to it.”
The IOC has not announced participating nations, but it has confirmed that there will be six men’s and six women’s teams. Previously, only the U.S., Canada and the United Kingdom played. Murphy said that even now, over 100 years after the last time lacrosse appeared in the Olympics, it is still up-and-coming on an international level.
“At our opening ceremony, they talked a lot about this being used as something to get lacrosse out internationally, because it’s definitely more of an American, Canadian sport,” Murphy said. “A lot of countries don’t offer it in school, but as time goes on, you can see that it’s getting on the international stage.”
Wong said he got to know his teammates and hosts very well during his time in Shanghai and Seogwipo. Aside from playing together, he said they welcomed him into their culture, explaining everything from the best tourist attractions to table manners.
“I’ll have great connections with them for a lifetime,” Wong said. “They’re all begging me to come back to China at some point. … I’ve still got plenty more to see.”
