In September 2021 we formed a team to compete in the PALA Sixes tournament in Florida. This competition served as our first tryouts for Argentine players residing in the USA. Some months after, in December 2021, we had our second tryout in Chubut, Argentina, where our players from Buenos Aires traveled to compete for a spot on our team. In the following months, we finalized our initial roster and began to prepare with routine zoom calls, a million email exchanges, text messages, calls with players, parents, World Lacrosse, donors, etc. In the meantime, our players were responsible for preparing themselves physically for the tournament in June. During these months we fundraised and collected player contributions and donations from several supporters, in order to meet our goal of $20,000.
On June 25th the day we had waited for finally arrived: the arrival to Towson, Maryland for the 2022 World Championship! It was then that our players all finally met in person for the first time. After our first team meal, we got right to business with the first of our practices; these went on once or twice per day for 5 days. On the sixth day we had our first game, and then did not stop playing games for 8 days straight, no days off!
We ended with two victories, and lost three of the other games by just one goal (two in OT!!), and one by two. Our team never stopped fighting game after game and was able to have a very successful first World Championship.We entered the tournament ranked #35 in the world, and we finished with a #26 ranking. This brings us tremendous joy and enthusiasm for the next tournament!
We’d like to thank all the families that were able to come cheer us on (una hinchada tremenda!!!), as well as all those who supported us from afar. None of this would have been possible without the support of so many spending their time and resources on us.
Nico Prandi
PS: Check out a couple of articles by Argentine newspapers, as well as the YouTube playlist of our games and trip compilation in case you missed any of the action and want to check the team out!
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfqvLFZK-EvDFo3z1PtwbAWzYBebJB4eC