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Poland Lacrosse League – Fall Ball topped off by two National Team Selections

Editor’s Note: Please welcome Piotr Stalmach of Poland Lacrosse back to LAS! Piotr has show off a couple of innovative top strings for us in the past, and now he’s updating us all on the Polish Lacrosse League season, which started up three weeks ago!

It has already been seven weekends of lacrosse in Poland and Fall Ball
has come and gone. It is evident that the PFL made a good call splitting
the Men’s League into two with the action being quite level in both
leagues with just five games ending in a 10+ point difference, three of
them courtesy of expansion teams. Fall ball was topped off by
National Team Selections for both Men and Women.

Week 7 – PLL1

Spartans Oświęcim @ Kosynierzy Wrocław

Wrocław used this game to rebuild the confidence they seemed to have
lost in the off season by pounding the weakened Oświęcim 13:1. The
coaching staff seems to have found common ground with the team which
bodes well for them. The Spartans had only good things to say about
their own defense who had to leave a lot of hear on the field to keep
Wrocław from scoring just 13 goals.

Kraków Kings @ Grom Warszawa

It’s usually much easier for a home team to field a full roster of 23.
This was the case with the host Grom Warszawa. With Kraków having the
shorter bench, time was was not their ally. The first quarter quickly
established who had the upper hand, and despite a good showing in the
second quarter, and an even third quarter, Grom stuck to their
gameplan and came out with a W defeating Kraków 11:8.

Being there myself, I can easily say that 0:5 does not give Kraków the
credit they deserve. Coming back from horrible semifinals last year
against Wrocław they have quickly rebuilt and found new talent and
finally seem to have found their style and work ethic. 0:5 shows how
much the other teams have jumped ahead while Kraków was focused on
rebuilding.

Three videos are available from this match from Kraków Kings
goalkeeper, Przemysław Tabor GoPro headcam, two more on the same
channel.

Week 7 – PLL2

The last League 2 tournament was hosted by Korsarze Trójmiasto who put
in a really good marketing effort to get people to come. Despite
mediocre weather, the feedback was great with a lot of interest from
the media after the tournament.

The tournament started off with the Korsarze winning 4:1 against
Kosynierzy Wrocław B, who followed up w ith a 3:7 loss to Legion
Katowice in the second tournament game. The last game between Legion
and Korsarze was to be the most interesting match with both teams
supposedly on similar levels of play. That turned out to be a
completely wrong assesment with Korsarze securing a 6:0 win. This also
took them to first place in the rankings.

Check out the gallery!

Last year Oświęcim cheared the path for debut teams to advance high in
the season rankings, this season the expansion Korsarze seem to be
doing a good job emulating the Spartans.

Week 8 – PLL1

After six weeks of PLL1 play, the league was back with the first
rematch round, Warsaw traveling to Oświęcim and Kraków to Poznań.

Grom Warszawa @ Spartans Oświęcim

Grom has set the pace for the league from day one with a 13:3 victory
in their first game of the season against Oświęcim. Their execution of
tactics and game plans took them to 3:1 in the first half of the
season, while Oświęcim was just 1:3 with only a home win against
Kraków to speak of. Needless to say, the Warsaw offense took care of
the ball well and scored eight goals, while their defense stopped
Oświęcim to just two. Also worth mentioning is game MVP and Grom
Warszawa goalkeeper, Kacper Chmielewski with an outstanding 88% saves.

Kraków Kings @ Poznań Hussars

Despite being 0:4 after the first round, Kraków has shown a brilliant
display of lacrosse in most of their games. Their first was their
worst, against none other than the 3:1 Poznań. This time on the road,
Kraków wanted to show that that game was just a momentary lapse. They
played with heart, but still came up short to a dominating Poznań
team. Most notably Poznań standout and game MVP Paweł Hamrol with 6
goals to top off a 10:6 win and put Poznań in second place behind Grom
Warszawa.

Week 8 – PLL2

The last League 2 tournament was hosted by Ułani Lublin with Ravens
Łódź and Legion Katowice also attending. The Ravens were out to retake
the lead in the standings and managed an easy win agains the hosts
13:1 and then against Legion 9:1.

After seeing Legion lose to Korsarze two weekends prior, Ułani Lublin
were confident they could finally pull off their first league win. The
teams have played each other twice before duting the season with
Legion winning all three, but two in overtime, so this was going to be
a close game by all accounts. Not so. Ułani were possessed. Not only
did they amount to 14 minutes in man down, but also blew Legion out of
the water. A year of hard work is finally paying off for Ułani and
Legion seems to have a lot of work before them this winter to regain
the upper hand.

Week 8 – Women’s Lacrosse

After a busy Saturday of Mens lacrosse, a historical event occured in
Poznań, where some of the best Polish female lacrosse players came
together for a workshop for newcomers and National Team tryouts.

To start off, let’s map the Women’s lacrosse scene in Poland a bit.
The Women’s Lacrosse Cup was played this spring season between three
teams: Kosynierki Wrocław, Poznań Hussars Ladies and Sztorm Warszawa
with the latter winning the series. Since then new teams have started
to form alongside Wataha Kraków and Korsarki Trójmiasto.

Despite many new ladies showing up just to learn, it was quickly
evident to the coaches (Jerry Winiarek and Joachim Pernal) that there
was some unexpected talent on the horizon. This was confirmed with
three Korsarki Trójmiasto players being selected to play in the
National Team.

The newly formed Polish Women’s Lacrosse National Team is scheduled to
play Israel on December 29th in Warsaw. Details on this event soon.

Hopefully this will further motivate the Women’s section to form a
league next year.

Week 9 – Men’s National Team Tryouts

A week after the Women’s tryouts, it was time for the men to tear up
the field in Wrocław. But you’ve already read that story firsthand
courtesy of Coach Jamie Plunkett. (link)

This concludes the fall season of Polish Lacrosse. Rest assured we
will be back soon, most likely with details on the December games in
Warsaw. If you’re planning to be in the Warsaw area on December 29th
keep your eyes peeled.

Stay warm!

Piotr Stalmach

@meshwizardeu