Netherlands' Near-Upset Bodes Well for Future
by Clare Lochary | Lacrosse Magazine Online Staff
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The Netherlands, the surprise of these FIL World Championships, nearly swam past Japan and into medal contention Wednesday -- a good sign for the up-and-coming Dutch. © Keith Maynard |
MANCHESTER, England -- Of course the Dutch are good at lacrosse. They’re Orangemen.
Actually, there aren’t any Syracuse alums playing for the
Netherlands in the 2010 FIL World Championships, but there are a
handful of former NCAA players and native-born Dutchmen who came to
Manchester to make a statement about how far the Freaky Deaky Dutch
have come up in the lacrosse world.
“I actually really like the style of Dutch lacrosse because
it’s pretty much a hybrid game, where we take the best of the
American [field] game and the Canadian box game,” said Graham
Bergsma, a Canadian with Dutch roots who played at Fairfield
University.
“The biggest thing about playing Division I in the States,
it’s too limiting. It’s all more what you can’t
do, and our offense is more about what you can do.”
The Dutch had the makings of an upset versus Blue Division opponent Japan today, leading 7-6 at the half. Then star goalie Grant Zimmerman (10 saves), a former All-American at North Carolina, went down with a pulled hamstring in the third quarter. The Netherlands got rattled, and despite a six-save performance from backup keeper Teddy van Opstal, they ended up on the wrong end of a 14-8 score.
The loss was a disappointment to the ambitious Dutch, but
it’s clear that their game is growing by leaps and
bounds.
“The league is booming and the premier players don’t
get a whole lot of coaching there. We noticed in the last year, the
more coaching that they get, it’s a huge improvement over the
Europeans already. Lacrosse there is becoming very structured and
becoming very good,” said head coach Travis Taylor, who
stepped into his role just before the 2008 European Championships
and led the team to a semifinal upset of Germany before falling to
perennial European champ England in the final.
Here in Manchester, the Dutch upset Wales in overtime to reach
the Japan game, where it got close to breaking into the medal
round. Zimmerman put up 18 stops against the Welsh, and loves
playing with such a passionate team.
“Not dissing how it was back in the States, but these guys
play because they love to play. They paid their way to be here.
They made sacrifices. They’re here because they want to be
here, not because they’re on scholarship or something,”
said Zimmerman. “You can’t really get better than that.
It’s playing with guys who love lacrosse.”
Van Opstal, who has a Dutch-born father and played club lacrosse at Virginia, is currently doing graduate work in the Netherlands. He’s been involved in Dutch lacrosse for several years, and was named MVP of the 18-team Amsterdam league last season.
“Our expectations coming into the world championships was
to show the teams that the Europeans weren’t a mistake. We
came to win then and we’re coming to win again,” said
van Opstal. “We’re hoping that people will see that we
can be in the Blue Division and really pull our weight
around.”
Amsterdam will host the next European Cup in 2012. (The tournament
is held every four years, on the even years between the FIL World
Championships.) Van Opstal hopes to see the Amsterdam league grow
to 40 or even 50 teams in that period.
Bergsma’s ambitions for the team are more focused on the
short-term future. Asked what’s next for Dutch lacrosse, he
responded, “We’re going to go beat Germany and be the
fifth team in the world. We’re going to play England and get
‘em back.”
Japan advanced to the FIL semifinals at 7:30 p.m. local Thursday, when it will meet the U.S. for the second time in two days. (Team USA defefeated Japan, 19-5, on Tuesday.)
Defending world champion Canada will play Australia -- a winner Wednesday over Scotland -- in the other semifinal.
