Six UVA Alums to Play in 2023 World Lacrosse Men's Championship

Six Virginia alumni representing four different nations will play in the World Lacrosse Men's Championship this week in San Diego

USA Lacrosse

Six alumni of the University of Virginia are set to play in the 2023 World Lacrosse Men's Championship, which begins on Wednesday, June 21st and runs through July 1st in San Diego, California. 

Two former Cavaliers - Ryan Conrad and Charlie Bertrand - will suit up for the United States, looking to help the reigning world champions defend their title. Conrad and Bertrand are no strangers to winning championships. Conrad has won titles at seemingly every level. He won a high school state lacrosse championship at Loyola Blakefield in 2013 (not to mention two more state titles in soccer), a gold medal as part of the United State's U19 World Lacrosse Championship team in 2016, an ACC and NCAA Championship at Virginia in 2019, and most recently, the 2022 Premier Lacrosse League Championship with the Waterdogs. Bertrand, meanwhile, won back-to-back NCAA Division II national titles at Merrimack in 2018 and 2019, before transferring to Virginia and winning a national championship at the DI level in 2021. 

Now, Conrad and Bertrand will look to help the United States win the World Lacrosse Men's Championship for the 11th time. The Americans are the defending champions, but there has not been a repeat winner of the title since 2002, when the United States won its sixth-consecutive championship. The United States (2010, 2018) and Canada (2006, 2014) have alternated winning the World Championship for the last 20 years. 

Former UVA star attackman Zedd Williams will play for the Haudenosaunee Nationals, but is listed on the roster as a defenseman, despite being one of the top attackman in the sport. The Haudenosaunee Nationals have a lot of talented attackmen and offensive midfielders, so Williams will look to apply his talent and athleticism on the defensive end at the World Championships. Williams has won titles in both the Premier Lacrosse League and the National Lacrosse League, which is a professional indoor box lacrosse league. A former All-American, Williams played at Virginia from 2014 to 2017 and his final season at UVA was the program's first under then-new head coach Lars Tiffany. Now, Williams and Tiffany are reunited as Tiffany is also headed to San Diego as the head coach of the Haudenosaunee Nationals. 

Tiffany grew up near the Onondaga Nation reservation in LaFayette, New York, and it was through his early contact and relationships with the indigenous Native Americans that he was his first introduced to the sport of lacrosse. Tiffany served as an assistant coach for the Haudenosaunee Nationals at the 2018 World Lacrosse Men's Championship in Israel and helped lead them to a bronze medal. Tiffany, who coached Virginia to national championships in 2019 and 2021, will now look to lead the Haudenosaunee Nationals to another successful run on lacrosse's biggest international stage. 

Two former Cavaliers will suit up for Israel at the World Championship, including defenseman Griffin Spolansky, who appeared in 27 games for Virginia and was part of the team's 2019 national championship run, and midfielder Jackson Appelt, who was a member of Virginia's 2019 and 2021 national championship teams and was a vocal leader in the locker room during his career at UVA. 

Jake Malasek, a 2021 graduate of the University of Virginia, will play goalie for the Czech Republic. A Media Studies and American Studies major, Malasek played club lacrosse at UVA and is now a content creator at Barstool Sports in New York. 

The 30-team field at the 2023 World Lacrosse Men's Championship consists of the top finishers from the 2018 Championship (automatically qualified) and 20 teams who earned a bid through the continental qualifiers last year. The top five seeds - the United States, Canada, the Haudenosaunee, England, and Australia - are in Pool A and are each guaranteed to advance to the single-elimination playoffs, with the top two finishers in Pool A earning a bye into the quarterfinals. 

After each pool plays a round-robin format of games from June 21-26, the five first place finishers along with the top four second-place finishers in Pools B-F will join the other Pool A teams in the first round of the playoffs. The six winners from the first round (June 27) will advance to the quarterfinals, which will be played on Wednesday, June 28th. The semifinals will follow on June 29th and then the bronze and gold medal matches will be played on Saturday, July 1st at Snapdragon Stadium in San Diego. 

Click here to see the full game schedule for the 2023 World Lacrosse Men's Championships.

The 2023 World Lacrosse Men's Championship begins on Wednesday night with the highly-anticipated showdown between the two top contenders for the title as the United States and Canada battle on Wednesday at 10pm ET/7pm PT on ESPN2. 

Editor's note: This article has been edited to correct one of the roster listings. Thomas McConvey was listed on Canada's 26-man roster, but was not included on Canada's final 23-man roster for the World Championships.

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