Australian Lucas Deshon and American Luke McNamara Dazzle in 2025 World Junior Opener

Luke McNamara led the American charge while Lucas Deshon in the Australian net did his best to limit the damage as the United States opened the 2025 International Indoor Junior Lacrosse World Junior Lacrosse Championship with a 15-4 win over Australia Sunday night at the Slush Puppy Centre in Kingston, Ontario. 

McNamara, a lefty forward from Overland Park, Kansas, scored 5 Goals and added 2 Assists to lead the United States offence. He was named player of the game for the Americans, and McNamara may well have produced the play of the game as well, ripping home a behind-the-back shot after cutting to the slot between a pair of defenders to make it 13-3 for the USA with 4:39 to play in the third quarter.

Deshon, a 19-year-old from Maylands, Western Australia, is a veteran of the Aussie junior program. This is his third World Juniors and he has also played in three (3) IIJL Commonwealth Cups, a series held in Australia during the Canadian winter which sees the CLL Canada Development Team (CANDT) head down under to play against teams representing the Australian states then culminating with a match against an All-Star roster selected from the Australian sides. 

Despite that international experience, Deshon looked a little nervous early on, allowing the first three shots he faced to get by him. One was called off for a crease violation, but the USA made up for that when McNamara scored his second of the game and third for the US in a three-minute span. 

Deshon settled down after that, though. He was solid and often spectacular in limiting the number of goals the Americans were able to accumulate with an enormous edge in shots. The USA scored just once more in the first quarter to take a 4-0 lead into the break, then Luke Spivey got the Australians on the board with the first goal of the second quarter, a power play marker just 28 seconds in.

Spivey took a feed from behind the net by Anthony Green and reached quickly around a defender to bounce a shot home between the legs of American goalie Aidan Malone. Spivey, who played for the Queensland state men's team and the all-star team at this year's Commonwealth Cup, led the Australians with 2 goals and an assist. 

Orlando Kernaghan scored Australia's other pair of goals. Kernaghan is an emerging star for the Australian juniors. Hailing from Seaview Downs, South Australia, the 19-year-old caught the eyes of Canadian coaches during last year's World Juniors in Erie, Pennsylvania and wound up spending this summer with the Delta Islanders in British Columbia's Junior B Tier 1 league. Kernaghan put up 14 goals and 17 assists while playing all 18 of Delta's regular season games. 

Benjamin Pousak (3 G, 2 A) and Tyler Sebastian (1 G, 4 A) each added 5 Points for the United States. Fisher Gadbois, from Danvers, Massachusetts, played for Poland at last year's World Juniors but earned a spot on the American team when he impressed the coaching staff at this summer's tryout camps, scored 2 Goals. 

[Photo: Players of the Game Luke McNamara (left) United States and Lucas Deshon (right) Australia.]

Malone played the first half in net for the US, then Beck Hagan played the final 30 minutes. Hagan was pressed into making a number of fine saves to keep the Australians from adding to their total as the team in green grew more comfortable as the game went on. 

Play continues at the 2025 IIJL World Junior Lacrosse Championship Monday with everyone getting in on the action. Australia faces Scotland at 5:00 PM ET then the United States takes on Canada at 8:00 PM. 

All games can be seen live on the IIJL World Juniors YouTube Channel.