Local Huntsville lacrosse champion Caleb Creasor has been selected to join the 2022 U21 Men’s World Field Lacrosse Championship roster representing Team Canada from August 10-20, 2022 in Limerick, Ireland.
A record 23 countries will field teams in the most competitive junior-level world lacrosse tournament. Team Canada will face tough contenders from USA, Australia, Haudenosaunee, and England, and is expected to win gold.
In early June, Creasor was one of 24 players chosen out of 35 of Canada’s most qualified junior lacrosse players to represent Canada. He was chosen at a training camp in Langley, BC.
“I’m pretty excited,” stated Creasor of receiving the news this past week.
Creasor has been preparing for this for most of his lacrosse career. Trials were held in 2019 for the initial selection but due to COVID-19 restrictions, they had to be rescheduled on two occasions. Creasor will play goalie for a team comprised of the most outstanding players in Canadian field lacrosse. Age limits were increased for this one-time event.
Lacrosse is played in two formats. Box lacrosse is comprised of five runners plus a goalie and is usually played indoors, whereas, field lacrosse is played with ten players—three attackmen, three midfielders, three defensemen, and one goalie.
Creasor has built a prodigious record for himself as a captain and player on the Team Ontario U18 Men’s Field Lacrosse team, with three National Championships. He was also a longtime member of the Huntsville Hawks. As a developing world-class athlete, he has divided his training and efforts between field lacrosse, box lacrosse, and hockey.
He spent a postgraduate year at Hill Academy in Caledon to focus his training and educational preparations before taking his sports scholarship at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He is a senior goalie for the Lehigh Mountain Hawks. He has appeared in 10 games, with seven saves. Creasor is majoring in biology with hopes of pursuing a degree in medicine, as an orthopedic surgeon.
He is one of two goalies on the 2022 U21 Men’s World Lacrosse Team. The team will meet up later in July. “We have a week of training camp right before we go out in the first week of August. We’ll be in Caledon at the Hill Academy, where we are going to stay as a team, practice for the week, and do some team bonding stuff, and then it’s right into the fire, take a red-eye to Ireland.” He anticipated that if they go the distance, the team will play seven games in ten days.
Creasor became a goalie by accident in his early development by taking the role on when another player was missing. He said he gets lots of bumps and bruises playing but he feels he was meant for the position. Unlike hockey, which shares some similarities as a contact sport, a goalie wears less protective equipment and must make saves from shots at all angles since incoming shooters are hurling the ball at high speed toward a six by a six-foot net.
‘It’s definitely a tough position,” said Caleb. “Sometimes an underappreciated position, in my opinion. It’s not an easy thing to do. And being someone who plays both, (Creasor plays forward in box lacrosse) a field lacrosse goalie is one of the hardest positions in sports and I’ll stand by that statement, ” he stated with a chuckle. “I definitely have had my fair share of bruises over the years.”
Before he heads to training camp later this month, Caleb will continue to build up his strength through weight training and playing box lacrosse games in Peterborough to sharpen his reflexes for tournament gameplay.
Fans of world lacrosse are hopeful this year’s World Championship will garner further consideration by the Olympic Games Committee to once again include the game as a team sport in the Summer Olympics. Caleb says he would welcome such an opportunity in his athletic career.
He is one of two goalies on the 2022 U21 Men’s World Lacrosse Team. The team will meet up later in July. “We have a week of training camp right before we go out in the first week of August. We’ll be in Caledon at the Hill Academy, where we are going to stay as a team, practice for the week, and do some team bonding stuff, and then it’s right into the fire, take a red-eye to Ireland.” He anticipated that if they go the distance, the team will play seven games in ten days.
Before he heads to training camp later this month, Caleb will continue to build up his strength through weight training and playing box lacrosse games in Peterborough to sharpen his reflexes for tournament gameplay.
Fans of world lacrosse are hopeful this year’s World Championship will garner further consideration by the Olympic Games Committee to once again include the game as a team sport in the Summer Olympics. Caleb says he would welcome such an opportunity in his athletic career.
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Lynn Bennett says
Congratulations Caleb on making the team! Best of luck at the World Championships!
Brenda Begg says
Congratulations! What an accomplishment! Good luck.
Dawn Mashinter says
Wow, congratulations Caleb way to go!