(August 26, 2024 - Austin Owens) – Ahead of the 2024 World Lacrosse Box Championships, the Haudenosaunee Nationals have officially announced their 2024 Men’s Roster that will compete in Utica, New York this September.
The roster is a blend of familiar faces that have been staples of the Haudenosaunee program for over a decade, as well as new faces who will be making the step up for their first Indoor World Championships.
This will be the sixth World Box Championships the team will compete in over its history. The Haudenosaunee have brought home the silver in their previous five appearances (2003, 2007, 2011, 2015, 2019).
In 2024, the team will look to go a step further and take home their first-ever gold medal, and the coaches and staff believe they have the roster to do just so.
At the helm of the team will be Head Coach Roger Chrysler, who has spent the last five years on the bench with the NLL’s Halifax Thunderbirds, along with the Can-Am League’s Tuscarora Tomahawks. Two familiar faces from Halifax, Mike Accursi and Stew Monture, will join Chrysler, along with Toronto Rock coach Bruce Codd. Philadelphia Assistant General Manager Landon Miller will serve as the GM for the Nationals’ Men’s squad.
“I knew Bruce from coaching against him both with the Rock and back in Junior B with Niagara. And then just seeing his philosophies and what he was able to do with teams like Orangeville, and what he’s done with the Rock, that’s what I was looking for on my coaching staff,” Chrysler said. “Landon was with the 2015 team and has the experience both through that and the NLL, and that was big for us. And then Mike and Stew have been with me for four years in Halifax. We have a really good communication line.
“...We just wanted to add winners. These guys have the championships and experience that I wanted as a support group. I want guys around me that I can trust and they can trust me.”
When talking about roster construction, the Haudenosaunee have a nucleus of players who have been key to the success of the program for nearly 15 years. The likes of Cody Jamieson and Jeremy Thompson have seen the rise of the program over their respective careers, and while the next generation – consisting of players like Tehoka Nanticoke and Brendan Bomberry – are making their marks in world and professional lacrosse, there are several younger names on the way who will make their respective marks both this year and in the coming years.
Among the names making their World Box Championship debuts for the Haudenosaunee are Eli McLaughlin, Ron John, Justin Martin, Larson Sundown, Nonkon Thompson, and Travis Longboat, among others.
McLaughlin, a star for the Colorado Mammoth, played for the Nationals in the 2023 World Lacrosse Championships. He helped Colorado take home the NLL Cup in 2021. Longboat had a breakout year with the Albany FireWolves, scoring 25 goals and 57 points. Martin will debut for the Haudenosaunee after a breakout year that saw him turn a strong 2023 President’s Cup performance into a contract with the Toronto Rock, where he had 10 goals and 16 points in his first NLL season.
But the two most intriguing names to make the Haudenosaunee roster are Koleton Marquis and Trey Deere. The pair of forwards from the Kahnawake Mohawk Territory are both still in college – Deere at Syracuse and Marquis at Albany – and have worked their way onto the men's team with their stellar summer performances over the past few summers.
Marquis finished his final season of Junior A ball with 160 points, including playoffs, to lead the Orangeville Northmen in scoring in 2023. He also had 28 points in 12 games as a rookie in Major Series Lacrosse with the Peterborough Lakers.
Deere had 107 points total last summer and helped Orangeville to the OJLL Championship and a Minto Cup appearance with Orangeville off the back of a 159-point season.
In terms of how the roster came together, Chrysler credited it to past and present chemistry. Many of these players have played together, whether in junior, senior or in the NLL. 13 of the men named to this roster currently play together on the MSL’s Six Nations Chiefs.
“Our management team and coaches were extremely impressed by the level of competition during the selection process. We are proud to bring together a team of 23 well-rounded lacrosse players who embodied leadership with a hungry young presence that is ready to make its mark on the world,” Miller said of the process. “These athletes represent our nations with honour and dignity, and every one of them has shown a willingness to do whatever it takes for the team and each other. We can’t wait to get started. This journey is just the beginning.”
“I think that with a lot of these guys playing both field and box together, it’s a great thing. A lot of them played for the Chiefs, and they were able to play at the Mann Cup. They shared the ball really well,” Chrysler said. “So we’re hoping to hit the ground running offensively and have everybody on the same page and in sync. I think especially with Mike and Stew coaching Randy (Staats) and Jammer (Jamieson), they can all relay things to the other guys on our offense.”
With the roster set, the tournament is within sight. The Haudenosaunee Men’s team kicks off their pool play against the United States on Sept 20, following an International Friendly with Ireland on Sept 18 in Onondaga.
This is a group that has been tested numerous times on the world stage, but with all of the new faces, it’ll be paramount for the team to gel to take a run at bringing home a gold medal in this tournament for the first time in the program’s history.
“It’s going to be a tough couple of weeks where we need to bond and come together. Obviously, we’re going to have some new faces on the team, but I think our goal is to not break up the floor and just be able to play both ways. We want to have the passion from the defensive players and the offensive players,” Chrysler said. “When you’re on top of the mountain with some of these other countries, it’s very hard to stay up there. When you’re struggling like we were with the Nationals back in the 80s, we had to learn some lessons and take some beatings. But our goal was just to win a game against another country.
“I was there when Japan beat us in Sixes, and it was kind of like their gold medal after all the struggles they’ve gone through building their program. So with all of the eyes on us and the targets, we’ve got to be ready and prepared, mentally and physically, as a team to be able to handle that adversity.”
