2024 Excelsior Games Recap

Last week on July 7th and 8th Stony Brook University was host to this year’s Excelsior Lacrosse Games for both boys and girls as hundreds of  the top middle and high school lacrosse players in the state of New York represented their region for the right to take home either gold, silver or bronze medals. The Excelsior Games features a total of six different regions across New York competing against each other including Nassau, Suffolk, Hudson Valley, Central, Adirondack, and Western, and among the six regions over forty club lacrosse programs and over 200 high schools were represented for boys and girls.

Opening up the first day of Excelsior games was the boys and girls VIP Experience where players had an opportunity to get training, coached up, and compete in front of many college coaches from a number of the top collegiate programs in the country. Day one also included media day where every player received a headshot in uniform, and had a team practice before the games got started at 3pm. Every team across each region played a total of three pool play games between Sunday afternoon and evening and Monday morning to set the stage for the games in the playoffs to determine which teams would be taking home medals.

On the boys side in the 2025/2026 bracket it was the Adirondack region winning the gold medal with a 6-4 win in the championship game over Suffolk who claimed silver while Nassau defeated Western 6-4 for the bronze. The 2027 gold medal went to Western as they defeated second place Nassau 5-3, and the bronze medal went to Suffolk who defeated Hudson Valley 6-4. The Western boys also proved to be the team to beat in the 2028 class, winning the gold medal over Central 8-7 with Hudson Valley earning an 8-3 win against Suffolk for the bronze. In the 2029 class Suffolk Navy came away victorious in the championship game as they took home the gold medal over second place central by a score of 12-3, with Nassau Navy earning a 5-3 win against Suffolk Gold for the bronze.

On the girls side starting with the 2025/2026 bracket the Nassau Navy team rallied from a 6-0 deficit to capture the gold medal over Suffolk Navy 8-6, giving Suffolk the silver medal, while it was Hudson Valley earning bronze with 10-6 victory in the third place game over Suffolk Gold. In the Class of 2027, Suffolk Navy was victorious over Nassau Navy in the rematch from last year to win the gold medal, giving Nassau the silver, while Hudson Valley claimed bronze with a 10-9 win over Central. Suffolk was also the team at the top in the 2028s with Navy winning edging out Nassau Navy 7-6 for the gold as Nassau took the silver medal and Central earning bronze with a 7-4 win over Western. The 2029s championship game was also a matchup between Nassau Navy and Suffolk Navy where the Lions from Nassau rallied back from a 5-3 halftime deficit to take the gold medal by a final of 8-6, while Central defeated Nassau Gold 6-5 in the bronze medal game.