Israel's women's lacrosse team made history in Tokyo on Sunday, beating the Haudenosaunee Nationals 7-4 in the bronze-medal match to claim the country's first-ever medal at a World Lacrosse Women's Championship.
Israel controlled the contest from the opening whistle at the Prince Chichibu Memorial Rugby Ground, leading 3-0 after the first quarter and pulling clear to 6-1 by halftime. Haudenosaunee, the Iroquois Confederacy's national side, cut into the deficit after the break but could not find a way back into the game, ONE reported.
The bronze caps an extraordinary run through the sixteen-team tournament for a program that had never previously reached a semifinal, let alone a medal match. Israel went 4-0 in the group stage, beating the Philippines, the Czech Republic and host nation Japan.
The signature result came in the quarterfinals, where Israel stunned fourth-ranked Australia 12-11 — snapping the Australians' run of never having missed the tournament's top four since the championship began in 1982. Hanna Hilcoff scored four goals in that win.
That victory sent Israel into a first-ever semifinal, where the United States proved too strong, winning 19-7 on July 31 to advance to the gold-medal game against Canada, which had beaten Haudenosaunee 18-5 in the other semifinal.
The defeat to the Americans set up Sunday's bronze-medal meeting with Haudenosaunee, a fixture billed beforehand as a historic first for whichever side won it — neither nation had ever medalled at a women's world championship.
Jordyn Lipkin was named Player of the Match after the bronze-medal win and finished as the tournament's leading scorer overall, with 19 goals and six assists for 25 points across the championship, according to ONE.
"It's a tremendous honour to represent something far greater than us," Lipkin said after the final whistle, calling the achievement one of the best feelings in the world.
Ian Kadish, chief executive of the Israel Lacrosse Association, said the squad "made history and brought Israel its first world championship medal," while Arik Kaplan — president and chief executive of Ayelet, Israel's federation for non-Olympic sports — said the team "proved today that it belongs among the world's elite."
The medal lands at a symbolic moment for the sport in Israel: lacrosse returns to the Olympic programme at Los Angeles 2028 for the first time in more than a century, giving a fast-growing but still niche Israeli program a marquee reason to build on Tokyo's breakthrough.
