Former Long Island high school teammates reunite on Team USA for Women's U20 Lacrosse Championship

When Madison Taylor played her last lacrosse game at Wantagh, she figured her time with her high school teammates was over. Now a junior attack at Northwestern, a call from Team USA changed that.

Taylor soon will suit up in red, white and blue alongside her high school teammate Madison Alaimo at the Women's U20 Lacrosse Championship, which begins Thursday in Hong Kong.

“It makes it even more special,” Taylor said. “When I played in high school, I never thought I was going to play with [Alaimo] again. We’re finally getting a chance to play with each other one more time. which is super cool and super special. I feel like we picked up right where we left off.”

Team USA — ranked No. 1 in the world — will have five standout Long Islanders on its 22-player roster. In addition to Taylor and Alaimo, Sayville's Allison Reilly and former Manhasset teammates Emma LoPinto and Caitlin Barrett will be on the team.

LoPinto and Barrett are also looking forward to be reunited on the global stage.

“To finally get that call was really special,” said LoPinto, a senior attack at Boston College. “It was a full year’s worth of training to get to this point and rolling with the process and trusting the coaches. There was so much working and so much waiting so I was able to kind of take a breath knowing that I made it.”

Taylor and LoPinto played against each other in the Division I national championship last May with LoPinto’s Eagles coming out on top.

“Long Island has so many talented lacrosse players,” Taylor said. “Getting to play with them this time around instead of against them is really exciting. It’ll really show the world what Long Island has to offer.”

The tryout process for the national team began last summer with 100 athletes selected by application. From there, players went through three rounds of cuts before the roster was finalized on July 2. Then there was one final training camp in San Francisco before departing for Hong Kong.

This year’s tournament will host teams from 20 countries, including the Haudenosaunee, a confederation of six Native American nations. To qualify for a national team, each athlete must have been born — or have a parent or grandparent who was born — in the country they wish to represent.

“I've actually never even been out of the country before,” said Barrett, a sophomore midfielder at Duke. “I think this is going to be a really fun way to be with such amazing people and be playing a sport that I love in a completely different country. I'm also really looking forward to playing against other countries. I think it's going to be awesome to meet all of these new people from different places and see how they play lacrosse.”

The United States has earned five gold medals since the tournament's inception in 1995. The team earned silver with championship losses to Australia and Canada in 1995 and 2015, respectively. The most recent championship victory was in 2019 with a 13–3 win over Canada in Peterborough, Ontario.

This roster has the most Long Island representation since 2015, when six athletes represented the United States in Edinburgh, Scotland. There has been at least one Long Islander on all eight United States teams.

“It's so exciting,” said Alaimo, a sophomore attack for Virginia. “It's always been a dream since I was a little girl to be playing for Team USA. I’ve looked up to these girls forever, so it's definitely something to remember. Being able to represent Long Island at the highest level is amazing.”

Playing for the United States is something many of these athletes have dreamed about since they first picked up a lacrosse stick. Now, the idea of earning a gold medal doesn’t seem so far out of reach.

“It feels unbelievable,” said Reilly, a junior attack at Army. “I've been playing lacrosse since I was five years old and I never expected to be a part of such a big team like this. I couldn’t be more excited.”