Lyndon Bunio and Dan Watson congratulate Elliot Leonard on his goal — Image Credit: Marek Stor/shutterlax.com

England secured their spot in the quarter-finals after a big 14-5 win over Switzerland at the 2022 European Box Lacrosse Championship.

Elliot Leonard scored four, including three in the second half while star attacker, Lyndon Bunio, hit his second hat-trick of the tournament in the win.

But it wasn’t all plain sailing as it took England the first quarter to work Switzerland out and truly impress themselves upon the game.

Indeed it was Switzerland who drew first blood with one minute 52 seconds on the clock as Florian Bachmann scored after some patient play.

Dan Watson was able to equalise almost immediately but Switzerland edged in front once again through Sebastian Heri following some nice work behind the goal in a frantic first three minutes or so.

Switzerland were tight in defence and parked the bus, successfully denying England any concrete chances on goal.

But if you’re ever looking to get out of a sticky situation then Bunio’s your man and he came up trumps in the second quarter with two quick fire goals to pull England ahead.

After a period of England pressure, Bunio first scored from range after finding a little pocket of space in front of goal and then slotted home after some tricky work around the goal.

Jamie Powell finally afforded England some breathing space after latching onto an upfield pass, sprinting through the Switzerland defence, and sending a nice high to low shot into the net.

It was one way traffic then for the remainder of the second quarter and Tyson Roe showed his pedigree four minutes from the half, picking up the ball in the England defensive third, sprinting towards goal and scoring through the goalie’s legs.

Leonard and Groves got in on the action too before the half-time hooter to see England finish the second quarter the stronger and head over to Head Coach, Christianson, for the half-time team talk 7-3 up.

The third quarter was a tight battle fought between two good quality and hard-working defences and it was Switzerland who looked the more likely to score but England’s previous game’s MVP and goalkeeper Cameron Macleod kept the opposition out.

It was Leonard who finally broke the stalemate with the second of his four goals and the only point of the quarter after his hugely stuttered run up tricked the Switzerland defence.

But what took them over 10 minutes to do in the third took them just 35 seconds in the fourth when Powell scored from 11 yards out.

The game opened up from this point becoming end to end in every sense of the phrase! A fourth Switzerland goal was replied with a fantastic individual effort from face-off specialist Tom Bracegirdle who won a ground ball in front of the defensive crease, turned on the speed, faked to go high, and scored through the goalie’s legs.

Bunio’s hat-trick goal followed a fifth for Switzerland and this time a trademark shot while diving across the crease was enough to beat the ‘keeper.

And when Bunio’s hat-trick was complete, soon followed Leonard’s, who completed a superb piece of play that saw Macleod pass to Luke Mills who drew the Switzerland defenders before passing across goal to Leonard to finish with aplomb.

With the game coming to a close, Leonard scored his fourth and England 14th in almost identical fashion to see England overcome Switzerland and advance too the quarter-finals.

England will now return to the Eisarena for a quarter-final match-up against Sweden, a team they defeated just five days ago in a pre-tournament scrimmage.

Coverage of that match will start at 1.30pm CEST/12.30pm BST over on sportdeutschland.tv and across England Lacrosse social media.

England Points: Dan Watson (1G 1A), Lyndon Bunio (3G 3A), Jamie Powell (2G 1A), Tyson Roe (2G), Elliot Leonard (4G 1A), Tom Bracegirdle (1G), Dave Groves (1G).

Wednesday 3 August Schedule (times BST)