WROCLAW, Poland – When the buzzer sounded after its first international competition, the Polish women’s national team players ran to their fans on the opposite sideline, who were giving them a standing ovation for a hard-fought game. Anyone walking into Olawka Stadium would think Poland just upset the recently crowned World Cup champion, the United States.

But it was the exact opposite.

Team USA shut out the Poles 20-0 in the historic World Games opener, yet it was an exciting learning opportunity and a “dream come true,” said Poland head coach Kaitlyn Kennedy.

“It’s a really big honor for us to be here,” said Kennedy, whose team fields several players from the city of Wroclaw. “Lacrosse is a pretty new sport in Poland, and it’s just the best thing possible for this team to be able to compete against some of the top teams in the world on our home turf.”

Kennedy continued to explain that lacrosse has been a sport traditionally “dominated by North American teams,” but to see its expansion to Poland and its inclusion in The World Games — a massive multi-sport event hosted by the International World Games Association — is a step in the right direction for it to become recognized by the International Olympic Committee.

“To see how quickly lacrosse is growing around the world, how popular it is, how many fans we can draw, I think it’s definitely a big step [toward the Olympics],” she said.

U.S. women’s national team head coach Ricky Fried echoed Kennedy’s sentiments. He witnessed the camaraderie between both nations’ players after the game, who equally represented the sport well. Each one of the six countries participating in The World Games aim to work together toward achieving Olympic recognition.

“It’s hard for us to know what the IOC is looking for when they watch the games,” Fried said. “We just continue to talk about putting our best foot forward, putting out a really good product on the field and that’s our goal. Obviously, we want to win, but we also want to make sure we’re promoting the sport, have it be exciting for others to watch and have a great spectator sport that fits into whatever that profile means for the Olympic committee.”

Twelve years ago, the Federation of International Lacrosse (FIL) ignited the process to take the sport to the next level. In 2008, the then-separate men’s and women’s lacrosse associations merged together to form the FIL after musings about the Olympics surfaced in 2005.

Men’s lacrosse was a medal sport in the 1904 and 1908 games, but the last time the sport made an appearance at the Olympics was in 1948, when it was included as a demonstration sport in London.

After becoming a member of SportAccord in 2012 and the IWGA in 2013, the pursuit to returning to the Olympics has become more realistic. In 2014, lacrosse was accepted as a first-time participant sport for this summer’s World Games, which now serves as a showcase for the sport in front of IOC members.

“This is our first multi-games event,” said Ron Balls, FIL director of finance. “This is the next stage on the journey, which is pretty good. … [The lacrosse players are] displaying great sportsmanship on and off the field. They’re mixing with other athletes. They’re talking about our game. That’s great. That helps enormously.”

Balls helped spearhead the application process to receive provisional recognition by the IOC. “Events like this help us achieve that,” he said. “With luck,” he added, the IOC executive board should consider the FIL’s request by December.

But Balls also noted the need to get lacrosse into future multi-sport events, like the Pan American Games, to broaden the sport’s exposure. Since increasing worldwide participation, the FIL now boasts 58 member nations, most recently Greece, the birthplace of the Olympics, and Qatar, the first member in the Persian Gulf. The next immediate goal is to have both men’s and women’s lacrosse participate in the next World Games in Birmingham, Ala., in 2021.

While 2024 is “an aspiration” for the sport’s return to the Olympics with Los Angeles submitting a bid to host the Summer Games, Balls said, “2028 is a more realistic possibility” because it takes a minimum of seven years upon receiving provisional recognition.

However, Jim Scherr — the FIL’s first-ever CEO, appointed in June, bringing more than 30 years of Olympic and Paralympic experience as the first and only Olympian to serve as the CEO of the U.S. Olympic Committee – is optimistic about the future of lacrosse.

“Lacrosse has excellent prospects to be in a future Olympic Games,” Scherr said. “It’s a very popular sport for young people today, and that’s what the international committee is looking for. It’s an exciting sport. It looks great, it moves fast and it’s a great television sport, so I think the prospects are good.”

Balls, Scherr and US Lacrosse CEO and FIL vice president Steve Stenersen were on hand to watch Team USA take on Poland on what Stenersen called a “history-making” day for the sport. While it was a clearly dominant win for the U.S., Stenersen, like Fried, noticed each athlete championing the effort to push the sport forward.

“We’re honored on behalf of the U.S. and also of the FIL to be here. It’s a great step for the sport internationally and a great opportunity for all the players,” Stenersen said. “All the players here, not just the U.S., are ambassadors for the sport. … [They] really understand what opportunity they have to showcase this sport to the world.”

“It’s just awesome to just be a part of something that’s never happened before for our sport,” added U.S. attacker Alyssa Murray, who tallied a team-high 12 points in the win. “It’s great when you get to be a part of something for the first time. It really hit home for a bunch of us.”