From Poland to Senegal, Ally Mastroianni is growing lacrosse from the ground up

What if you just, like, called Ally Mastroianni up?

That’s essentially what Ania Walas, the president of the Polish Lacrosse Association, thought on a November or December day in 2024. She doesn’t remember the logistics, or what exactly she said. Just that, eventually, Mastroianni replied.

On Nov. 20, 2024, Mastroianni posted her first set of photos to her new Instagram account dedicated to her coaching and clinics business. In her first post, the California Palms midfielder invited people to reach out if they were interested in having her come and train their programs. In another, Mastroianni said it was her goal to run a clinic in all 50 states and 15 countries.

“I wanted to do something really big, something huge, something truly inspiring,” Walas said. “And inviting a world-class player to Poland, yeah, this is [a] perfect idea. Crazy idea, but why not?”

Her mind a photo finish between hope and doubt, Walas sent Mastroianni a short DM inviting her to Poland. Walas didn’t expect Mastroianni to even see the message. And if she did, Walas thought there’s no way she’d want to take a solo trip all the way to Poland. Would she?

“I was like, ‘Uh, yeah!’” Mastroianni said.

Thus began Mastroianni’s favorite international trip to date.

The excitement of a world-class player traveling overseas was shared. Walas connected Mastroianni with the president of Czechia’s lacrosse union. Then Mastroianni remembered she had a friend in Denmark, so she thought, “Let me go there.” She also knew a player on Team Germany, so Mastroianni asked her if they’d be interested in having her. The same went for Team Spain.

“It kind of just blossomed into this epic trip,” Mastroianni said.

Over two weeks from late April to early May 2025, Mastroianni traveled throughout Europe and coached the five women’s national lacrosse teams. After each training session — which focused on skills and development, sprinkling in a bit of Sixes play — Mastroianni and the teams opened up the clinic to the community. That was arguably Mastroianni’s favorite part: not just teaching the next generation, but watching the national team players learn to become coaches.

“[At the] clinics, players of all ages and skills showed up,” Walas said. “It was a huge group. … Ally told us how to do the draw or how to shoot strongly, how to dodge. It was a lot of things that we are still learning. And it was really important that our younger players could learn from Ally because she is a role model for our girls.

“I truly believe Ally is doing an incredible job promoting lacrosse everywhere.”

“Everywhere” is a newer concept to Mastroianni, who didn’t even know where her passport was a few years ago. Now, “it’s pretty stamped up,” she said.

“I said in my thesis I could do all these interviews and say all these things about what I think these players and countries need, but I won’t truly know unless I go see it myself,” Mastroianni said. “I am living that out right now. Everywhere I go, I’m taking notes and seeing what the world truly needs.”

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Do you want to help?

Because, as Mastroianni knows, many people do. They just don’t quite know how to.

After a gripping undergraduate lacrosse career at North Carolina, Mastroianni returned to Chapel Hill for the 2022 season using her extra year of eligibility granted to NCAA athletes after the COVID-19 pandemic. Having already received her Bachelor of Arts in public relations and advertising, she sought a master’s degree in strategic communication in her final year on campus.

Her academic focus that fall was on her thesis. Her athletic focus was, of course, lacrosse.

But what if she could combine the two, and make real change? To really, truly help grow the game on a global scale?

She narrowed in on an idea, combining corporate social responsibility and philanthropic communication with her passion for lacrosse. The goal was to discover ways to make lacrosse more accessible and diverse, and then act on her findings. It was a grassroots initiative, aimed at finding ways to get more people involved in the sport, whether as a player, coach, fan or volunteer.

“If everyone can get involved, we can see a true impact on our sport,” she said.

At first, it was lots of research and writing. But “everything changed,” Mastroianni said, when she created a survey and posted it on social media to collect responses. Mastroianni asked people about what lacrosse-related philanthropic work they might have done and how it made them feel. She asked for opinions on the sport’s diversity and if people were interested in helping broaden its accessibility.

She posted it to her personal Instagram account and had thousands of responses within 24 hours. She had “pages and pages and pages” of written responses, she said. Many people didn’t even skip the optional fill-in-the-blank questions. People were invested, writing about their volunteer coaching experiences in their local towns or cleat donations to young players.

“There were so many different things, and people were so excited about it and how it made them feel. Basically, my findings were that people want to help, they just don’t know how,” Mastroianni said.

“That was the moment I was like, ‘Whoa.’ This isn’t just a school project; this is a life project.”

To truly bring her thesis to life, Mastroianni had to find her passport.

Roughly two years after her first international trip to Japan, where she went with the PLL, and six months after her European tour, Mastroianni was back in flight.

Unlike her trip to Europe, for which she checked more than a dozen gifted Gait Lacrosse sticks to bring and give out to young players, this time, Mastroianni checked a dozen bags. Oversized bags. Six full of lacrosse sticks, many donated to her from ReLax Collections, a nonprofit organization she wrote about in her thesis. Six full of ancillary equipment, like helmets, goals and merchandise. All to be handed out in various towns and cities across Senegal.

Mastroianni partnered with Ryan Cronin, a New Paltz, N.Y., artist and founder of Art4Lax. Cronin’s initiative aims to support the growth of lacrosse in the West African nation.

In 2019, after visiting Senegal a year prior with GoDocGo, an international medical organization that works to prevent cervical cancer, and its executive director and founder, Dr. Maggie Carpenter — who, Cronin said, is not only a friend of his, but also a collector of his art — Cronin readied to move there for a month-long artist residency.

A part of Cronin’s program required sharing “something” with the locals, he said. As a high school girls’ lacrosse coach at that time, “that’s the game I brought to the community.” With the four sticks he packed, on the nearby tennis court with suitcases as stand-in goals, Cronin organized mini games resembling box lacrosse.

“The kids loved it,” Cronin said. “I felt a responsibility to return.”

Cronin and his wife, Melanie, have returned a handful of times. Their three kids — two of whom played lacrosse in college — have all visited, too. Cronin and Melanie were also heavily involved in the fundraising that brought the Uganda national men’s team to San Diego for the 2023 World Lacrosse Championships.

Mastroianni was connected with Cronin last summer, through one of Cronin’s Facebook friends who knew her dad. Their relationship began with a Zoom call and ended with an enthusiastic plan to travel nearly 4,000 miles away in a few short months.

“Ally’s a unicorn,” Melanie said.

Once there, the clinic crew — which Cronin said consisted of nine coaches, including Mastroianni’s Palms and Tar Heels teammate Sam Geiersbach — spent a few days where Cronin did his residency in Sinthian, a remote village in East Senegal roughly 12 miles from the Mauritania border. They played with the local boys’ lacrosse team there, running lighthearted drills and pickup games.

“My time in residency there, it was so significant for me that it changed my life,” Cronin said. “I just want to give something back to a community that gave me a lot, you know? And for the love of the game, how the game impacted my life and things athletics taught me, like to take risks, be creative. I wouldn’t be an artist without being an athlete first.”

Then they headed to Tambacounda, where they arrived to train girls from Les Foyers, a dormitory facility for 144 girls aged 12 to 20, who come from rural villages without high schools to the city for a secondary education.

The first day, Mastroianni worked primarily with the girls from Les Foyes in a local stadium. The focus was on the basics — “Lacrosse 101,” as Melanie called it — since many had never played before. A few other kids trickled in, Mastroianni assumed was, after school got out. The next day, word spread, and the clinic became more of a neighborhood invitation. The number of kids tripled. Mastroianni and Melanie estimated 60 to 100 kids showed up to learn and play.

“ The excitement that we experienced in the stadium is the ultimate why. That stadium was vibrating,” Cronin said. “Our focus that first day was just with the 20 girls from the foyer, and quickly, kids all of a sudden were lining up, just grabbing sticks, jumping on the field. There’s an attitude there of just an absolute welcomeness to everything that is introduced.”

The kids picked up lacrosse and Sixes fairly quickly, Mastroianni said. It was a hopeful yet anticipated outcome for a group itching to stay active who had tried the area’s more traditional sports of handball and basketball.

“To see someone fall in love with lacrosse and a little tip go a long way, and to see that click for them is such a cool feeling,” Mastroianni said.

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That 2022 season at North Carolina, Mastroianni learned more than what it took to achieve a perfect 22-0 season. More than what it took to claim the national championship. To captain a team at its pinnacle.

She learned that lacrosse is a connector, a lingua franca, that people want to play. Some just need help accessing equipment or learning the rules.

And people want to help.

There are the equipment and financial donations, and then there are the more unsung methods of growing the game. But neither’s importance is to be understated.

Mastroianni beams at the works of Art4Lax, Le Korsa, ReLax Collections and the Callum and Jake Robinson Foundation, founded after former PLL player Callum, his brother Jake and friend Carter Rhoad tragically died in 2024. For the latter, Mastroianni works as an ambassador to increase accessibility with the foundation’s Lacrosse the Globe initiative. So far, the Callum and Jake Robinson Foundation has placed 50 public lacrosse goals across Hawaii and Australia.

“Every time I drive past a field [anywhere], I want to see lacrosse players running around out there,” Mastroianni said.

Cronin is keen on the “one stick at a time” philosophy. He’s also big on saying “yes” when your kids ask about lacrosse or suggest they want to try it; keeping the game simple, as teaching Sixes does; and helping people play anytime, anywhere, with whatever makeshift equipment you have on hand — like suitcase goals.

“Find your spot to say yes, and dive in,” Cronin said.

Do so, and you just may watch a sport rise to prevalence, and kids — or adults — chase their dreams.

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Walas is the oldest player on the Polish national team. At 39, she’s been playing for 10 years. She shares that love with her daughter Amelia, who started playing lacrosse after Walas suggested she try it. Introducing young girls across Poland to lacrosse is her “mission,” she says.

“This is the part of my life which I love the most,” Walas said. “To hang out with the girls, to play together. This is the space where I can leave everything behind what is difficult in normal life and just have fun. … I can’t even put it in words because I feel like my life is lacrosse. My family knows that. I’m, like, lacrosse freak. But it’s true. I’m happy because of that.”

At 27, the same goes for Mastroianni.

“I think lacrosse, and sports in general, teaches you perseverance, dedication, how to work hard, how to prioritize, how to set goals and challenge yourself,” she said. “There’s just so much good in sports, and every kid should have the opportunity to work hard and to dream.”

And, you never know, it might just lead to purpose with a side of pierogis.