Los Angeles Handball Club Claims Inaugural USATH National Cup Title

Carson, CA--Los Angeles Handball Club has been crowned the inaugural USATH Men's National Cup Champion, earning with that title the United States’ berth to the NACHC Men’s Club Championship and IHF Club World Championship Qualifier this summer.

LAHC finished atop the table after dropping just one match, against ten wins and a draw, across the full National Cup campaign--going undefeated through the final two legs of competition in the Denver and Los Angeles metros. Their undefeated stand at home capping off a consistent and commanding run through the country’s new top-tier men’s club series, delivering the club's first top-level U.S. men's championship since 2010.

The 2025-2026 USATH National Cup began in Mokena, IL in late October, bringing together qualifying clubs based on their finishes at the 2025 U.S. Open Championships. Designed as a set-schedule competition contested over three weekends hosted by Chicago Inter, Denver Wolves, and Los Angeles, the Cup created a sustained national series among the top men’s club teams in the United States, with the champion also securing the U.S. place at the continental championship.

The race for first remained competitive throughout the Cup series. New York Athletic Club (NYAC) finished second overall, but its lead after the first weekend and 1-1-1 record against LAHC were spoiled by a split series with third-place finisher Chicago Inter—a team that LAHC swept during the competition.

NYAC’s Sigurt Leth Klinge was named the inaugural National Cup MVP, after leading all scorers across Cup matches and turning in several of the competition’s standout individual performances in high leverage matches.

SF CalHeat finished fourth in the final standings, followed by the Denver Wolves and USMA-West Point Black, respectively.

The inaugural edition of the USATH National Cup marked an important step forward for domestic handball competition in the United States. Spanning three cities and multiple months, the competition provided meaningful, high-level matches among the nation’s top clubs and established a clear pathway from domestic success to continental representation.

“The creation of a North American and Caribbean berth to the IHF Men’s Club World Championship, formerly Super Globe, has been a tremendous opportunity for the visibility and elevation of U.S. clubs. But, when combined with our previous format for qualification, it also had the effect of sharply differentiating how clubs engaged with the sanctioned event season and, ultimately, bottlenecking the substance of an eight-month season into the way a handful of top teams approached roughly 48 hours at the Open Championships. The National Cup was designed to create a more sustained level of quality, greater roster consistency, and real competitive meaning across the breadth of the U.S. club year,” said Michael King, CEO of USA Team Handball. “Those goals were clearly achieved in this inaugural edition; the on-court quality throughout the road to LA’s championship surpassed any reasonable expectation. Now the work is to continue refining and building on that progress in service of American club development and the domestic athlete experience. Congratulations to Los Angeles, and our great thanks to every one of the many contributors necessary to bring this step forward.”

 

LAHC now turns its focus to the 2026 NACHC Men’s Club Championship, where it will represent the United States this summer as the first-ever USATH National Cup champion.

The final leg of the tournament came with unusual logistical challenges. USMA-West Point was unable to attend the final weekend after the event was relocated, in order to accommodate the use of resin, across the country from its intended home at the CPT Scott Pace Memorial Tournament in New York to Velo Sports Center in Carson, California. West Point Black made a strong showing in its home tournament the same weekend, an annual event which hosts a large field of clubs and takes time to honor the team's graduating cadets and their families. The Denver Wolves also did not participate in the final weekend, as numerous cumulative injuries to key players led to the decision to forfeit the third and final leg. A already-dispositive 10-point standings gap between third and fourth place entering the final weekend ultimately meant the absences could not affect the race for the championship or the allocation of the U.S. club berth.