U.S. under-23 women perfect in Sweden

• by Soccer America , Jul 22, 2008

[NORDIC CUP] The U.S. under-23 women's national team successfully defended its Nordic Cup title with a 3-0 win over Germany for its fourth consecutive shutout of the tournament.

Former Florida State star India Trotter opened the scoring in the 25th minute and former Illinois forward Ella Masar added goals in the 34th and 63rd minutes to give the Americans their 10th Nordic Cup title in the last 12 years.

"We played well in the first 15 or 20 minutes of the game and we created numerous chances," said U.S. coach Bill Irwin. "We put one away early and the second goal came off the tactics that we have been working on. All three goals were great goals and our defense played very well once again. At the beginning of the second half, they came at us and we handled it well. It is a credit to our defense that we came through the Nordic Cup with a clean slate."

The U.S. back line of Meghan Schnur, Becky Sauerbrunn, Nikki Krzysik and Katherine Reynolds played almost every minute in the tournament.

NORDIC CUP FINAL:
July 21 in Borlange
USA 3 Germany 0. Goals: Trotter 25, Masar 34, 63.
USA -- Henderson, Schnur, Sauerbrunn, Krzysik (Moore, 87), Reynolds, Averbuch, DiMartino (Frierson, 20; Hanks, 68), Klein (Quinn, 87), Bosio, Trotter (Larkin, 83), Masar.
Germany -- Weiss, Lowenberg (Schlanke, 79), Schiewe, Marxkord, Baunach (Schroder, 77), Schmid, Thomas, Weber (Hofler, 69), Banecki (Hartel 72), Kerschowski, Goddard (Banecki, 45)
Att.: 500.