USA remains perfect at Concacaf U-20 Women's Championship
- by Paul Kennedy @pkedit, May 30, 2023
The USA will face Costa Rica, the second-place team in Group B, in Friday's semifinals for a berth to the 2024 Under-20 Women’s World Cup.
Mexico and Canada meet in the other semifinal. The third berth in the 2024 World Cup from Concacaf will go to the winner of Sunday's third-place game.
The final two days of the tournament have been moved from Thursday and Saturday to Friday and Sunday because of the delayed start to the tournament because of bad weather.
Ally Sentnor led the USA with two goals to give her four goals in the tournament, tied with Madeline Dahlien as the team’s leading scorer.
Gisele Thompson, Alyssa Thompson's younger sister, and Dahlien also scored for the USA. Its fifth goal was a Canada own goal forced by Onyeka Gamero.
Dahlien tallied a hat trick in the 4-0 win against Jamaica in her U-20 debut. The USA opened play with a 6-0 win over Panama.
May 30 in Santo Domingo
USA 5 Canada 2. Goals: Dahlien 3, Sentnor 11, 55, Thompson 45+1 pen., own goal 61; Allen 55 pen., Rose 67.
USA -- Wy; Thompson (Dellarose, 46), Evans, Klenke, King; Lemos (Flammia, 46), Aikey (Cook, 73), Harvey; Gamero, Sentnor (Cagle, 81), Dahlien (Rader, 62)
Canada -- Lallier; Archibald, Markesini, Murdock (Logan, 26), Ottey; Hernadez Gray (McBride, 46), Mouratidis (Jourde, 73), Allen; Briggs, Smith (Maalouf, 46), Chukwu (Rose, 46).
Yellow Cards: USA – Cagle 83; Canada -- Markesini 45. Red Cards: None.
Referee: Katia Garcia (Mexico). ARs: Mijensa Rensch (Suriname), Iris Vail (Guatemala). 4th Official: Sandra Benitez (El Salvador). VAR: Francia Gonzalez (Mexico). AVAR1: Selvin Brown (Honduras)
Attendance: 75.
I only watched the first half, but this was a marked improvement over the prior matches. The US was actually playing soccer for the first 15 minutes. The 2nd goal was a result of combination passing penetrating up the center with a textbook assist and finish. The were a few other good sequences. Kudos to the coaching staff.
The US players look promising. About a half dozen are senior pool material right now. Hopefully the coaches will use this development opportunity wisely
I totally agree Bob. This team was a totally different team from the one that we saw the first two games. There was a lot more creativity and pitch awareness than anything that we saw against either Haiti or Jamaica. Nevertherless, I was not terribly impressed by our backline or our keeper. Our keeper seems to be excellent on high balls but somewhat struggles with her low shot mobility. Our back line was inconsistent the entire game. I have a feeling that the back line would struggle against some European teams.