Orizzonte Club Tops USA Women's National Team 10-7 In Italy
4/6/2011 12:00:00 AM
Sicily, Italy - April 6 - The USA Women's Senior National Team fell to Orizzonte, an Italy based club team, 10-7. Lauren Wenger (Long Beach, CA/NYAC) led the USA attack with three goals while Lolo Silver (Long Beach, CA/NYAC) chipped in two scores. Betsey Armstrong (Ann Arbor, MI/NYAC) and Emily Feher (Santa Ana, CA/NYAC) split time in goal combining for 10 saves.
Orizzonte, playing with Team USA's Brenda Villa (Commerce, CA/Commerce) got out to a good start opening up a 2-1 lead after the first quarter. The United States rebounded in the second quarter to tie the match at 3-3 going into halftime. A strong effort in the third quarter by Orizzonte doomed the Americans as the Italian club team posted four goals to just two from Team USA for an 7-5 lead headed to the fourth. In the final period Orizzonte put the game away with three more goals to come away with a 10-7 lead and the victory.
Other scorers for the United States included Maggie Steffens (Danville, CA/Diablo) and Jillian Kraus (Tustin, CA/SoCal). The United States struggled on power plays going 0/6 while Orizzonte was 2/9. "This Orizzonte team is very good and they played very well tonight. I think their wisdom and experience showed. Clearly the difference was in the third quarter where we struggled defensively and failed to execute on any 6 on 5 opportunities," said USA Head Coach Adam Krikorian.
Team USA will finish up the week training in Italy before returning stateside. Their next competition will be the FINA World League Prelim scheduled for May 19-22 in Newport Beach, CA.
Scoring
USA 7 (1, 2, 2, 2) L. Wenger 3, L. Silver 2, J. Kraus 1, M. Steffens 1
ORZ 10 (2, 1, 4, 3)
Saves - USA - B. Armstrong 5, E. Feher 5
6x5 - USA 0/6, ORZ 2/9
Women's National Team