On a cold Saturday afternoon in FC Dallas Stadium, the USWNT hosted New Zealand for a friendly. The lovely, the talented Alex Morgan drew an early penalty shot, but Abby Wambach hit the post. NZ got Hannah Wilkinson in behind the D, but she shot over the goal.
Early in the 2nd half, LB Kelley O'Hara sent a horrible backpass to the box, too far up for G Nicole Barnhart (planned sub for Hope Solo) to get to it, and Wilkinson pounced on it for the 1-0 lead.
Alex Morgan did her late-game heroics thing again, scoring on headers in the 88th and 93rd minutes for the win.
Christie Rampone became the 4th player to earn her 250th cap for the USWNT. (Kristine Lilly, 352, Mia Hamm, 275, Julie Foudy, 271.)
Alex Morgan rocks!
Next up: the Algarve Cup starts 2/29. The US is in Group B with Denmark, Norway and Japan. Group A is Germany, Sweden, China, Iceland. Top three teams from each group play for the championship, 3rd and 5th places. 4th place teams play the top two of Group C (Portugal, Irleand, Wales, Hungary) for 7th and 9th, and the bottom teams of C face each other for 11th.
I call dibs on Alex Morgan.
But, uh, shouldn't we be crushing New Zealand like we did to everybody in CONCACAF?