A confident US team had no problem overcoming a Cuban team that showed its inexperience and some naivety in defense, allowing the Americans to score 4 goals in the first half, including 3 penalty-corners. The Americans had total control of the play, while the Cuban only reacted by individual runs that were promptly shut down. USA cruised to a final win of 7-0 (two goals each by Angie Loy and Kelly Dolton), earning in the process their ticket for the semi-finals before their last pool game against Canada. Netherlands Antilles - Canada : 1 - 0 Uninspired game from two teams that needed to rebound from a loss in the first day of competition, but only managed to produce a poor display of broken plays, passes going astray or to the opposition and runs ending nowhere. After their strong resistance to the USA in their first game, more was expected from the Netherlands Antilles team, but it was Canada that produced the best opportunities, with decisive runs from Tiffany Michaluk and a number of penalty-corners, but none of them resulted in dangerous situations for the Dutch goal-keeper. Both teams seemed to suffer from the heat of mid-day at the end of the game, and the result was finally decided in dramatic fashion in the dying seconds of the game: the Netherlands Antilles earned a free hit at the top of the circle, a Canadian pushed away the ball and was penalized with a penalty-corner with the clock ticking down to zero. The Dutch girls, who had not been efficient in their set pieces in this game, didn�t waste this last chance and Ernestina Schreuder scored, triggering celebrations of relief in her team. The result of this game was never in doubt, but, after an early goal from Daniela Maloberti, the score stayed at 1-0 during the longest time, from a combination of tenacious defending by the Uruguayans and imprecise finishing by the Argentineans. The play was confined in one half of the field, but the Uruguayan started to draw some confidence from the narrow margin on the scoreboard and engineered some runs deep in the Argentinean defense that were cheerfully encouraged by the local crowd. It is only in the 24th minute that a decisive run by Gabriela Aguirre drew a penalty stroke, cleanly converted by Marie-Noel Barrionuevo. With Uruguay reduced to ten on the play, the floodgates opened and Argentina added two more goals before half-time. The second half was played without much passion, and only 2 more goals were scored, with the Uruguayans working hard to limit the final score at 6-0.   | ||||||||
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