USA Field Hockey News

USA Field Hockey Women Place 6^th at World Cup

MADRID (10/07/06) –  The USA Field Hockey national team earned a 6^th place finish at the Samsung World Cup following a 1-0 loss to Japan. The 6^th place finish is the USA’s second highest showing at a World Cup since a third place finish in 1994 and only the third top six finish for a USA team since the team’s first  World Cup appearance in 1983.

USA Field Hockey's Angie Loy tires to get past the Japanese defense in a 1-0 loss to Japan. The USA placed 6th at the World Cup.

“We had a really good run,” said USA coach Lee Bodimeade whose team entered the 12-team tournament as the No. 11 seed. “As disappointed as they are at not finishing fifth, they’ve placed sixth in the World Cup. Going back three weeks, if someone had told us we would finish sixth in the world and been disappointed, we would have taken that any day.”

After a scoreless first half, Japan broke on top when Kaori Chiba made a run down the left sideline and miss hit a shot from the left of the circle. The shot was enough to find the right post and bounce in to the goal to give Chiba her fourth goal of the tournament and Japan a 1-0 lead.

Japan then packed in all 11 players on defense as the USA continually attacked the Japan circle.

“In the second half, we just went and went at them,” said Bodimeade on his team’s all-out assault on the Japan goal. “Defending as they were, we had a few things go against us and were a bit unlucky, but that’s the game. That’s the sport.”

The USA had back-to-back penalty corner attempts with 20 minutes remaining and Japan’s packed circle of defenders kept the USA from scoring the equalizer as time ran down in the second half.

The win sends Japan to January’s Champions Trophy competition in Argentina, while the USA’s sixth place finish qualifies the team for the 2007 Champions Challenge to be held in June in Baku, Azerbaijan.

“We’re going to leave here and take with us what we can from the tournament. Certainly there are a lot of positives,” said Bodimeade. “We have a lot of hard work to do. We’re going to go back, strip it down and do what we can to get over these (5^th/6^th) games and get into final fours.”

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