Quarterfinals, here we come! We defeated Ghana yesterday, 6-0 in our final pool game! We went into the contest with confidence, but came out flat early on. Slowly picking up our momentum, we were able to win a series of offensive corners in the first half and put ourselves up, 3-0 at the break.
That advantage would be all we needed to secure the decision we wanted, but we still had to wait out the Argentina-South Korea game to see what our fate would be for the rest of the tournament. A win by the South Korean side would send them to the quarterfinals over us and we were eager for the result, but were also thankful to be able to scout both teams to prepare ourselves even better for which might be our future opponent. Argentina won, 2-0 which meant we would be facing them in the quarterfinal round on Thursday, Aug. 1.
Today we have an off day to prepare by watching film, having meetings, practicing on the turf, resting, eating and sleeping. Then it is show time tomorrow! Time is flying by for us and we want to make every moment count so when we step on the field tomorrow we are ready to go! - Hannah & Sam
Fans can follow updates on Carlino and Prince through the UMass Field Hockey page or with Team USA via the Junior World Cup website.