U.S. Aiming for Even More After Resounding Win Over Haudenosaunee

TOKYO — As the U.S. Women’s National Team gathered near its bench area following a first quarter during which they dominated the Haudenosaunee, goalie Shea Dolce stood on the periphery of the huddle.

She picked up three bright green lacrosse balls and began juggling — her head slightly titled downward, still inside her helmet. A ball hit the turf. She muttered something under her breath, picked it up and went back to it as her teammates absorbed instructions from the coaching staff.

Dolce was trying to keep her eyes and her hands dialed. Mission accomplished. Dolce made three saves in one half of work and pitched a first-half shutout as the U.S. scored the game’s first 13 goals in a 22-5 win at Oi Hockey Stadium. She was named the player of the match.

“At the end of the day, I don’t do what I do without the people in front of me,” she said.

The people in front of her responded well to the previous night’s team meeting in which the coaching staff detailed what they wanted to see improve after an 18-5 win over Ireland to open the World Lacrosse Women’s Championship.

They communicated better, stayed on their assignments and spent more time in the “slow break” versus the fast break or fully settled offense. It kept the Haudenosaunee defense on its toes and allowed for the U.S. to work the ball around, bypassing good shots for great ones.

“I’m just so impressed at everybody taking the coaches’ criticism and bringing another level of urgency and attention to detail today,” co-captain Kenzie Kent said. “We definitely got better from yesterday. Still need to put together four full quarters, but we did a lot better job than yesterday.”

The U.S. led 17-4 after three quarters, and despite outscoring the Haudenosaunee 5-1 in the final stanza, head coach Acacia Walker-Weinstein has stressed her desire to hold teams to under five goals per game. The U.S. also committed two of its nine turnovers in the fourth quarter, something Walker-Weinstein hopes to clean up.

But in the grand scheme of it all, it’s difficult to nitpick a team that’s outscored its first two opponents 40-10. It just scored 22 goals, its highest single-game total since 2009, and assisted 14 of them. For the second straight day, 12 different players buried a goal, with a trio of hat tricks from Marie McCool, Chloe Humphrey and Izzy Scane.

Ally Mastroianni (seven draw controls) and McCool (four) helped stabilize the U.S. in the center circle, as the teams split evenly the 30 draws with 15 apiece — a considerable accomplishment considering Haudenosaunee’s Paisley Cook won 17 of 21 draws in the previous contest.

And for the second day in a row, the defense held its opponent to just five goals. Against Haudenosaunee, the defense surrendered only nine shots and caused nine of the 15 turnovers. Sydney Scales and Katie Goodale each caused two.

“It’s hard to play a game right after you did the day before, but I thought we did a good job coming out, being prepared,” Dolce said.

Monday represents a much-needed break for the U.S., which are back in action Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. local time against Chinese Tapei (0-2) for the final game of pool play. They’ve been “go, go, go” since staging camp in Los Angeles, Kent said.

It’ll give the U.S. time to bond and continue striving toward its goal of playing a complete 60 minutes — even if it’s hard to argue with the results so far.

“What [Walker-Weinstein] says is what goes,” Dolce said. “We want to put together a full game, and we’re holding ourselves to a high standard.”