Wake Forest Athletics
Crandall Scores a Pair against Spain
9/22/2005 12:00:00 AM | Field Hockey
Sept. 22, 2005
Santiago, Chile - Wake Forest junior Lauren Crandall scored a pair of second half goals to tie the game, but the USA Field Hockey Under-21 team fell just short of a spot in the Junior World Cup semifinals with a 4-4 draw to Spain.
Crandall, who has scored in every game with the exception of the 1-0 loss to Australia, now has seven goals on the tournament.
Needing a win in the game to advance to the tournament semifinals, the USA battled back from a two goal deficit late in the game on Crandall's penalty corner goal with three minutes left in the contest.
The USA furiously scrambled for a potential winning goal as the clock wound down, but could not get off a shot in the final seconds.
"They knew we had to win today and they gave it everything they had," said coach Tracey Fuchs on her young team's effort. "We went for the win and sometimes you give up goals that way, but I'm just really proud of the way they performed today. They fought for the entire 70 minutes and if only there were 71, we might have had them."
Pressing the entire game, the USA fell behind early when Spain's Maria Romagosa ripped a blazing penalty corner shot into the USA cage in the second minute.
The USA answered when Katelyn Falgowski (Landenberg, Md./St Mark's HS) tipped in a penalty corner to tie the game at 1-1.
Romagosa added her second goal of the game on another rocket into the USA cage in the 16th minute to give Spain a 2-1 halftime lead. Spain added to its lead in the second half on Gloria Comera's goal at the 46 minute mark.
The USA bounced back to pull within a goal on Katie Grant's (Lehighton, Pa./Duke) field goal two minutes later.
Spain again went up by two goals in the 53rd minute when Soledad Comera connected on a field goal for a 4-2 Spain lead.
But like the U.S. team had done on three earlier occasions in the tournament, the USA stormed back with a penalty corner goal by Crandall with 15 minutes left in the game. The USA furiously scrambled for the equalizer and were rewarded with Crandall's tying penalty corner with three minutes remaining in the game.
But it was the last chance the USA would get as the clock clicked off the final seconds.
"It's tough in that we weren't able to finish it," said Crandall on the team's attempt final attempts to win the game and qualify for the semifinals. "But we left it all out there."
The draw with Spain places the USA in the 5th-8th place classification games where the team will secure the USA's best-ever finish at a Junior World Cup event. Previous USA teams placed 11th (of 12) in 1989, 12th of 12 in 1997 and 14th (of 15) in 2001.
"We've got some juice left in us," said Crandall as the team looks ahead to Friday's match against either South Africa or Argentina in the 5th-8th bracket. "We're still making history here, so we'll definitely be going after it.
