Canadians suffer tough loss to Americans at Youth Championship

February 12, 2010

The Canadian men’s national under-17 team were defeated by Team USA 2-1 Friday afternoon.  The game was Canada’s last round robin match of the Pan American Youth Championship.  They will now face Chile in the bronze medal game Saturday morning.

Canada was unable to gain control of the match early on with the USA
controlling most of the play. Canada turned the ball over at the 26th
minute mark of the game and a USA forward was able to walk into the
Canadian circle to score. Canada earned 4 penalty corners in the first
half, USA earned 1 with neither team capitalizing. The score at the end
of the first half was 1-0.

In the second half Canada was able to apply sustained pressure but
couldn’t yield any results. USA earned 3 short corners to Canada’s 5
during the second half. In the 44th minute mark of the game Canada was
able to capitalize on a penalty corner with Spencer Curran #5 scoring
his first goal of the tournament. The USA added one more goal in the
55th minute as a result of defensive error.

The Canadians’ next match takes place Saturday, February 13, 2010
morning against the Chile for the bronze medal. The gold medal game is
scheduled to take place on Saturday, February 13th between the top two
teams United States and Argentina.

The Pan Am Youth Championship serves as the continental qualifier for the Youth Olympics taking place this August in Singapore.

Goals for Canada at the:

– 44 minute, Spencer Curran #5

Goal for the USA at the:

– 26 minute, Johnny Orozco #11
– 55 minute, Pedro Zepeda #6

Canada Starting Line-up:

Alex Smith (Gk), CJ Roydhouse, Sunny Dhindsa, Spencer Curran (C), Gabriel Ho-Garcia, Gurteg Gill, Brenden Bissett, Justin Dhaliwal, Paul Wharton, Tony Sidhu, Gordon Johnston

First Half:

PC – USA – 1, Canada – 4
Cards – USA – 0, Canada – 0
Goals – USA – 1, Canada – 0

Second Half:

PC – USA – 3, Canada – 5
Cards – USA – 0, Canada – 0
Goals – USA – 1, Canada – 1

Alvin Bissett Manager
Canadian National Men’s U-17 Field Hockey Team Member