It started as a soccer game.\u00a0It ended with a football score.<\/p>\n
Former Boston Breakers’ striker Amy Rodriguez\u00a0grabbed a record-tying\u00a0five goals\u00a0in the\u00a0United States’\u00a0record-setting 14-0 demolition of the Dominican Republic in the first game of Olympic Qualifying at BC Place in Vancouver.<\/p>\n
The 14 tallies were the most scored by the U.S. since the program’s inception in 1985. Rodriguez’s quintuple goal effort matched the team high set by fellow teammate Abby Wambach and\u00a0three others.<\/p>\n
Incredibly, Rodriguez (46′, 47′, 58′, 70′, 74′) scored all\u00a0five in the\u00a0final 45\u00a0after coming on\u00a0as a substitute\u00a0at the start of the second half.\u00a0Meanwhile, Abby Wambach (1′, 19′) Carli Lloyd (5′), Heather O’Reilly (17′, 32′, 77′), Rachel Buehler (19′),Tobin Heath (30′) and Lauren Cheney (63′) all put their names on the scoresheet as the Americans opened their qualifying campaign with a veritable sonic boom.<\/p>\n
Wambach opened the account in the first minute and the Americans never looked back.\u00a0She\u00a0added another 18 minutes later\u00a0and, with the attack firing on all 12 cylinders,\u00a0called it a night at the interval with the Nats ahead 7-0.<\/p>\n
O’Reilly, who recently signed with the Breakers,\u00a0scored\u00a0twice in the first frame\u00a0and added another late.\u00a0When she wasn’t putting them through, she was putting them on her teammates’ feet, as the\u00a0Breakers’ mewly-signed striker recorded four assists in the course of her 90 minutes. But the four\u00a0helpers didn’t eclipse the five that another Breakers’ player\u00a0– Cheney – racked up before the final whistle<\/p>\n
The statline itself further supported the dominance of the\u00a0top-ranked squad over their outgunned opponents. The American defense didn’t yield a single shot to the Dominican Republic, outshooting them by an astonishing 35-0 margin, 20 of which flew on frame.<\/p>\n
Although the Americans may have put on a clinic at BC Place, it wasn’t without incident. In the 41st minute, right back Ali Krieger had to be carted off the field after suffering what appeared to be a serious leg injury after a hard challenge from a D.R. defender. Krieger’s status for the remainder of the tournament is unknown.<\/p>\n
The U.S. returns to\u00a0the pitch\u00a0on Sunday, when they face Guatemala at BC Place for the second game of Group B play. Kickoff is scheduled for 7:30pm ET.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Yes, you read that right. The U.S. Women’s National Team scored a record-setting 14 goals against the Dominican Republic Friday night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8635,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/soc_g_rodriguez_576.jpg?fit=576%2C324","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8633"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8633"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8633\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8638,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8633\/revisions\/8638"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}