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West Coast Force Gets Comeback Win in Tokyo

Box Score

Jun. 27, 2010

Tokyo, Japan - The West Coast Force played their final game of the 2010 International Friendship Games and came back from being down 4-6 at halftime to win 10-9 over the Kantai Under-20 Team.

The Force got the first goal of the game when Jillian Boyd (Virginia Wesleyan '08) passed to Jordan Venetis (SBCC '10 and UCSB '12) on a fast break in the first few minutes of action. Then Kantai outscored the Force 6-3 the remainder of the half. Force goals came from Maddie Saxton (Franklin & Marshall '14) when she picked up a ground ball in front of the cage and flicked it in, Kati Kasch UConn '08) unassisted on an inside roll move from behind the cage and Boyd unassisted.

The second half started slowly for both teams as opportunities went unfinished.  Then the Force came alive. Boyd fed Kasch for a goal and then Kasey Marchwicki (Virginia Wesleyan '09) fed Kasch for another goal.  Kasch scored unassisted again and then Boyd passed to a guest Japanese player who just happened to be her host for her home-stay nights in Tokyo.  That brought the Force to within on goal of Kantai and the score was 8-9. Boyd got involved again and scored unassisted setting up heroics for someone to win in the last minutes of the game.

A three second call on the Japanese team defense gave Venetis a free position shot from the second hash to the left as the shooter faces the goal.  It was as good an opportunity as right handed shooters get and Venetis buried her chance to put the Force up 10-9. The lead held after some scurrying all over the midfield after a ball that seemed too hot too handle for both teams.  With about 90 seconds remaining the ball ping ponged back and forth pretty much in the middle section of the field the entire time. Eventually the Force came up with the ball and were able to hold onto it for the last 15 seconds of the game to get the win.

Boyd led all scorers with 2 goals and 3 assists while Kasch scored 4 goals.  Katherine Herzog  (McDaniel '13) played in goal the first half and had 6 saves. Kat Frazer (UCSB '13) was in goal the second half and had 3 saves. The Force fly home to the United States on Monday, June 28th, to resume their normal lives.