Lima, Peru - August 9 - The USA Men's National Team will play for gold at the 2019 Pan American Games after defeating Argentina 17-1 in the semifinals.
Johnny Hooper (Los Angeles, CA/California/LA Premier) scored a game-high seven goals while
Alex Wolf (Huntington Beach, CA/UCLA/Bruin) piled up 13 saves including one penalty shot block. Team USA now advances to the gold medal game where they will meet Canada on Saturday at 7:30pm central time/5:30pm pt with the winner earning a berth to the 2020 Olympic Games. For more on the Pan American Games including schedules and results,
click here.
Team USA wasted little time getting in the scoring column as
Alex Bowen (Santee, CA/Stanford/NYAC) connected on a penalty shot just 21 seconds into the match for a 1-0 lead. Hooper would follow with his first two goals of the night and
Hannes Daube (Long Beach, CA/USC/North Irvine WPC) would finish off the quarter for a 4-0 advantage after one. Hooper continue to fill it up as he opened the second quarter with two straight goals for a 6-0 lead with 5:33 to play.
Ben Hallock (Westlake Village, CA/Stanford/LA Premier) and
Luca Cupido (Santa Margherita Ligure, Italy/California/Olympic Club) followed with goals just about a minute apart and it was an 8-0 score going to halftime.
Argentina got on the board in the third quarter with their lone goal of the match but Team USA controlled the rest of the game adding on six more goals in the quarter. The period started a lot like the second did for Team USA with Hooper scoring the first two goals to go up 10-0 after Wolf turned away an Argentina penalty attempt. Argentina scored with 2:58 to play in the quarter to make it 12-1 in favor of Team USA. The United States answered with two more goals to close out the period coming from Hooper and Bowen to lead 14-1 going to the fourth.
The scoring settled down in the fourth as the United States outscored Argentina by a margin of 3-0. In the first four minutes of the quarters, Team USA saw Cupido, Daube and Bowen all connect for goals for a 17-1 lead. That would hold up the rest of the way as the United States advanced to the finals. Team USA went 7/11 on power plays and 2/3 on penalties while Argentina went 1/6 on power plays and 0/1 on penalties.
Team USA met Canada earlier at the Pan American Games winning a 13-11 match in group play.
Scoring -
Stats
USA 17 (4, 4, 6, 3) J. Hooper 7, L. Cupido 3, A. Bowen 3, H. Daube 2, A. Obert 1, B. Hallock 1
ARG 1 (0, 0, 1, 0) C. Camnasio 1
Saves - USA - A. Wolf 13 - ARG - D. Malnero 5
6x5 - USA - 7/11 - ARG - 1/6
Penalties - USA - 2/3 - ARG - 0/1
