U.S. women win soccer gold medal

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BEIJING -- Defense really does win championships.And the United States women's soccer team has a brand new gold medal to prove it.With a smothering defense, backed up by the spectacular goalkeeper play of Hope Solo, the U.S. edged Brazil 1-0 in overtime here Thursday night to win their second straight Olympic gold medal."I truly believe our defense - our team defense, not just the back four, but from the forward all the way to the goalkeeping --are on the same page," Solo said. "We were organized. This is the first time I can tell you that defense won this game today."All the offense the team needed was provided by the left leg of Carli Lloyd.The game-winner came in the sixth minute of the first overtime period when Lloyd took a pass from Amy Rodriguez just outside the box and drove the ball to the far post and past Barbara, the Brazilian keeper."I just knew I had to keep it low and hit it hard, and it went in. It's an unbelievable feeling," Lloyd said.The game left Brazil coach Jorge Barcellos scratching his head."Brazil had control the whole game. . .unfortunately we could not finish up," he said. "We dominated, but we didn't make it."Barcellos' team had the ball 58 percent of the time and outshot the Americans 16-11. They had 14 corner kicks to just three for the U.S. and two free kicks to none for the U.S. "They have a bunch of superstars, we have a team," U.S. center defender Kate Markgraf said. "We defend as a team. And you keep defending and defending and defending. It might be a forward who comes back and defense. We stress that a lot. The Brazilians may beat two people, but it's very difficult to beat three."Having Solo stopping everything that comes her way also gave the U.S. a comfort zone. That defense frustrated Marta, the Brazilian superstar who scored two goals in her country's 4-0 shutout of the Americans in the 2007 World Cup semifinals. In the 73rd minute Marta slipped past two defenders and had a close range shot that was stuffed by Solo."Our back line just did an amazing job, and they have all year for us," midfielder Shannon Boxx said. "They have given us the ability with Hope back there to being more creative and more offensive. It is amazing to have them behind you. And Hope, she was big all game."The U.S. women sensed fatigue and frustration in the Brazilians heading into the extra time."We looked at them and they are sitting on the ground and we re like 'they're dying.' They had attacked us for 90 minutes. Let's attack them now," Markgraf said.The attack helped the Americans finish with one more shots on goal (7-6) than the Brazilians."You could feel it every minute in the second half that we were getting stronger and especially going into overtime," said captain Christie Rampone, the anchor of the U.S. defense. "We felt stronger. We felt fit. We felt like we could keep going after them."And when Lloyd scored the lone goal, that confidence level rose to a higher level."I was confident we were going to win the whole time," Solo said. "I was inspired by my team because once we scored that goal, we were even more determined to not let them score. We were already so determined, yet we picked it up a notch."The U.S. had beaten Brazil 2-1 in extra time in the gold medal game four years ago, but lot of things have happened since then.Several of the veteran U.S. players retired. Then they team had some key injures. They came to the Olympics without star forward Abby Wambach, who scored the winning goal to win the gold in 2004; defender Cat Whitehill and midfielder Leslie Osborne.Norway stunned the Americans by scoring two goals in the first four minutes of their Olympic opener here enroute to a 2-0 upset. Then they struggled against Canada in the quarterfinals and Japan in the semifinals."The more minutes together, the better we played. The last nine months this team has been finding its rhythm," first-year Pia Sundhage ponted out. "The turning point was Norway. I don't know how many teams could come out of that game like we did.""The team is definitely on a high right now. Believing was our whole statement throughout this tournament. It didn't start out the way we wanted to, but we just kept digging and getting better each game. It as a full team effort," Rampone added.Nick Gholson writes for the Wichita Falls Times Record News in Wichita Falls, Texas. E-mail him at gholsonn(at)timesrecordnews.com