Alyssa did a great job. There were a couple of misunderstandings between her and Michelle because they were new to each other, but that was expected. I was very pleased with her. Alyssa was able to contain certain situations and cut off a lot of passes. She played very hard.

They are the two most consistent penalty kick takers we have. But normally if (a player) is involved in a play, I do not let that individual take it. That player might be too emotional, and it's bitten me before. But at the last second, I said, 'You guys make the decision. One of you is going to take it.' I think they made the right decision.

In all the coaching clinics that I've taken, one of the comments you always hear is that if you coach a long time, at least once you will get the pleasure of coaching an athlete that could be at the Olympic level. I really feel that, in my career, she'll probably be the athlete that has a chance at becoming an Olympic athlete.

The momentum was with us. We had it after that penalty kick. We created our chances. But for her to take that kind of a shot and surprise the goalkeeper like that, you could see our whole team get up and get ready to go.

For a spectator this was a great game to watch. You could tell they had the momentum, then we had it and then they had it. It was a very, very close match. I feel fortunate, but I'm glad we came out on top because it was anybody's game.

Defensively, they hung in there, knocked the ball around and slowed the pace down. That's exactly what we wanted to do.