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 Needing a win or draw in its pool play finale to earn a spot in the national championship game, the FC Milwaukee Under-18 girls team left no doubt.
Cara Walls (Wauwatosa East) scored in the 13th minute and Justine Hovden (Lake Geneva Badger) and Mady Vicker (Whitefish Bay) added goals in a 10-minute span in the second half as the Nationals cruised past FC Stars of Massachusetts 3-0 Friday morning at the Reach 11 Complex in Phoenix.
FC Milwaukee will seek to become the first Wisconsin team to win a U.S. Youth Soccer national title on Sunday morning against Colorado Rush Nike, which beat the Nationals 1-0 in the tournament opener Wednesday. Kickoff for Sunday's final is set for 9:45 a.m.
"This was a very mature performance," coach Christian Lavers said in a news release on the club website. "They played like adults today."
Walls, who is headed to the University of Wisconsin, found the back of the net for the second straight day to give FC Milwaukee the early lead.
Goalkeeper Monica Gonyo, a Loyola (Ill.) recruit from Waukesha Catholic Memorial, made sure the score remained that way at halftime by coming up with a big save on a breakaway in the 35th.
Baylor recruit Hovden doubled the lead in the 63rd by scoring on a blast from the top of the box off the rebound of a corner kick, and Vicker – who will play at Marquette – sealed the victory by heading in a cross from Walls in the 73rd.
Gonyo and the Nationals' backline of her sister Valerie Gonyo (Waukesha Catholic Memorial), Brittany Von Rueden (Milwaukee DSHA), Dana Robertson (Madison Memorial) and Gabby Kailas (Mequon Homestead) posted their second straight shutout and allowed just the one goal to the Rush in three pool matches.
"One of the things we talked about after playing well but conceding a goal to Rush on Wednesday is that if we were going to be champions, we needed to tighten up enough defensively to keep zeros on the opponent's side of the boxscore," Lavers said.
All four FC Milwaukee defenders also are Division I recruits: Valerie Gonyo is going to Loyola with her sister, Kailas will join Vicker at Marquette, Robertson is off to UNC-Charlotte and Von Rueden has verbally committed to Notre Dame for 2012.
The Rush, who clinched a berth in the finals by winning their first two matches, rallied twice and tied Florida's Team Boca 2-2 on Friday.
Under-19 boys
The Chicago Fire Juniors (2-0-1), whose roster includes UW midfielder Joey Tennyson (Menomonee Falls) and forward Chris Prince and Marquette midfielder Bryan Ciesiulka, tied Baltimore Bays Chelsea 1-1 in a pool finale. The teams will meet again Sunday morning for the national title.
Under-19 girls
UW's Catie Sessions and the Woodbury Inferno (Minn.) gave up four unanswered goals in a 5-1 loss to New Jersey's PDA Tsunami and were eliminated with a 1-2-0 record.
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