US women's rugby displays valiant effort in New Zealand loss, advance to bronze medal match

The American women had a tall task against defending Olympic champions New Zealand, who have dominated this tournament and had won the last twelve matches against the United States. New Zealand proved victorious with a 24-12 win and advanced to the gold medal match. The U.S. women fill face Australia for bronze.

MATCH STATS

A great opportunity early on, the U.S. women took advantage of a penalty with a nice try run by three-time Olympian Alev Kelter for the 5-0 lead. Kelter used her power to execute a textbook stiff arm on the way to the try.

New Zealand didn’t wait long to answer, though, as Stacey Fluhler displayed beautiful footwork fundamentals and ran past Ilona Maher; the conversion was converted to give the Black Ferns a two-point advantage.

Right before the end of the half, Fluhler looked to have scored for NZ, but Kelter made a try-saving tackle to push Fluhlerinto touch. The Black Ferns held a 7-5 lead at the half.

It was not a good start for the American women in the second half. Backpedaling in their own 22, Sammy Sullivan was called for a not releasing penalty and Fluhler converted the easy try to put New Zealand up 12-5.  

Michaela Blyde, New Zealand’s leading try scorer, extended the Black Ferns lead when she turned the corner on Ariana Ramsey. An unlucky bounce on the ensuing kickoff sealed the Americans fate as Blyde found the back of the try again. 

Still, the Americans played to the last whistle. Kristi Kirshe scored a nice try off a switch pass for a final score of 24-12. Not all is lost the Red, White and Blue as the Americans will face Australia in the bronze medal match, the first time an American team has advanced to a medal match in Olympic play (men or women).

New Zealand's Sarah Hirini spoke after the match on what it means to be heading to the gold medal match. “Very emotional. These are happy tears. I'm proud of the group and very excited to play an Olympic final in front of 65,000 people. It's pretty incredible," she'd add, “We are going for one color (medal in the final). It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."