TAC Day 7 - Freedom Pip Canada For First Finals Berth

Victory and defeat are fickle.  They can be decided by wide gulfs or minute margins.

The USA Freedom will be playing for a championship thanks to the knuckles of Amanda Boe.

It wasn’t a knockout punch, but rather a timely jab of the football over the line in the dying seconds of Team USA’s semifinal match against Canada.  The 14-13 win was the first for the Freedom over the Northern Lights in twelve years, and punched their ticket into the 2024 AFL TransAtlantic Cup Grand Final.

Oddly enough, the Americans’ one goal, eight behind total was one point short of their total against the Lights in last year’s 49th Parallel Cup in Racine.  But on this day, the defense was the difference.

Slightly drizzly conditions were around as the game got underway, but went away quickly.  Canada was kicking towards the Mississauga end of the ground in the opening term, which would prove to be the main scoring end.  The back six were under siege right from the start, but played confidently.  Dani Marshall had moved out to the flank with Ally Dykes anchoring in the middle.  Caroline Sequeira, Rita Hill, and Kelli Kaskiw laid on tackles to freeze the ball.  The only major error was a free kick given away in the goal square that led to an Aimee Legault goal from point blank range.  The US was still in it, though, down 7-1.

Then the game became an arm wrestle.  Lindsey Turse, Lindsey Bec, and Jess Blecher began to get fed the ball more from Nicole Feery, CoJo Lewis, and Catherine Georgiadis.  The Freedom had the territorial advantage for most of the stanza, but could only manage one behind, and trailed 7-2 at recess.

Canada seemed to seize control back through an early Mabel Dunn goal in the third term.  But the defense held, with Hallie Kastanek pressuring the ball more.  Questions loomed as to when the US would hit the panic button and perhaps ask Marshall and Lewis to push up more in search of a goal to bring the game back.  

The push forward began in earnest, but the completion rate let the Freedom down.  They added a couple more singles to cut the margin to nine.  When full forward Liz Edd left the game with a hand injury, her Minnesota Freeze teammate Jeri Allen stepped in and won a free kick from 30 meters out.  She slotted home her first international goal to cut the margin to three, and then another behind made it 13-11 with 17 ½ minutes to go.  Game the heck on.

No further goals would be scored from this point on.  And while Marshall would slowly push up a bit, the alarm bells never went off. Kaiya Sygulla put in another top shelf effort to keep the ball up front, as did Feery.  Barb Williamson had one of her best games in the ruck.  Slowly another behind was added.  Then another.  13-all with four minutes left.  Canada pressured, the American defense held.

Extra time loomed.  With the ball in the pocket and a minute to go, Turse, the shortest player on the Freedom at 4’11”, tackled Dunn to win a free kick.  She handballed to Feery, who booted it into the goal square.  The ricochet off the Northern Lights defender fell to Boe, who could only get a fist to it, but it was enough to give the Freedom a 14-13 lead, 69-plus minutes after the first ball up.  The forwards locked in the ball, and the siren went.

The USA and Canada women have played eleven times in Aussie Rules football.  The Americans have won just three times.  This was the sweetest of the bunch.

“I’m a little in disbelief,” said Turse, who was named TASMANIAN Player of the Game.  “But this team has worked so hard this entire [week] just to get better each match, and I think we proved that.

“I think we definitely had that rivalry under our belt and we definitely wanted it a little bit more [than last year], there’s more on the line for this game.  We did a really good job watching the games prior to really know what to do to get stuck in front of Canada, and to really be gritty on the ground.”

Now comes one final challenge… a rematch with Ireland in the Grand Final.  The Banshees saw off Great Britain in the semi-final, kicking away in the fourth quarter.  

The Freedom will have two days off - a luxury in this tournament - and will go up against the team that defeated them on Day 1.  Ball up is at 11:45am EDT / 8:45am PDT.

“I think Ireland saw a completely different team,” Turse added.  “When we played them first, we weren’t the same team that it is now.  We’ve grown so much this whole tournament and I think we’re just hitting our peak and our stride and they’ve got something coming to them.”

Goals:
CAN - A. Legault, Dunn
USA - Allen