The U.S. Women’s National Team put on a convincing performance on chilly night at JELD-WEN Field, winning 5-0 over Ireland on a first half hat trick by Alex Morgan, then adding two second half goals by Sydney Leroux.
Morgan started the scoring in the 24th minute, lunging at a shot near the top of the box, and sliding the shot past the outstretched hands of Ireland goalkeeper Emma Byrne. Ten minutes later, Morgan added a second after Lauren Cheney dropped a nice pass to hear near the top of the box, and Morgan’s blast was again to the lower left corner, and the US led 2-0. Just before the half, Morgan completed her hat trick, this time jumping on her own rebound and going just inside the right post this time, and the US would take the 3-0 lead into the half.
Second half substitute Sydney Leroux put the US up 4-0 in the 62nd minute as she got her head on a cross from Heather O’Reilly, with Byrne getting a piece of the header, but not enough to keep the ball out of the net. Leroux added another in the 81st minute with a tight-angled shot from the Irish goalkeeper’s right that looked to be an easy save, but the ball slipped through and bounced into the net for the final goal of a 5-0 throttling of the visitors.
