“There was a lot of good play, but basically we made a ton of mistakes,” said USA U19 and DePaul University (Ill.) head coach Doug Bruno. “I think that’s to be expected with how little time we’ve had to practice, but we have to clean up our game, and we won’t make any excuses.

“We had some opportunities where we were in position to put the game away, and we didn’t. We don’t know each other well enough yet. The coaches don’t know the players yet, and it’s just been too fast. But that’s why we are here in the Canary Islands–to come together as a team.”            

Bruno is being assisted on the sidelines by Cynthia Cooper-Dyke of Prairie View A&M University (Texas) and Carol Owens of Northern Illinois University.

Both teams struggled to shoot from the floor throughout, and the USA headed into the final stanza nursing a 49-44 lead. From there, Australia slowly closed the narrow gap and cut the U.S. lead to two, 60-58 at 2:40. Katie Ebzery then finished an old-fashioned 3-point play to give the Aussies their first fourth quarter advantage, 61-60, with just 1:58 remaining.

In the midst of three consecutive U.S. turnovers, Australia’s Abby Bishop was fouled as she missed an offensive putback. She made one of two free-throws to push her team’s lead to 62-60 at 1:17. A bucket from Angie Bjorklund (University H.S. / Spokane, Wash.) with 40 seconds remaining stopped the bleeding and evened the score, 62-62.

With 27 seconds left, Australia’s Jaimee Kennedy was fouled during on a loose ball scramble, but failed on both tries from the charity stripe and the score remained deadlocked 62-62. The U.S. secured the rebound, and while Allyssa DeHaan (Michigan State / Grandville, Mich.) missed on her first and second tries, Jantel Lavender (Cleveland Central Catholic H.S. / Cleveland, Ohio) scored on the third U.S. offensive rebound to give the USA it’s final 64-62 lead with 0.6 seconds on the clock.

Australia’s Bishop had a hurried look at the buzzer, but was blocked by Moore as time ran out.