The USA advances undefeated to the 2009 World University Games gold medal game, where it will meet the winner of also unbeaten Russia (6-0) and Czech Republic (4-2) at 3:00 p.m. (9:00 a.m. EDT) on Saturday, July 11 at Belgrade Arena. The loser of the Russia versus Czech Republic game will face Australia in the bronze medal contest at 12:30 p.m. (6:30 a.m. EDT).

"I think we came out, got a little run and then we let up," said USA and Arizona State University head coach Charli Turner Thorne. "As a coach I don't understand that. We always want everybody to go out and work hard every possession. You have to credit Australia. They're a tough, physical team. They play hard every possession. Our team can learn from that. We take possessions off and every time we took a possession off in the second half, they capitalized."

The red, white and blue was led by Danielle McCray (Kansas / Olathe, Kan.) with 15 points and five rebounds; Tina Charles (Connecticut / Jamaica, N.Y.) tallied a 12-point, 10-rebound double-double; and Danielle Robinson (Oklahoma / San Jose, Calif.), who dished out a game-high four assists, and Alexis Gray-Lawson (California / Oakland, Calif.), who shot 4-of-5 from the field and grabbed five rebounds, each contributed 10 points.

"We're really excited," Gray-Lawson said. "Obviously we've been doing two-a-days, all the different practices to get here. We're definitely excited to be playing for the gold medal."

Australia managed to keep pace with the USA the first five minutes of the first period, and the USA was down 13-9 when it called its first timeout with 4:51 on the clock. The break served its purpose, as just seven seconds later Tiffany Hayes (Connecticut / Lakeland, Fla.) scored the first of two points of a 25-0 U.S. run that stretched to the 5:47 mark of the second period. The spurt included points from eight U.S. players, and by halftime the USA had forced 14 turnovers and held the Aussies to 29.0 percent shooting from the field (9-31 FGs).

As was the case for the entire 40 minutes, Australia battled back and outscored the Americans 12-9 in the remaining five minutes of the second period, and the teams headed to the halftime lockers rooms with the USA up by 18 points, 43-25.

Australia heated up in the third quarter and shot 6-of-15 from the field (.400) and took better care of the ball, committing just four turnovers in the stanza, while the Americans cooled down and shot just 6-of-22 from the outside (.272). The stanza was a series of runs, including a 5-0 spurt for the USA, followed by a 10-0 Australia run and an 11-5 U.S. run to close the period up 59-40.

Thanks to eight fourth-quarter points from Amy Lewis, who finished with a game-high 19, Australia managed to outscore the USA 26-22 in the final period to bring the score to its 81-66 final.

"After we made our runs we got a little complacent and let them back in the game," said Kayla Pedersen (Stanford / Fountain Hills, Ariz.) It was a good learning experience because we know that Russia (or Czech Republic) won't let that happen."

Ashley Houts (Georgia / Trenton, Ga.) and Pedersen added seven points, Hayes finished with four points and six rebounds and Jantel Lavender (Ohio State / Cleveland, Ohio) grabbed six rebounds to go with her five points.

The final classification games take place on July 10, with Poland (4-2) and Great Britain (3-3) battling for 5th place at 8:00 p.m. local time (+6 hours from EDT), Slovakia (2-4) and Taiwan (3-3) competing for 7th place at 5:30 p.m., Japan (3-3) and China (3-3) playing for 9th place at 3:00 p.m., Serbia (2-4) and Hungary (3-3) fighting for 11th place at 3:00 p.m., France (2-4) and Turkey (2-4) battling for 13th place at 8:00 p.m. and Mozambique (0-6) and Canada (1-5) are competing for 15th place at 5:30 p.m.

Turner Thorne is assisted on the USA sideline by Suzy Merchant of Michigan State University and Julie Rousseau of Pepperdine University.