The curse of the penalty kicks strikes again. The US Women's U20 side playing in Augsburg Germany was eliminated in a shootout loss to Nigeria after playing to a 1-1 tie in 120 minutes. The U20 US team has never been eliminated before, so this was a shocker. Not to take a thing away from the Nigerian team, which played hard, fast and strong, but the penalty shootout was a puzzler. The US keeper, Henninger, was forced to face the second Nigerian shooter three times. The first two she stopped, but, obviously frustrated, she missed the third shot. The end was sealed when LeRoux, the US sharpshooter, missed her kick. Once again it's a hard hard way to end what was an attractive struggle between two well-matched teams.
Two players from Portland, Kendall Johnson of UP and Courtney Verloo of Stanford were on the US roster.
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