Quick Recap: U.S. 18, England 2

PETERBOROUGH, Ontario — Kelly Amonte Hiller’s message to her team in a pregame meeting before its matchup with England was pretty simple: “Have fun.”

The U.S. opened the World Lacrosse Women’s U19 World Championship with a 12-4 win over Australia, but wasn’t as sharp as Amonte Hiller hoped. She just wanted her team to relax and play their game.

They did that and more, controlling England from start to finish in an 18-2 victory on Saturday night at Trent University.

“I think we came into this game knowing that last game we had a lot of hype coming up as our first game we were actually playing as USA,” said midfielder Izzy Scane. “We had a lot going on, a lot of emotions. I think this game our focus was just have fun, play our game, stay calm and do what we do best.”

Scane earned Player of the Match honors after a three-goal, two-assist effort. It came on the heels of a four-point game against Australia, but this one was much smoother. Scane was frustrated during the Australia game with some of her shots not going.

“I talked to her individually a little bit,” said Amonte Hiller. “Obviously I know her very well from coaching her at Northwestern and just how to talk to her to make sure she’s focusing in on the right things.”

Scane had a fantastic freshman season at Northwestern, helping the Wildcats win the Big Ten championship and reach the NCAA semifinal round. She was second on the team in goals (62) and points (80), earning her second team All-American and Big Ten Freshman of the Year honors.

That experience is one of the reasons Amonte Hiller expects a leadership role from Scane on this squad. She delivered on Saturday night.

Scane had a goal in the first quarter to help the U.S. jump out to a 5-0 lead and then dominated the second quarter. She caused a turnover on an England ride early in the quarter and then dodged to the middle and ripped home a goal.

“Working on the ride on offense is just so big,” Scane said. “If you can get the ball back on the ride it makes it so much easier on our defense and everyone. It gets the energy going and as soon as the you get the ball back you want to push it in transition, so that’s what I was trying to do.”

The play helped ignite her game and the team. Less than two minutes later, she scored on another dodge to the middle and Scane then dished out helpers to Megan Carney and Belle Smith to give her a hand in all four goals the U.S. scored in the second quarter.

Scane is relishing her time on the U.S. team in part because it almost didn’t happen. After the initial round of tryouts last August, Scane was not one of the 36 players named to the U.S. training team.

“I talked to my high school coach, who is still really huge in my life,” Scane said. “He said, ‘You can either give up and say that’s it or you can put your head down, work hard and see if something can make a difference in the fall’ and that’s what ended up happening. Luckily coach gave me a chance and it all worked out pretty well.”

Scane was one of four collegiate freshmen added to the training group prior to the Spring Premiere and California in January and she and Syracuse’s Carney ended up making the final 18-player roster out of that group.

They’ll be among the key players as the U.S. faces its biggest test yet on Sunday night when it plays against host Canada. Canada upset the U.S. in the gold medal game in 2015 and will very likely have a vocal home field advantage. The game will be streamed live on Lax Sports Network beginning at 8 p.m.