USA 1 - MEX 0: Abby Wambach Goal Offsets Improved Outing for Mexico

Leonardo Cuellar's Mexican national women's football team made vast improvements from their 3-0 loss to Pia Sundhage's USA women back at sunny Torero Stadium on the campus of the University of San Diego. Still it was a setback nonetheless as Abby Wambach's second-half goal gave the Yanks a 1-0 victory at a snowed out Rio Tinto Stadium in Sandy, Utah.

Shannon Boxx, wearing the captain's armband for the USA, tore through the slush in the 60th minute to find Wambach inside the six-yard box, who tapped home the winner.

The old adage goes "there is first time for everything," and for the USA women, this marked the very first time in the history of the national team's existence that they placed under wintry conditions, in spite of the fact that it is spring.

Snow in late March—chew on that for a little bit. 443 games is quite a long time, and in these types of conditions, it was destined to be a challenge.

One would ask the question, has Rio Tinto Stadium considered installed a heating system for the playing surface? It certainly would improve the play of the game, which looked ragged during a number of long stretches because of the snow.

“It’s hard to imagine (conditions like this)," said Pia Sundhage. "Usually we have a game plan, but we took the game plan and said, you know what, we need to rethink and play everything forward and put pressure behind their back line.

"Still, you could see a couple of good passes on the flanks and I’m very, very happy with the way (Amy) LePeilbet and (Rachel) Buehler are playing. They are not just booting the ball, they complete good passes to start the buildup from the back.”

Wambach herself had complaints about the continuity in these conditions. “You couldn’t predict that the ball was going to roll out of bounds because it would stop," Wambach said. "You couldn’t predict that it would stop, because then it would roll out of bounds. It was like everything was almost opposite."

"I’m actually pretty surprised that we got that goal. We were definitely knocking on their door for quite a while, but these conditions were probably the worst I’ve ever played under."

Interestingly, no yellow cards were given out by head match official Jennifer Bennett to Wambach and her bastion of white jerseys, who immediately celebrated the goal by making snow angels on the pitch.

But it was all part of the plan.

“We were walking out before the game started and I said ‘if anybody scores, snow angels for sure,'" Wambach said, "and if we get number two it’s going to be a snowball fight. The snow angels were great. We, as a team, probably struggle to celebrate well. So, I’m proud of us for following through with what we said we would do.”

The plan for the snowball fight didn't exactly turn out as expected. Certainly not when you have a stopper in Mexican goalkeeper Erika Vanegas, who frustrated the USA women's offensive attack by making 12 saves in Wednesday night's contest.

Kristine Lilly was impressed by the improvement Mexico made on Wednesday. "We got a goal and our defense did a great job keeping Mexico in front of us because Maribel (Dominguez) can get behind players," Lilly said. "But you take a lot from this because it’s a win against a team that we are going to have to qualify against, so it was big for us.”

With the victory the USA improves to 6-0 for the year heading into the May 22 showdown with Germany at Cleveland Browns Stadium. If this match said anything about Pia Sundhage's club, it's that they will need to improve on their finishing and passing, regardless of the conditions, to prevent payback from one of the strongest European women's football teams in Silvia Neid's German women's side, led by Birgit Prinz and Inka Grings.

Kickoff is scheduled for 6:00 p.m. ET on ESPN2.

- U.S. WOMEN’S NATIONAL TEAM GAME REPORT -

Match: U.S. Women’s National Team vs. Mexico
Date: March 31, 2010
Competition: International Friendly
Venue: Rio Tinto Sadium; Sandy, Utah
Kickoff: 7 p.m. MT
Attendance: 3,732
Weather: 34 degrees; cold, steady snow fall

Scoring Summary: 1 2 F
USA 0 1 1
MEX 0 0 0

USA – Abby Wambach (Shannon Boxx) 60th minute

Lineups:
USA: 18-Nicole Barnhart; 4-Cat Whitehill (22-Brittany Taylor, 79), 26-Rachel Buehler, 6-Amy LePeilbet, 14-Stephanie Cox (17-Meghan Schnur, 61); 9-Heather O’Reilly (19-Kelley O’Hara, 61), 7-Shannon Boxx (Capt.) (5-Lori Lindsey, 73), 10-Carli Lloyd, 13-Kristine Lilly (16-Casey Nogueira, 46); 8-Amy Rodriguez (21-Alex Morgan, 46), 20-Abby Wambach
Subs not used: 1-Hope Solo
Head Coach: Pia Sundhage

MEX: 1-Erika Vanegas; 22-Alina Garciamendez, 3-Rubi Sandoval, 4-Marylin Diaz, 13-Lulu Gordillo (2-Leticia Villalpando, 31), 5-Maria Castillo, 8-Guadalupe Worbis (Capt.)(6-Monica Vergara, 90), 11-Nayeli Rangel, 10-Maribel Dominguez, 17-Veronica Perez (7-Evelyn Lopez, 69), 19-Dinora Garza (15-Luz Saucedo, 61)
Subs not used:, 9-Monica Ocampo, 12-Pamela Tajonar, 20-Lili Godoy, 21-Kaylie Garcia
Head Coach: Leo Cuellar

Statistical Summary: USA / MEX
Shots: 20 / 4
Shots on Goal: 13 / 2
Saves: 2 / 12
Corner Kicks: 7 / 1
Fouls: 9 / 6
Offside: 2 / 3

Misconduct Summary:
USA – Carli Lloyd (caution) 71st minute

Officials
Referee: Jennifer Bennett (USA)
Asst. Referee: Veronica Perez (USA)
Asst. Referee: Deborah Coleman (USA)
Fourth Official: Karen Abt (USA)

ussoccer.com Woman of the Match:
Abby Wambach

US Soccer contributed to this report.