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Sports

Morgan scores twice to lead US over Finland 4-0

Associated Press
Published | Updated

QUARTEIRA, Portugal – After winning their first three games at the Algarve Cup, the United States will play Iceland in Wednesday's final.

Alex Morgan scored two goals, Shannon Boxx and Carli Lloyd had one apiece and the Americans beat Finland 4-0 Monday.

"Even though we were already through to the final, it was still important for us to keep that rhythm and continue to play our game," Morgan said. "We've really been focusing on our mentality going into games so I think that was important this game to work on that."

The Americans, who needed to win two playoffs to qualify for this year's World Cup, outshot the Finns 24-1. Given the early lead, U.S. coach Pia Sundhage took off Boxx, Heather O'Reilly, Christie Rampone and Lauren Cheney at the start of the second half.

"We've talked about mentality this whole trip. Just because the team wasn't as great, or it wasn't a final game, we still have the mentality that we still need to do this every single game," Boxx said. "We're preparing for the World Cup. We are not preparing to win this tournament necessarily. Of course we want to win, but we're looking into the future and how we want to play then and that starts now."

At the World Cup in Germany, the Americans open against North Korea on June 28, then play Colombia on July 2 and Sweden on July 6.

While the U.S. is ranked first in the world, Finland is 16th and Iceland 17th.

"They will have a lot of fight," Sundhage said of Iceland. "This is the first time they are in the final, so it will be interesting to see how we deal with that because I don't think we should just fight, that will be an ugly game. We should be more sophisticated than that. However, we still have to bring the U.S. mentality like we have done so far in this tournament."

Boxx put the Americans ahead with a 6-yard header off Lloyd's corner kick in the eighth minute, her 22nd international goal and first since March 28 last year.

Lloyd doubled the lead in the 13th with a 16-yard shot off a squaring path from Tobin Heath. Morgan added goals in the 45th and 54th minutes, the first after chesting a long ball from Ali Krieger, the second after the rebound of her initial shot wasn't cleared. Morgan has six international goals.

American forward Abby Wambach, returning from a heel injury, entered at the start of the second half for the third straight game.