By Trevor Stynes<\/p>\n
MILAN, Feb 13 (Reuters) \u2013 The United States ruthlessly beat Italy 6-0 on Friday to reach the semi-finals of the women\u2019s Olympic ice hockey tournament at Milano Rho Arena, where the hosts put on an incredible opening-period defensive display before succumbing \u200bto the inevitable.<\/p>\n
The U.S. have never failed to reach the last four and the \u200ctournament favourites were not going to be denied by an Italian squad of rank outsiders playing in just their second Olympics.<\/p>\n
Megan Keller scored the only goal before the first interval. Kendall Coyne then twice found the back of the net along with strikes from Laila Edwards, Britta Curl and Hannah Bilka in a five-goal second-period burst \u200cthat \u200bprovided a more realistic look to the score.<\/p>\n
Italian captain Nadia Mattivi \u2060was sent to the penalty \u2060box for an illegal hit in the fourth minute but a spirited defence and goalie Gabriella Durante kept the Americans at bay under extreme power play pressure.<\/p>\n
Italy had their own power play in the second half of the first period but were unable to muster \u200ba shot before they too were hit with a penalty while American captain Hilary Knight was still in the box.<\/p>\n
With the teams playing four-on-four, Keller worked a neat one-two with Edwards \u2060and smashed a one-timer for which Durante had no \u2060chance.<\/p>\n
Italy faced an average of one shot per minute in the first \u200bperiod but managed to limit the U.S. to that single goal, and Durante made a superb stick \u200bsave from a shot by Abbey Murphy just before the interval.<\/p>\n
The second period \u200cwas a completely different story, with the Americans finding the net five times from their 19 shots.<\/p>\n
Coyne\u2019s shot from behind the goal shortly after the interval crept in at Durante\u2019s corner and Coyne added another five minutes into the second period.<\/p>\n
Italy could no longer hold on and Edwards had \u2060time to pick her spot in the corner of the net as the U.S. suddenly found a ruthless streak.<\/p>\n
A power play was of little use to Italy as the U.S. scored shorthanded through \u2060Curl\u2019s wraparound goal.<\/p>\n
Della Rovere hit the \u200ccrossbar with the home fans desperate to celebrate an Italian goal, \u2060but Bilka made it 6-0 shortly before the end of the \u200bsecond period.<\/p>\n
The \u200cfinal period petered out with little in the way of goalmouth \u200baction. The Americans \u2060had done the job and Italy bow out with their heads high after a tournament that exceeded anyone\u2019s expectations.<\/p>\n
Sweden made the last four with a 2-0 win over the Czech Republic earlier on Friday. Defending champions Canada face Germany and Finland take on Switzerland in the other quarter-finals on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Teams will be re-seeded after the quarter-final matches to determine the semi-final pairings.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Trevor Stynes in Milan; \u200bEditing by Bill Berkrot)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Trevor Stynes MILAN, Feb 13 (Reuters) \u2013 The United States ruthlessly beat Italy 6-0 on Friday to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":467398,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-467397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=467397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/467398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}