Carli Lloyd scored three goals to led the USA women’s national team to a 5-2 victory in the highest scoring women’s Word Cup Final. America scored four goals in 16 minutes to put the Japanese national team on its heels, and to take control of the match.

Tobin Heath secured America’s World Championship with her goal in the 54th minute. (Marie Sovien, Annie — USA Today — SB Nation)

Japan’s scored its second goal of the match off of an own goal by Julie Johnston in the 52nd minute. Johnston was trying to head a cross pass out-of-the-way, and inadvertently knocked the ball into the back of her own net. The goal cut USA’s lead to two, 4-2, to get Japan back into the game. But that didn’t last long, as the US quickly got the ball down the pitch and scored its fifth goal of the match in the 54th minute.

The US cleared a corner kick to the other side of the pitch, it was quickly passed to Tobin Heath right in front of the net. Heath wasted no time in firing in America’s fifth goal of the match, quickly shutting down Japan’s attempt at a comeback.

The United States controlled the ball for the rest of the game, and struggled to take advantage of new opportunitites, but it didn’t matter as the USWNT walked away with its third World Cup championship. US subed in legendary forward Abby Wambach in the 79th minute, she was given the Captain’s armband by Carli Lloyd as she entered the pitch. This was Wambach’s last World Cup as a player, and she finished it as a World Champion.

Lloyd got the scoring early when she came streaking up the middle of the box, received a pass and quickly fired it into the net in the third minute. She quickly follow that up with her second goal in the fifth minute to give the US an early 2-0 lead…putting Japan on its heels. Her third and final goal was scored from the middle of the pitch — 50+ yards out — and sailed passed the outstretched hands of Japanese goalkeeper Ayumi Kaihori to give the US a 4-0 lead in the 16th minute.

Lauren Holiday scored the US’s third goal when she corralled a loose header, and fired off a strike from the middle of the box…before the ball hit the ground. Holiday’s goal pushed the US’s lead to 3-0 in the 14th minute. The US never looked back after that.

Let’s celebrate America, our women’s soccer team are the champions of the soccer world.

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