USA rolls into IFAF gold-medal game

Well, as they often say at a popular home office store, that was easy.

The U.S. Under-19 National Team is one step away from a gold medal in the 2012 International Federation of American Football Under-19 World Championship after defeating Austria 70-7 Wednesday night at Burger Stadium in Austin, Texas.

The No. 1-seeded Americans will face No. 2 seed Canada, a 33-24 winner over Japan, 8 p.m. (CT) Saturday for the gold medal. All games will stream live on USA Football’s YouTube channel and archived for future viewing at www.YouTube.com/usafootballeducation.

Austria attempted to catch Team USA off-guard with an on-side kick to start the game but USA linebacker Sammy Douglas (Arlington, Texas) fell on the kick at the Austria 42, and four plays later Tarean Folston (Cocoa, Fla.) weaved his way 25 yards through the Austria defense to give the Americans a 7-0 lead 44 seconds into the game.

Austria tied the score on a first-quarter, 1-yard plunge by Felix Stadler, but Team USA rattled off the next 63 points, starting with a 1-yard TD sneak by Brayden Scott (Sequoyah, Tahlequah, Okla.). Running back Lorenzo Woodley
(Columbus, Miami, Fla.) did the heavy lifting on the drive, rushing for 36 yards on four carries.

Following an interception by Darius Mosely (O'Fallon, Ill.) and a 40-yard run by Conor Hundley (St. Xavier, Cincinnati), Scott found Folston from 5-yards out to make it 21-7. Another interception - this one by Dashon Hunt (Westlake, Westlake Village, Calif.) - set up another Scott TD pass, this one to Rodney Adams (Lakewood, St. Petersburg, Fla.) to make it 28-7 with 2:47 left in the half. Another turnover led to a Woodley 5-yard TD run, making it 35-7 at halftime.

Scott and Adams hooked up on a 39-yard TD pass, backup QB Cameron Birse (San Ramon Valley-Danville, Calif.) fired an 8-yard scoring strike to Desmond Wyatt (Round Rock Westwood, Austin, Texas) and Khari Harding (Edmond, Santa Fe, Okla.) returned an interception 18 yards to make it 56-7.

Woodly added a 47-yard TD run and Birse completed a 19-yard touchdown pass to Adams to complete the scoring. Adams (10 of 17, 129 yards, 3 TDs) was the USA MVP.

Japan will play Austria Saturday at 5 p.m. CT for the tournament's bronze medal. Game stories and statistics from all eight tournament games to date can be found at: here. Learn more about the IFAF Under-19 World Championship and the World Football Festival.