Fifth Place Game: France 5, Mexico 1

Thanks to an eruption of offense in the last 10 minutes of regulation, France ran away with fifth-place at the Athlon Car Lease FIH Road to London tournament with a 5-1 win against Mexico.

The score was tied at one at the half with Apoline Rogeau putting France on the board six minutes into action and Michel Navarro scoring the equalizer from Mexico. It looked like the game could head to overtime with the 1-1 tie enduring through most of the second half.

France upped the tempo with about 15 minutes left and the clearly exhausted Mexican team simply couldn’t keep pace. The French finally tapped in the eventual game winner with 12 minutes left on the clock and a pair of goals from Gwenaelle Dutel less than three minutes apart put any hopes Mexico had of a comeback out of reach. France scored the icing on the cake 5-1 goal in the last two minutes to bring the final to 5-1.

Both France and Mexico end the tournament where they started. France, the #25 team in the FIH World Ranking, was the fifth seed entering the qualifier and Mexico was the lowest seeded team at #30 in the ranking.