Feliz Cumpleaños Stephanie!

Today was the 22nd birthday of U.S. defender Stephanie Cox. While birthdays are the road are commonplace for the U.S. WNT players who spend most of the year on the road, this one was a bit special. Cox (whose maiden name is Lopez) is of Mexican descent (her grandfather was born in the state of Chihuahua, where Juarez is located) and the U.S. team decided to celebrate with cake and a piñata! The U.S. support staff did an awesome job of obtaining the piñata (kudos to team videographer Noey Jouglet for suggesting it) and stuffing it full of candy, while the hotel staff hoisted it into proper bashing position as well as bob it up and down, making it extremely difficult to get a good smack at it. Cox took the first swings and knocked the head off the brightly colored paper-mache bull, but not much candy came out. Kacey White took the next at bat and looked as if she was playing for her hometown Texas Rangers (she swung and missed a lot), but once she made good contact, managed to knock a limb off. Natasha Kai batted clean up and busted the thing wide open, spilling candy all over the ground as the U.S. players scrambled to get their favorite pieces. Cox nèe Lopez has been a popular interview subject for the Mexican media who are more used to seeing Mexican-Americans playing for Mexico than American-Mexicans playing for the USA. We may have some video of the piñata party later on in the trip.