In a Hurry, Scurry Makes Impression : Soccer: It took awhile for the U.S. women’s team to find her, and now she makes goals get lost.

When the United States won the world soccer championship in China in 1991, the team featured three goalkeepers--starter Mary Harvey and backups Kim Maslin-Kammerdeiner and Amy Allman.

Today, Maslin-Kammerdeiner is home in New England, raising a family; Allman is here in the ESPN2 booth, providing the color commentary at the second FIFA Women’s World Championship; and Harvey, well, Harvey is watching Briana Scurry from the bench.

It’s not often that a reigning world champion is displaced by a rookie, especially one discovered as late in her career as Scurry. Of course, late in this case is a relative term. Scurry is only 23, but she was 21 before the powers that be in U.S. soccer found her, and it was only last year that she made her national team debut.

And yet tonight, she will be in the nets as the acknowledged No. 1 goalkeeper for the defending champions as they try to defeat Japan and advance to the semifinals. Not bad for a youngster from the frozen wasteland--in soccer terms--of Dayton, Minn.

“It’s about 25 minutes north of Minneapolis,” Scurry said the other day. “It’s cold, but it’s colder in International Falls.”

Then why not play ice hockey?

“I thought about it, but Mom wouldn’t let me. She said it was too rough.”

So instead, Mrs. Scurry’s daughter is diving headfirst into the feet of some of the world’s most dangerous forwards, risking limb if not life, in an effort to help the United States retain its world title.

The soccer cliche says goalkeepers are crazy. Scurry, who earned her bachelor’s degree in political science at the University of Massachusetts this spring and is headed for law school, doesn’t necessarily believe that fits her.

“I do try stopping Michelle [Akers’] shot, which is like 70 m.p.h., or diving at people’s feet on the full sprint, but I don’t think I’m crazy,” she said. “I just think I’m a little daring, a little risky. I’m a risk-taker. I like the excitement, and I like the position because I can control [the game’s outcome].”

Akers, who has scored 82 goals in 87 national team games, but who again is unlikely to start tonight because of injury, knows what it takes to beat a goalkeeper. She was impressed with Scurry from the start.

“Bri is awesome,” Akers said. “Her first game [a 5-0 shutout of Portugal in Silves in March 1994], she came in and just kicked butt. Confident. No mistakes. The 18-yard box is hers. We’re very excited about a rookie coming in and taking control like that.

“I’ve said it before to my teammates and friends who have asked me about her, she plays in goal like a man. She’s just got incredible athletic talent. Her decision-making is good. She’s real quick. I hit these shots at her sometimes [that] you just know are in, and all of a sudden you see her hand there. She’s incredible.”

In 22 appearances for the United States, Scurry has 12 shutouts, the latest against Denmark on Thursday when she was red-carded late in the game for handling the ball outside the goal area. That brought a suspension for the game against Australia on Saturday, but Coach Tony DiCicco didn’t hesitate in recalling her for tonight’s match.

“She’s been our No. 1 now for a year,” DiCicco said. “She’s kept us in games, quite honestly, that, if it wasn’t for her, we wouldn’t have won. That’s her role as a goalkeeper: to keep us in games and, once we’re leading, to help us hold the lead. She does a very good job of organization. That’s one of the key components of goalkeeping. If the defense is organized, then it’s going to be tougher for the [opposing] attack to get through.”

Scurry said the position has appealed to her since childhood.

“When I was younger, I liked jumping around and that sort of thing, and I got into soccer when I was 11,” she said. “It was on a boys’ team, and they threw me in the goal and I really enjoyed it.”

She also played as a striker for a few years, something that helped her develop a different perspective on goalkeeping.

“I liked that a lot, too,” she said. “It gave me a sense of how hard it is for players to score. Having played in the goal also gave me a sense of where to shoot the ball. As a goalkeeper, even at that young age, I knew where I didn’t like the ball placed, so that’s where I placed it. I was a pretty decent forward.”

Athletic ability was shared among the Scurry children.

“I have nine brothers and sisters,” Scurry said. “I’m the first one that’s ever played soccer. My nieces and nephews play soccer now, because I play. It’s just great. A lot of my brothers and sisters are athletic, they played basketball and football. My sister ran track, she was really good. I guess the athleticism runs through the family.”

As an All-American in high school at Anoka, Minn., and with the Minneapolis Kickers, under the guidance of Pete Swenson, her club coach, Scurry blossomed as a goalkeeper. She also had 37 shutouts in 65 starts at UMass. Yet, despite her ability, she was 22 before she was chosen for the national team.

“I got lost in the system, you could say,” she said with all the diplomacy of a would-be lawyer.

“Some day, I will go to law school,” she said. “I was thinking business, corporate law at first, but I talked to a friend of mine’s dad who’s in it and he suggested not to. He suggested sports law is getting a lot bigger nowadays and it’s a lot more exciting. That would interest me more than sitting behind a desk all day.”

The active side of Scurry enjoys fishing and tearing up the countryside in her ATV. The quiet side enjoys drawing and painting.

And what of soccer?

“I will play through the Olympics for sure,” she said. “After that, we’ll have to see where I’m at, where my body’s at, where soccer is in my life at that point. I guess I could be playing for a while, but I don’t know if I want to. We’ll have to see. I’m going to decide after the Olympics.”