wling had to clarify in a 2015 tweet: brown eyes, frizzy hair and very clever. White skin was never specified. Rowling loves black Hermione.The Cursed Child is an opportunity to s

PORTLAND, Ore. -- Michael Barrantes scored a pair of second-half goals and Costa Rica defeated Cuba 3-0 Tuesday night in the opening round of the CONCACAF Gold Cup. Barrantes broke open a scoreless match with a left-footed goal from the top of the box that got past diving Cuban goalkeeper Odelin Molina in the 51st minute. He added another goal in the 77th minute after Jairo Arrietas scored in the 71st, extending Cubas winless streak to 12 straight Gold Cup matches. "The way we managed the ball, we were able to create some opportunities and we were able to score," Costa Rica coach Jorge Luis Pinto said. The 12-team tournament, which includes national teams from North and Central America and the Caribbean, is played every two years. Costa Rica and Cuba are in Group C with the U.S. mens national team and Belize, who play in the late game Tuesday at Jeld-Wen Field. Costa Rica is making its 10th Gold Cup appearance. The team reached the final in 2002, losing to the United States. Pintos Gold Cup roster was close to the squad he selected for World Cup qualifying. Costa Rica was coming off a 2-0 victory over Panama in its most recent World Cup qualifying match last month. Costa Ricas captain is Alvaro Saborio, who plays for Major League Soccers Real Salt Lake. The roster also included Rodney Wallace of the Portland Timbers. "The teams definitely happy with the three points," Wallace said. "We definitely have improvements on things, but overall, the most important thing is we got the result, we got the three points, and it gives us confidence for the next round, the next game." Cuba has appeared in six Gold Cup tournaments, but hasnt won since a 2-0 victory over Canada in 2003. "We got a little bit disorganized in the second half, which cost us the result," Cuba coach Walter Benitez said. Costa Rica had its first real chance in the 21st minute when Roy Miller found himself alone out in front of the net for a shot, but it sailed up and into the seats. Overall, the Costa Ricans had greater control in the first half, but struggled with accuracy. Barrantes had what appeared to be another goal in the 66th minute, but Saborio was offside. A short time later, Arrieta capitalized when Molina fell in front of the goal. Barrantes second goal also came from atop the box, prompting Molina to shout angrily at his teammates. The four Group C teams will next play Saturday in Salt Lake City, with the U.S. facing Cuba followed by Belize against Costa Rica at Rio Tinto Stadium. The winners and runners-up from each group, and the two top third-place finishers, advance to the knockout round. The tournament concludes July 28th at Soldier Field in Chicago.sWell Water Bottle Marble . The injury bothered Bledsoe in the Suns victory over the Clippers on Monday and he sat out the teams home loss to Memphis on Thursday night. Swell Bottle Cheap . 10 Texas Rangers jersey for one last time. Young formally announced his retirement Friday after returning to Rangers Ballpark, his baseball home for all but the last of his 13 major league seasons. http://www.swellbottlesale.com/ .ca! Hi Kerry, Heres an interesting one. I know its common knowledge that all players are responsible for their sticks. We witnessed that when Zack Kassian hit Edmontons Sam Gagner in the face after a missed check. Cheap Swell Traveler . The Vikings announced Thursday that Priefer will be one of seven holdovers from the previous staff, along with offensive line coach Jeff Davidson, wide receivers coach George Stewart and others. Norv Turner will mark his 30th year of coaching in the NFL as the offensive co-ordinator, as widely reported for weeks, and George Edwards will be the defensive co-ordinator. Swell Bottles On Sale . On June 12, just as the sun sets on the magnificent historical city of Sao Paulo the inventors, innovators and purveyors of “joga bonitowill” open their campaign. The opponent, Croatia and all its football might and will. As opposites do attract we are set for a corker of an opener.The wizarding world that J.K. Rowling imagines for us in Harry Potter books feels intimately familiar, as if we also attended Hogwarts as a teenager, drove past the Dursleys house on a Sunday morning, and consider it perfectly normal to fly on broomsticks and travel through fireplaces.We accept the feats of athletics with the same faith -- unquestionably believing the speed of a fastball, the grace of a free throw, and the strength of a tennis player. We feel the magic of being transported through watching something that seems real but has not been personally experienced.Rowling understands the importance of sports as a way to bring people together. Even if you have never held a Harry Potter book in your hands, you have probably heard of quidditch, a flying sport played on broomsticks in midair.?In a literary sense, quidditch serves as a way for Rowling to introduce the idea of women leaders in sports as neither taboo nor remarkable.Notable is Angelina Johnson, portrayed in the story by Rowling as a tall black girl who played chaser on the Gryffindor quidditch team and later becomes captain of the coed team. Rowling doesnt emphasize either Angelinas gender or her race. But it seems an intentional move. Last summer, she publicly defended tennis star Serena Williams when a Twitter user said Williams was built like a man.Rowling coolly came to Williams defense by sarcastically tweeting: Yeah, my husband looks just like this in a dress.ddddddddddddYoure an idiot.?She also showed her support of Williams by tweeting, I love her. What an athlete, what a role model, what a woman!?Rowling is deliberate in her allyship. She is a writer who uses her skills to subtly insert the invisible back into our own consciousness.Her forthcoming and much anticipated book, The Cursed Child, is a play, which requires a different kind of reading. Your eyes act as ears, as if the story were being told to you and your brain creates the rest?-- where the light comes from, and how the eyebrows wiggle. Left to its own imagination, another thing the mind does is fill in skin color, which some readers proved when they assumed the character Hermione was white. Rowling had to clarify in a 2015 tweet: brown eyes, frizzy hair and very clever. White skin was never specified. Rowling loves black Hermione.The Cursed Child is an opportunity to soften the possibilities of our imagination. Like good fiction, sports bring us the magic of being transported. Sports, like reading stories, are a way for us to train our minds, to observe whats going on and to be immersed in the present moment as we wait for the ball to swoosh, to land, to plunk.Many thanks to J.K. Rowling for the magical world she helps us imagine.Carrie Ann Welsh is a writer based in Wisconsin.? ' ' '