Competing against teams from across the United States, the Moose Jaw Excelsior FC put together a great week in Blaine, Minnesota.

Moose Jaw beat St. Peter Soccer, 1-0, in the final on Saturday to capture the gold medal in the Girls Under-19 Silver Division at the 2018 USA Cup.

"We'd been preparing since last October with this group and they went down there and everything alined perfectly for them, the way that they played was the best that we've seen them play in the years that we've been around," said Excelsior coach Jason Jones.

This year's USA Cup featured 1,150 teams from 20 different states and 20 countries over 43 age divisions.

Nine of the players from this year's Excelsior FC team were a part of the squad that made it into the quarterfinals during their first appearance at the USA Cup in 2017.

Armed with that experience under their belt, this year's team put together an incredible run on their way to the gold medal, posting a 4-0-2 record in six games over five days.

"There were times in every game where we were very, very good. There was a lot of back-and-forth though, both teams in most of the games had opportunities, but we were able to capitalize on ours," said Jones.

"We felt that we were able to dictate the way that we wanted to play the game, so that was a huge improvement (from last year)."

The Moose Jaw Excelsior FC celebrate following their gold medal win at the 2018 USA Cup in Blaine, Minnesota on the weekend. (Submitted photo)

Being more comfortable playing in the big game situations that they found themselves also played a big part in this success for this year's team.

"Just being calm, knowing what we needed to do and living in that moment of not overthinking things and just doing what we had to do was huge for them," Jones said. "That experience from last year absolutely helped us because we knew what to expect and how things would go."

The biggest area that led to the success for the Excelsior FC was their ability to adjust in game, which is something that Jones said hasn't always been a strong suit for the team.

"The team from Chicago that we played in the semifinal, they were very skilled and they played a lot of nice short, little passing games and we had to make an adjustment to our system in that game and fortunately for us, we were able to get the goal in overtime to send us to the final," he said.

"Our group was able to adjust on the fly to instructions and changes that we needed to make within the game."

The Moose Jaw Excelsior FC during the opening ceremonies at the 2018 USA Cup in Blaine, Minnesota. (Submitted photo)

Moose Jaw opened the tournament by battling Hastings FC United to a 4-4 draw last Tuesday. They followed that up with another tie on Wednesday, finishing all square at 1-1 against Blaine SC.

Moose Jaw’s first win came on Thursday when they rolled to a 6-0 triumph over the Shakopee Sabres to close out the round robin.

Excelsior FC carried that momentum into the playoff round on Friday and beat Two Harbors SC, 4-3 in penalty kicks, in the quarterfinals.

In the semifinal on Saturday morning, Moose Jaw pulled off a 2-1 win over Gremio FC out of Chicago and then followed that up with another one-goal win over St. Peter Soccer in the final.