Carli Lloyd scores 100th goal for U.S. women's soccer team in 6-2 win over Mexico

Delran native Carli Lloyd scored her 100th career goal for the U.S. women's national soccer team during Sunday's 6-2 win over Mexico in an exhibition in Houston.

Making her 252nd all-time appearance for the national team, Lloyd's historic moment came in the 34th minute of the game. She headed home a loose ball from close range after a build-up sequence with Megan Rapinoe, Lindsey Horan, and Alex Morgan. It was a bit of a fluky goal, but they all count the same.

The 2015 and 2016 FIFA World Player of the year, Lloyd is the sixth player in history to record 100 career U.S. national team goals — and the first since Abby Wambach in 2009. Wambach's career total of 184 is the most for any women's national-team player in history. The other U.S. players with 100 career goals are Mia Hamm (158), Kristine Lilly (130), Michelle Akers (107), and Tiffeny Milbrett (100).

Lloyd has scored 64 goals since she turned 30, a span of 117 games over nearly six years. That includes the hat trick she scored in the 2015 Women's World Cup final, carrying the U.S. to its first World Cup title in 16 years; and both goals in the 2012 Olympics gold medal game.

Lloyd also scored the gold medal-winning goal at the 2008 Olympics.

In her 13-year national team career, Lloyd has scored eight goals in Olympics tournaments and seven in World Cups. Six of her World Cup goals came in 2015, when she was named the tournament's most outstanding player.

Lloyd has scored three national-team goals in her home region. They all came at Talen Energy Stadium in 2014, during CONCACAF's qualifying tournament for the 2015 World Cup.

Lloyd will next play close to home this coming Sunday, April 15, when she makes her home debut for Sky Blue FC in the National Women's Soccer League. Lloyd was traded in January to Sky Blue, which plays at Rutgers' Yurcak Field soccer facility. Coincidentally, Lloyd scored her 100th national team goal at the home of the team she was traded from, the Houston Dash.

"If I couldn't get the goal in New Jersey, getting it in Houston was pretty special," Lloyd said in a postgame interview on Fox's TV broadcast. "To look back on where I started in 2005, to kind of the player I've become, you don't very often get to sit back and reflect because you're always waiting for that next big thing. It's pretty cool, it's an honor, but as people know me, I'm moving on to the next."

She later quipped in a video on Twitter: "Getting 100 wasn't that big of a deal, but I guess for two seconds I'll have it be a big deal."

As for the rest of Sunday's game, Rapinoe delivered three assists and a goal, Morgan scored twice for the second straight game, and Horan and Mallory Pugh scored once each.

Pugh's goal came in just the third minute. It was her 11th goal in her 35th and final cap as a teenager. She turns 20 on April 29, and has many more caps to come.

She also did this at one point during the first half:

Horan's goal was an impressive header off a Rapinoe corner kick in the 25th.

Mexico's goals came from corner kicks in the first half. U.S. goalkeeper Jane Campbell struggled with both services, a bad sign for the No. 3 on the depth chart in her first national team start.

U.S. coach Jill Ellis gave debuts to three youth national team products: UCLA defender Hailie Mace, Stanford outside back Tegan McGrady and Houston Dash rookie midfielder Haley Hanson.

The Americans' next games are in June against China. They'll meet June 7 in Sandy, Utah, and June 12 in Cleveland.