The National Women’s Socer League has often been associated with a cheeky expression — ‘NWSL after dark.’ This turn of phrase refers to the chaos that often ensues in NWSL games once the sun sets, and Friday night’s games proved exactly why that expression holds up.
Between two Friday games — the Houston Dash’s 4-3 victory over Racing Louisville and Orlando Pride’s 2-1 win over Angel City — the chaos was almost hard to believe. The former game featured an astonishing four penalty kicks and the latter saw a fast and furious exchange of goals in the last minutes of the game.
It was a lot to take in. The four penalty kicks were “crazy,” Racing’s coach Bev Yanez told reporters after the game. “I don’t know if I’ve ever experienced that.”
In fact, no one in the NWSL has. The game marked the first time a referee had ever ordered four penalty kicks in a match, a decision that turned the game into a heated shootout that came down to the wire. In the end, the Dash came away with the 4-3 win, something Yanez admitted wasn’t easy to swallow.
Though she noted the team shouldn’t focus too much on the loss, Yanez added that there are certainly lessons to take away from the game. “What I do think is that we are disappointed, and we can’t continue to drop points like this. And we’re aware of that. We feel disappointed in that,” she said.
Racing’s Taylor Flint scored both of the team’s penalty kicks, which made her the franchise’s first player to score twice from the same spot in one game. The goals were also the first of the season for Flint, and the first at 23 minutes gave the team the lead. The second tied things up 3-3 at the 81st minute after Houston had made up some ground.
“It feels great for me personally, but it kind of gets overwhelming when we’re giving away results like that,” Flint told reporters after the game. “I don’t really feel good about it, even though I’m happy I scored.”
Flint was coy when asked how she landed both shots. “I just stick to my routine, honestly,” she said. “I don’t want to give away any secrets, but you kind of second guess [yourself] a little bit, but I just stick to my routine and hope for the best.”
Despite that loss, Racing has onet thing to celebrate: the team’s seven goals are the most they’ve scored in four games at the beginning of a season. Despite that accomplishment, Racing has so far gone winless this season, and that reality seems to be becoming increasingly tough for them. The team will play again on April 24 when they host the Orlando Pride.
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Angel City and Orlando Fire experience a furious game’s end
Friday night also saw an exciting conclusion to the Angel City-Orlando Pride match-up, which was scoreless for a full 84 minutes before three goals were made in quick succession.
The Pride’s Haley McCutcheon was the first to score after she tipped a ball into the net in the 84th minute, an act that set off the chain of events that followed. Angel City’s Gisele Thompson matched the point in 92nd after the ball managed to ping off the crossbar twice before landing.
But in the end, the Pride were successful after McCutcheon landed another shot in the 98th, which gave the midfielder the first brace of her career.
McCutcheon was all smiles while speaking to the media after the game. “Yeah, first one, we put Barbra [Banda] out wide to isolate her and get her in crossing positions and she did amazing to serve that ball in, Summer [Yates] challenges and I’m just right place, right time,” she said of her first goal.
“Thank goodness I was onside because I would have lost it if they called it off again,” McCutcheon added. “But yeah, just trying to be opportunistic in the box, and then the second goal, great service from Marta, Hannah [Anderson] keeps it alive again, so gritty, bodies flying everywhere, and I just tap it in.”
She also said the Pride earned the win. “I think that we defended so well,” McCutcheon reflected. “I think that we managed the momentum of the game, and in the end, got two pretty goals out of it. So really, really happy.”
Orlando also delivered Angel City their first loss of the season, a tough blow that was coupled with the fact that the team scored only one goal (after previously scoring a total of nine in their first three games). The team’s head coach Alex Straus touched on what that means for the squad moving forward after the game.
“Today, we could have gone away from here with a very, very good point and played an almost perfect away game,” Straus told reporters. “But we threw it away in the end. And that’s unacceptable for us as a team and as a unit.”
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