Angel City fell 0–1 on the road tonight against San Diego Wave FC following a goal by forward Jaedyn Shaw.
Despite the result, Head Coach Freya Coombe praised the team's performance, saying, 'outside of the first 15 minutes, I think we dominated the game. It was the strongest performance we’ve had in a while... We were better offensively tonight. As the stats show, we completely dominated them in the second half. We had more entries into the final third, which was pleasing for us because we have struggled to create attacking chances.'
San Diego had a chance in the 10th minute when Shaw sent a cross into the six-yard box. Forward Taylor Kornieck was charging the net and headed the ball on target, but keeper DiDi Haračić made the save.
Angel City got their first real chance of the night in the 16th minute when midfielder Jun Endo beat defender Christen Westphal on the left wing and crossed the ball to forward Savannah McCaskill, who sent a strike toward the far post—but the ball didn’t have enough curve on it, and it went high.
They had another chance in the 22nd minute, when Endo took the ball to the endline and sent it back to McCaskill in the penalty area. McCaskill’s diagonal shot was on target, but keeper Kailen Sheridan dove to block it.
San Diego got on the board in the 30th minute when forward Sofia Jakobsson sent a cross to Shaw at the edge of the six-yard box. Shaw got her head on the ball, flicking it to the far post, beating Haračić’s dive and bringing the score to 1–0.
ACFC had another look in the 34th minute when Endo had the ball with her back to goal near the edge of the 18. With midfielder Emily Van Egmond marking her, she took a few steps, turned, and fired off a right-footed strike that landed on target; Sheridan did well to block the shot out for a corner kick.
In the 42nd minute, forward Alex Morgan ran onto a through ball by forward Makenzy Doniak. She was one-on-one with Haračić, but the keeper came off her line to claim the ball before Morgan could shoot.
Two minutes later, McCaskill tapped a pass out to defender Ali Riley as she made a run up the right wing. She sent a cross in for Emslie a few yards out from goal, who got her head on the ball, but sent it over the crossbar.
The early part of the second half was quieter. In the 73rd minute, however, Emslie dribbled up the left wing and into the penalty area, and was fouled by Westphal to earn a penalty kick. McCaskill stepped up to the spot and sent her shot to the left; Sheridan also dove right and blocked the initial shot, but didn’t catch it. Midfielder Clarisse Le Bihan was crashing the net and one-timed the rebounded ball on target, which Sheridan also saved.
With the loss, Angel City stays in seventh place, four points below sixth-place Chicago with three games remaining in the season. 'I am excited for everything coming up,' said Coombe. 'I felt we played well against North Carolina, we played incredibly well tonight despite being fatigued. As far as I’m concerned, keep the games coming because if we can build off of this momentum, I think we can finish off the season in a strong position, and that is going to take us to the playoffs.'
'That was by far one of our most complete performances from start to finish,' said defender Megan Reid, summarizing the game. 'Of course, mistakes come and go and there are always some lows to the game... Especially after coming out of a three-game week, playing the best soccer we have that puts us in a really good spot for these next couple of games.'
Coombe stressed the impact of fatigue in what was the third road game in seven days for Angel City. 'It has been difficult because we have identified different ways that we can score goals against these different teams,'she said, 'but we haven’t had any opportunity to train it. We have been on the road and traveling so much that it’s been a case of, ‘this is how we think we are going to do it.’ So I am looking forward to getting back to LA and having two training sessions with the team before our next game.'
Angel City plays the Washington Spirit at home this Wednesday, September 21 at 7:30 p.m.
