NFL
By: Zachary Draves
The Chicago Red Stars had a rough go of it against the North Carolina Courage as they were shutout 5-0.
On a positive note, they did play with pride for more reasons than one as it was their Pride Night match. They acknowledged the LGBTQ+ community in more ways than one, complete with vendors featuring Chicago based LGBTQ+ organizations Brave Space Alliance and Youth Outlook, a Drag Queen story reading, and giving out various Red Stars pride swag.
Chicago came into this contest having experienced their fair share of struggles, which include a losing record and a series of injuries. Among them are their superstar forward Mallory Swanson who is out indefinitely with a severe knee injury.
At the outset, they were resolute on defense, but couldn’t generate any action on offense. Early on North Carolina controlled the ball almost 70% of the time compared to Chicago at 30% and at the 11th minute they struck first with a goal by midfielder Kerolin.
As the half started to further unravel, the Red Stars began to pick up and pace and were starting to control the ball much more. They took it upon themselves to try to clear the ball with greater frequency. Their defense was also beginning to attack with more power and crashed the net in greater numbers.
(Courtesy: Chicago Red Stars)
However, the Courage found a way through and at the 31st minute, they scored their second goal courtesy of midfielder Millie Geji.
It was officially an uphill battle for the Red Stars, but a follow up goal by Kerolin at the 34th minute made the climb even steeper going into the second half.
During the second half, Chicago didn’t seem to change their overall approach and were relying on their defense to try to make something. It was ultimately to no avail when at the 52nd minute, Carolina midfielder Denise O’Sullivan scored to put them up 4-0.
The Courage were spreading their offense as the Red Stars defense began to close in with each other. In other words, they seemed to hunker down whereas the Courage were able to find more openings.
Then at the 60th minute, Kerolin continued to assert her dominance with her third goal of the game to put Carolina up 5-0 and making the game even more out of reach for the Red Stars.
A series of substitutions soon followed in an attempt to utilize fresher legs to stave off the swarming Carolina offense. From there the strategy was to stave off the damage and ultimately for the Red Stars to get on the board at least once.
The sense of aggression started to take over and soon the Red Stars were attacking the net in a greater capacity, which included a header attempt and a long shot from each corner that got the crowd at SeatGeek Stadium amped up. That aggression translated into the defense but to their determination when at the 77th minute, the first yellow card was rendered to Chicago striker Jenna Bike.
As the final minutes came down the pike, the hope for the Red Stars getting on the board was starting to fade. They had some good looks including a front of the net attempt by forward Cheyna Matthews on a good lob by defender Casey Krueger, but it wasn’t to be.
Even an added 8 minutes after the 90th minute wasn’t enough as the Courage held on for a convincing shutout win and to add insult to injury, Chicago was given their second yellow card courtesy of defender Tatum Milazzo.
(Courtesy: Youtube)
A key factor was ball possession as Carolina held onto the ball 60% of the time compared to Chicago at 40%. Also, Chicago had 11 fouls to Carolina’s 4 which led to that disparity in ball possession.
They did manage to hold onto in terms of shots taken with 9 to their 13, but it was Carolina that had 7 shots on goal to zero.
Immediately after the game, the Red Stars took time to honor defender Cari Roccardo for playing in her 100th career regular season game.
Afterwards, Coach Chris Petrucelli, spoke of the team’s mindset in coming out in the second half with a greater desire on offense and how the subsitutes contributed to that.
“We had nothing to lose” he said. “We had a choice at halftime. We could sit in and not try to get beat too bad or we could come out and try to get back in the game. We set up our team a little bit more aggressively and went with the idea of trying to score and we didn’t. We were more aggresive I would say and some who came off the bench brought a little bit of life to the team.”
The Red Stars (3-7-1) will play the Kansas City Current (3-8-0) on Wednesday June 14th at 7:00pm CST and will be back at home on Sunday June 18 to play the Portland Thorns (5-1-4) at 5:00pm CST.
