NFL
By: Zachary Draves
Before a modest crowd at SeatGeek Stadium on a crystal clear calm night, The Chicago Red Stars began the month of May fresh and eager, but it wasn’t enough to dethrone the Trinity Rodman led Washington Spirit.
The Red Stars have a much younger squad than they did in year’s past led by their two most notable veterans, forward Mallory Swanson and goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher. Swanson is slowly coming back into the swing of things after sustaining a serious knee injury last year during a USWNT exhibition that compelled her to miss the entirety of the Women’s World Cup.
This is also the first season for head coach Lorne Donaldson, who was an assistant and head coach for the Jamaican national team that made it to back to back Women’s World Cups and made it to the round of 16 last year.
At the outset, both offenses were largely stagnant with every few shot attempts taken at either end.
Then at the 28th minute, Washington’s Croix Bethune found Trinity Rodman for the first goal of the game that put the Spirit up 1-0.
Two minutes later, Rodman found Ouleymata Sarr for the second goal that gave the Spirit a 2-0 lead at the half.
In the second half, the tide began to turn for the Red Stars.
On offense, they were attacking the ball a lot more, were moving the ball down field, and were taking more shot attempts. On defense, they were playing with greater aggressiveness and were able to hold off the Spirit’s momentum.
It was just a matter of time before the Red Stars would score.
Then in the 79th minute and still trailing by two goals, Mallory Swanson received the ball, charged toward the net, moved past multiple defenders, and took a shot that was ultimately blocked. Luckily for her, Ally Schlegel was there for the rebound and put the ball in the back of the net.
With approximately ten minutes remaining in the game, there was still time for the Red Stars to come back in dramatic fashion.
However, any hope was dashed when in the 82nd minute Washington’s Brittany Ratcliffe received a long pass from Croix Bethune and scored in the upper corner of the net to put the Spirit up 3-1.
Then at the 85th minute, Bethune and Ratcliffe worked together again with Ratcliffe scoring once more to put the Spirit up 4-1 and the game virtually out of reach for the Red Stars.
But the Red Stars wouldn’t go away quietly when the game reached the 90th minute with two additional minutes being added, Sam Stabb sent a pass into the Washington box that was blocked, but rookie Leilanni Nesbeth came into the score on one touch to make it 4-2 and giving Nesbeth her first NWSL goal.
In the end, the Red Stars lost but didn’t walk away with a defeatous attitude.
Afterward, Nesbeth attributed a need to control what she and her teammates could control as a catalyst for their resurgence in the second half.
“It’s about half the players on the field and half your mentality going in,” she said. “I think that was the biggest shift for me, just my mentality being confident within myself. We’re not trying to manage a game, we’re not trying to keep the ball in that sense, we’re just trying to get chances.”
Knowing that he has got a largely younger and inexperienced roster to work with, Coach Donaldson understands the task at hand as they head into a road trip with some simple words.
“We have to be better,” he said.
The Red Stars (3-1-3) will head to California to take on Bay FC (2-0-5) on May 5th at 7:00 p.m. CT at PayPal Park.
