Dash hit the road seeking offense
After a preseason that lasted more than two months, the Dash are ecstatic to finally get back into a rhythm of playing competitive games every week.
Now that they have one game under their belts, they can concentrate on getting better. This week that means registering their first on-target shot and, ideally, their first goal or two.
On the heels of a scoreless draw in last week’s season opener, Houston travels to Tacoma, Wash., for its second game of the NWSL Challenge Cup and will face OL Reign FC at 9 p.m. Friday.
The Dash (0-0-1, 1 point) will be boosted by a defense that stood up to the few challenges the Chicago Red Stars created in the opener. That was significant to Houston coach James Clarkson, but it didn’t take him long to point out the attack needs to improve quickly.
Of the nine teams that played last week, the Dash were the only team not to hit any shots on target. They also were limited to three shots overall.
Houston’s best opportunities, including when Veronica Latsko had a goal negated by an offside call, came on the counterattack.
“Our general build-up in possession needs to be better,” Clarkson said. “By being a little more controlled in possession, that will get us higher up the field and we’ll spend more time in the attacking third. When we’re in there it’s about having more patience and not forcing it, not playing too quickly. If it’s not on, maintain possession and shift the field, really look to create.”
Friday’s game against OL Reign will be the last the club has to play without six regular starters until the Olympics this summer. Those players — Rachel Daly, Kristie Mewis, Jane Campbell, Nichelle Prince, Allysha Chapman and Sophie Schmidt — missed the opener because they were on international duty.
They’ll miss this week’s game, too, though Clarkson said some of them expressed interest in flying straight into Seattle to join the team. The decision already had been made for them to miss the game, and Clarkson said he wanted to stick with it for various reasons.
Instead, those players will remain in Houston over the weekend and begin training again next week.
“We didn’t know how many minutes everybody would have played. It’s international travel,” he said. “We didn’t want to put some players in a situation where others that weren’t able to play would have felt they were letting the team down or anything like that.”
The team’s overall strength always was going to be lower without those players, but the attack especially took a hit. There were some bright spots, but ultimately, the defense had to be at its best even to share the points against Chicago.
The mostly intact back line, led by regular starters Katie Naughton, Megan Oyster and Hayley Hanson, and back-up goalkeeper Lindsey Harris, will face another difficult task this week. A second clean sheet would give the Dash a fantastic platform to build on when their international players return and can kickstart the offense to a proven defense.
“Considering it was our first game and how excited everybody was, to see the way the players came out their effort, their application was very good,” Clarkson said. “I thought we started slowly. It wasn’t until after the first 20 minutes we really got a grip on the game. It thought it was very even without us really creating enough good clear-cut chances.
“We got into some good positions but the final ball, our decision-making in the final third let us down a little bit. With it being the first game, that’s kind of expected.”