Daly scores twice with playoffs in sights
The Dash are so hot right now, the only thing that can stop them is the full-time whistle.
Forward Rachel Daly bagged two goals for the second-straight game and moved into a tie for the league lead in goals scored as Houston hammered the North Carolina Courage 4-1 at BBVA Stadium on Sunday.
The win moved the Dash (9-7-5, 32 points) into a tie for third place with the Courage (9-7-5, 32 points) with three games remaining in the regular season. The top six teams make the playoffs.
The Dash have catapulted up the standings the last two weeks thanks to a threegame win streak during which they have scored 11 goals. They had two draws before that, so now they’re unbeaten in five consecutive games.
“I think it’s clicked at the moment,” Dash coach James Clarkson said. “I’m not surprised by it because I see them every day. I know what they’re capable of. I’ve seen it in the games we haven’t scored or we haven’t protected a lead, but to see this consistency come out, I think is outstanding.”
The dominant win occurred despite the fact North Carolina scored the first goal in the fourth minute.
The Dash had discussed not getting beat by the long ball over the top, but that’s exactly what happened when Courage defender Kaleigh Kurtz found forward Jessica McDonald open behind the Dash defense for a tidy finish from a tight angle.
It was only a hiccup for the Dash, though, who started the game playing what Clarkson said might have been their best 10 minutes of the season. They were pressing, possessing and barely letting the Courage breathe.
That continued in the immediate aftermath of North Carolina’s opener, and the Dash leveled the match in the sixth minute.
After the ball pinged around the right side of the penalty area, a shot from midfielder Kristie Mewis got deflected to Bri Visalli on the left side. Visalli hit a bending shot into the upper right corner on her first touch for her second goal of the season.
“Obviously you don’t want to get scored on, but I didn’t feel like we were thinking, ‘We’ve lost the game already,’ ” midfielder Shea Groom said. “There’s been a couple of times this season when we weren’t scoring a lot of goals and weren’t feeling very confident in our final third and weren’t creating some of those chances. It was frustrating, but we were confident.”
That confidence showed in how the Dash played after scoring the equalizer. They maintained their momentum and eventually got the go-ahead goal and one insurance goal in the span of three minutes later in the first half.
Daly scored her first on a cross from Nichelle Prince in the 24th minute. Groom made it 3-1 with a header in the 26th minute.
Even with a two-goal lead and a comfortable hold on the game, the Dash could have been vulnerable. That changed in the 57th minute when Daly scored again — a tap-in after some great work by Visalli to get free from a defender and center the ball to Daly.
Daly also scored two goals in Wednesday’s 3-2 win at league-leading Portland. She has scored in four games in a row and has six goals during that stretch.
The two she scored Sunday were her eighth and ninth of the season to tie her with OL Reign’s Bethany Balcer and Washington’s Ashley Hatch for the most in the league.
She’s in one of the best moments of her career, which has helped the Dash get into their best moment of the season.
“I think it was a really solid win for us,” Groom said. “I think a lot of people will probably look at the last two games and think it’s luck or whatever, but I felt like our team has been very resilient this season. Through it all, we’ve had a lot of unlucky and tough ties where we’ve given up goals late in games.
“These last two games, we’ve found our rhythm, and there’s just been a calmness about the team. I think that flowed over into today.”