If the NWSL season keeps on the pace they are in, fans may see a new champion at the end of the season
In the quest for a three-peat NWSL Championship, FC Kansas City has fallen from the top spot in the standings to being just one away from the worst team in the league currently. Picking up their slack is the Washington Spirit who are three games deep into the season and have a perfect record so far.
After a 3-0 win against the Western New York Flash in Rochester, New York on during their second consecutive road game Friday night, the Spirit have proved that they are in this season for a reason and that their eyes are on the prize.
In just the fourth minute of the match, USWNT forward Crystal Dunn earned her third assist in three games as she sent a through ball to Diana Matheson who then took a shot from inside the penalty box and into the back of the net to score tallying her second goal of the season. Though physical, aggressive, and full of penalties and momentum for the Spirit the first half didn’t see another goal and the teams went in to halftime with Washington leading WNY Flash 1-0.
In the 70th minute of the game, rookie forward Cheyna Williams was brought down in the penalty box by Jaelene Hinkle resulting in a Spirit penalty kick. Matheson took the kick and sent it sailing once again into the back of the net extending the Spirit’s lead 2-0 and marking her second goal of the night.
The third goal of the night came near the end of the match after Elizabeth Eddy was booked with a yellow card. Christine Nairn stepped up to take the penalty free kick for the Spirit, sent the ball into a crowded penalty box, and was ruled an own goal after a Flash player tapped it passed her own goalkeeper. Since then, however, in possibly the weirdest way to get your first goal of your career, the own goal call was over turned and credited with the goal was rookie Katie Stengel who comes to the team from Bayern Munich.
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This victory sealed first place in the NWSL standings for Washington giving them nine points to their name and sending WNY Flash to eighth place with only three points to their name.
So what does this mean to the season? It might be too early to speculate since we are only three games in to a season that’s going to last through the year, but if the Spirit keep pushing with this sort of momentum and using each penalty against them as the motivation to strive towards a win like they have been doing then this means that Washington may very well see not only playoffs, but a championship season.
There’s still a lot of time left and a lot of games to be played between now and then. With the national team members likely to miss a game or two during international duty for the Olympics we could also very easily see momentum shift, but as it’s looking right now, Washington is the strongest, most motivated in the league to take what they need to do and get it done.