San Diego Wave Falls 1-0 to revenge-seeking Louisville at Snapdragon
The Wave s Kenza Dali on Sunday Photo courtesy of Wave FC Racing Louisville FC looking to avenge a home loss to Wave FC earlier in the season came into Snapdragon Stadium and achieved its goal defeating San Diego - on Sunday The lone goal came during the th minute when Louisville forward Emma Sears exposed the back of the net via a right footed shot The visiting unit played tight defense against the home side throughout the match particularly in the second half and managed to stifle numerous passes and shots attempted by the Wave However although the teams were locked in a scoreless draw after the first minutes the first half statistics clearly favored San Diego The Wave possessed the ball for of the first half This was no surprise considering that coming into the contest San Diego held the NWSL s highest possession rate at while Louisville had the lowest time of possession at During its time with the ball the Wave made first half passes compared with just for the opponent San Diego also registered shots in the first half including four shots on goal while Louisville took seven shots total with just one on goal It was more of the same in the second half with the Wave possessing the ball for of the full minutes Despite the loss the Wave lost no ground in the standings Coming into the match San Diego was and still is in third place in the NWSL table The group s record now sits at - with draws and points Racing Louisville meanwhile improved its record to - - with points It s now in seventh place in the -team NWSL standings In the match between San Diego and Louisville earlier this season the Wave earned a - road win on April This was the end of a three-game road trip for Louisville Both of the previous matches ended in draws For San Diego the loss was the first since a June defeat to the Seattle Reign which also occurred at home The Wave is now - - in its last matches Three of its previous five contests ended in draws along with one win and Sunday s loss In the post-match press conference Wave head coach Jonas Eidevall declared that the loss shouldn t cause his players to focus on the external and thereby blame the loss on bad luck poor officiating or other reasons We have to look to ourselves and there are tons of things we can do better he stated That s where our focus demands to be We re going to go through the highs and the lows together he explained of the association and the fans My message to them the fans is invest in us keep coming back Despite not scoring on Sunday three of the Wave s four French players Kenza Dali Perle Morroni and Delphine Cascarino who are collectively nicknamed the French Connection have goals and assists combined this season That amount is led by Cascarino who has three goals and five assists in her first full NWSL season since joining from French Premi re Ligue club OL Lyonnes last July The trio is also among the Wave s top five players in minutes played this season Up next the Wave faces the Seattle Reign on the road this Friday The club then has two consecutive games at Snapdragon Stadium one versus the Houston Dash at p m on Sept and then a p m championship against NJ NY Gotham FC on Sept Notes During its Sept home match Wave FC will retire the jersey of Alex Morgan the legendary U S Women s National Gang co-captain and ex-Wave athlete who purchased an ownership stake in the band in May
