The good news for San Diego Wave FC is that Saturday at Snapdragon Stadium, the team managed to break a scoring drought dating back to mid-June.
The bad news is that it wasn’t enough to secure a win.
The Wave and its closest rival in the NWSL, Angel City FC, battled to a 1-1 draw in a match where the first goal before a crowd of 15,834 didn’t come until the 85th minute.
The final score in the latest clash between Southern California’s two professional women’s soccer teams mirrored the 1-1 draw that the clubs battled to during the first match of the season on March 16 in Los Angeles.
After neither squad scored in the opening half on Saturday, it became the third consecutive contest in which the Wave failed to register a goal in the first 45 minutes of a match.
There’s more: it was the fifth straight half in which the club failed to find the back of the net, following the side’s 0-0 draws in its previous two matches, with a month-long league break sandwiched in between.
To break the drought, they turned to an unusual source.
During the 85th minute, Wave forward Makenzy Robbe connected with a left-footed shot to the bottom left portion of the net to make the score 1-0. It was the was the first goal of the season for Robbe, a backup who checked into the game during the 68th minute.
But Angel City, which came into the match winless in its last six matches (0-5-1), kept fighting. Early in the 92nd minute, defender Alanna Kennedy managed to bounce a header into the net to level the score.
Four of the last five meetings between San Diego and Angel City have now ended in draws.
San Diego’s record currently stands at 7-3-5 with 26 points, good enough for fourth place in the 14-team NWSL standings. Angel City, at 4-7-4 and 16 points, sits in 11th place.
San Diego dominated the first half statistically, but the L.A.-based team had a good showing after halftime.
SD took just one shot on goal during the first half, but Angel City had zero. For the full match, however, Angel City had five shots on goal, compared to three for the Wave.
The Wave also ruled the first half possession battle, controlling the ball in 64% of the game’s first 45 minutes. However, that was narrowed to 57% by the end of the second half.
Saturday night’s match was the first home game for the Wave since June 22 due to the aforementioned break that ended in early August. SD has a 3-2-3 record in home matches this season, and is 1-1-3 in its last five matches overall.
The Wave next faces Bay FC on the road Aug. 16.
Notes: French midfielder Laurina Fazer, whom the Wave signed in late July, was not in uniform, but attended the game as a spectator. Fazer, 21, joins the Wave after five seasons with French league club Paris Saint-Germain. She’s now the fourth Frenchwoman on Wave FC, joining international star forward Delphine Cascarino, midfielder Kenza Dali and defender Perle Morroni, all of whom have been starters for San Diego this season. Their nickname? The French Connection.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
