Angel City keeps playoff hopes alive with win over Houston Dash

Heading into a nationally televised Sunday afternoon tilt with the Houston Dash, the task was clear for Angel City; win and its playoff hopes are still alive, while a loss or draw eliminates them from postseason contention.

Angel City however showed that they are not going down without a fight. Goals from Kennedy Fuller and Maiara Carolina Niehues carried Angel City to the 2-0 win at BMO Stadium.

“I think I can speak for all of us when I say we took a breath of relief, happiness, and joy when that final whistle blew,” Angel City keeper Angelina Anderson said. “We work every week for these results. Last week they had one shot, one goal, it was really frustrating. Today, the difference was that we had a swagger about us that we weren’t going to lose.”

With the win, Angel City (7-11-6, 27 points) keep themselves alive in the playoff chase, as they are now six points back of Racing Louisville for the eight and final playoff spot with two matches remaining in the season.

“One of my things in my job is that we don’t lose balance when we win and when we lose,” Angel City head coach Alex Straus said. “That has happened before, that when we win, we are so high up here, and when we lose, we go deep. We need to try to balance it.”

Evelyn Shores headed down a goal kick by Dash keeper Abby Smith, and Fuller gained possession deep inside Houston territory. Fuller then played Hina Sugita into the penalty area, and the pass did take a deflection, which probably benefitted Angel City, as Sugita chased down the ball at the end line, played a ball into the six-yard box, Smith cut off the cross, but spilled the ball into play, and Fuller came in and buried the shot into the back net at the near post to give Angel City the lead.

Angel City relied on a little trickery to get goal number two in the 87th minute. Miyabi Moriya cleared a ball away from Angel City terrroty, Jun Endo then made a beautiful play, as she flicked a ball off her back left heel and Niehues took the ball, dribbled forward, rounded Smith, who was way off her line, Niehues dribbled into the penalty area and finished the sequence with a shot into the open net goal to give Angel City the two-goal cushion.

“I wanted to give my best, that is what was going on in my head before the game,” Nieheus said. “I was expecting that beautiful touch from Jun and since then it was wonderful.” 

Houston had its chances in the match. Its first good look at goal came in the 64th minute, as Delanie Sheehan sent a corner kick into the penalty area, the ball was deflected but stayed inside the six-yard box and Paige Neilsen almost came back to haunt her former team a second time, as she attempted a header that got past keeper Angelina Anderson, but did not beat the framework, as the ball hit off the crossbar, and Angel City eventually cleared the ball out of the penalty area. The Dash thought for sure they would have a chance at goal in stoppage time, as they were awarded a penalty after a ball went off the hand of Evelyn Shores inside the penalty area. However, referee Matthew Corrigan soon got the call from VAR to take a second look, and what was discovered was the ball ball actually went off Shores’ chest first before going off her hand, making it an inadvertent handball, meaning no penalty, thus denying Houston a golden opportunity to position itself to steal points from Angel City.