Angel City winning streak halted by Racing Louisville

Angel City FC’s three-match winning streak came to a rather surprising end on Saturday evening.

Maja Lardner led the way for Louisville with a brace, and while Sveindís Jonsdottir pulled a goal back, it wasn’t enough to extend its recent run of form, and Racing Louisville ended Angel City’s winning streak at three matches with a 2-1 win at BMO Stadium.

“We have to look at more than the result,” Angel City interim head coach Leif Smerud said. “When we lose, we have to find what was good, and when we win, we also have to look at what was not so good, so we can learn.”

Louisville relied on a little fortune to get ahead in the match. Katie O’Kane got to cleared ball outside the penalty area, took a couple of touches, then fired a shot on goal, keeper Angelina Anderson made the save, but left a rebound inside the six-yard box and Lardner pounced, beating Sarah Gorden to the ball and slotting the shot into the back net to give Louisville the early lead.

Louisville doubled its advantage in the 55th minute. Sarah Weber played a ball out wide to Kayla Fischer on the right side, Fischer kept the ball outside the penalty area, but still took the ball to the endline, then crossed inside the six and Lardner jumped and headed a ball past Anderson near post for her second goal of the match.

Angel City would not go away quietly. Sophia Mattice sent a long ball forward, and Jonsdottir used her pace, first get ahead of Louisville defender Arin Wright, then to track down the ball, and the result was that Jonsdottir was able to touch into the penalty area and fired a shot that nutmegged keeper Jordyn Bloomer and went into the back net to cut Racing’s lead to one goal.

“The mentality was that we were always going to keep going forward, keep being positive,” Angel City’s Claire Emslie said. “And we always felt like we were going to score, and we got one.”

Angel City had two chances following Jonsdottir’s goal to salvage a point, but the first chance from Riley Tiernan went off the framework, and the second shot, a header by Ally Sentnor inside the six-yard box was parried away from Bloomer.