When two teams are as equally skilled as Sky Blue FC and Houston Dash, the determining factor always ends up being, “Who wants it more?” And it was clear, from the first few minutes, that Houston came to New Jersey ready to win.
The game was pretty back-and-forth, every goal score for was in response to another scored against. But Sky Blue FC’s lacking first half showed that they were not prepared to win this game.
Sky Blue seemed too focused on build-up play that they stopped their own momentum at times. There was a complete lack of positive play, which Houston excelled at. Sky Blue repeatedly passed the ball around, hoping that they would eventually find someone open, except that there were no forward runs to create open space. A number of times Sky Blue’s Katie Johnson would give the ball away, assuming that one of her teammates would make an overlapping forward run, only to soon realize that her teammates were behind her.
In short, this game was full of great plays, beautiful shots, and moments of complete unawareness.
The first goal was in the 24th minute, after a Houston corner. Kristie Mewis sets up for the kick, sending a curling ball behind the back post, drawing Sky Blue’s goalkeeper, Kailen Sheridan out of position. Houston’s Lindsay Agnew follows the ball and keeps it from slipping out of bounds, she taps it back to the middle of the net, where Nichelle Prince is waiting to poke it into the back of the net.
The next goal came 13 minutes into the second half. Sky Blue FC’s newest asset, Carli Lloyd, sends the ball long, switching to the other side of the field, to another huge get for Sky Blue, Shea Groom. Groom crosses the ball to Johnson who equalizes easily.
Only three minutes later, in the 60th minute, Houston comes back. Rachel Daly, who was attacking Sky Blue’s back-line relentlessly for all 90 minutes, sends a cross 30 yards away from the net. The cross was a little long, heading towards the goal, when Sheridan, unaware of her positioning in relation to the goal, attempts to tip the ball over the crossbar, but winds up swatting the ball into the net to put Houston up.
However, Sky Blue FC’s Katie Johnson let it be known that she wasn’t going down without a fight. In the 73rd minute, Johnson came up big when, after a short corner from Janine Beckie that lead to a great cross by Sarah Killion, she headed the ball way back into the far corner by the back post. Houston was getting lazy and left Johnson completely unmarked.
But the game didn’t end there. Houston gave the final answer with the last goal of the game. A long ball to an unmarked Thembi Kgatlana led to a square cross to an unmarked Veronica Latsko, which led to Houston winning the game 3-2. Latsko and Kgatlana were well-rested, coming in as substitutes not long before, and took advantage of a tired Sky Blue defense.
This was an exciting game, both sides pushing each other to the very end. The difference was that Houston started the game ready to pounce on all of Sky Blue FC’s mistakes, along with Sky Blue’s uneventful first half. They seemed complacent and were caught off-guard by Houston’s aggressive play. As the season goes on, I expect Sky Blue to come out of the gates firing shots, they’ll only make this mistake once.
Sky Blue FC
