North Carolina Courage 0 – 0 Sky Blue FC
Cary, NC—They may not be giant killers yet, but Sky Blue FC has managed to take a point off of the NWSL’s top two teams within a week. On Saturday night, they came into Sahlen’s Stadium at WakeMed Soccer Park and, interrupted by a 90-minute weather delay, grinded out a scoreless draw against the defending champions.
Denise Reddy’s Sky Blue FC team has taken away points from Portland and North Carolina in their last two outings.
With USWNT call-ups, both teams had dents in their regular starting eleven. However, the majority of the new starters were wearing Courage jerseys as Kayleigh Kurtz, Kristen Hamilton, and Julia Spetsmark were tapped to start. Debinha also made her first start for North Carolina in 2019.
Through the early minutes of the match, it looked like the Courage wouldn’t miss a beat. Outside backs Merritt Mathias and Jaelene Hinkle had strong performances carrying the ball down the sides and creating chances by delivering well-placed crosses. However, the finishing touches weren’t quite there for North Carolina: despite outshooting Sky Blue 28-8, only three of their shots were on frame.
Sky Blue had the first dangerous chance in the 17th minute of the match when Julie James put a perfect through ball to Imani Dorsey. With the perfectly in her path, she was in a one-on-one footrace with Kurtz, who managed to just get enough of her foot on the ball to disrupt Dorsey’s run. Dorsey recovered and fired a shot at the Courage net, but captain Abby Erceg blocked the ball out of bounds.
The Courage looked to grab the lead in the 19th minute when Debinha took the ball in North Carolina’s defensive half and passed it to Hamilton in midfield. Hamilton made a strong run through midfield, saw Lynn Williams making a through run and hit her with a perfectly-weighted ball. North Carolina’s leading goal scorer in 2018 looked to have Kailen Sheridan beat low to the near post but her shot clanked off of the post. Willams got herself clear at the penalty arc in the 26th minute but her hard shot whistled just wide of the post.
Dorsey countered that attempt by getting into space at the other end of the field and launching a rocket from a yard outside of the 18-yard box. Her shot rose just a bit too high, though, and sailed over the crossbar.
That goalpost wasn’t finished frustrating the Courage, though. In the 33rdminute, Debinha got onto a cross sent in by Williams and got all of her leg behind her shot, only to watch it slam into the post. The teams went into halftime deadlocked at zero.
Defender Kaleigh Kurtz had her first start for the Courage in 2019.
With heavy thunderstorms predicted for the area later in the evening, interested parties nervously scanned weather apps on their phones prior to the game’s kickoff, hoping that they might just get their match in the books before the storm front made it to Cary. But the first drops fell just after the halftime whistle and by the time the teams took the field for the second half, the skies had opened up. After playing nearly eight minutes, lightning in the area forced officials to stop the game and send everyone out of the stadium.
After what was, essentially, an extra (and extra-long) halftime break, the teams resumed play in a hard rain. The early trend for North Carolina in the 2019 campaign has been second-half scoring and in the first half hour after the delay, they looked poised to continue the trend.
Leah Pruitt came on for Spetsmark after the delay and quickly made a nuisance of herself with Sky Blue’s defense, slipping behind them and having a shot skid just wide of the far post in the 57th minute. But despite the Courage firing at will toward Sky Blue’s net, they were unable to get anything behind Sheridan.
As time was running out in the game Dorsey once again looked like she was going to put Sky Blue ahead. Savannah McCaskill took advantage of a miscue on North Carolina’s defense. She carried the ball into the 18-yard box and bounced a pass across to Dorsey whose shot beat Courage goalkeeper Stephanie Labbé. However, Mathias had made a run back to the goal and her spectacular clearance off of the line preserved the clean sheet.
McCall Zerboni’s unexpected–but welcome–presence on the roster means head coach Paul Riley is re-imagining his lineup during the Women’s World Cup.
In his post-game remarks, Courage head coach Paul Riley noted that there is still some work to be done at the drawing board, for his team to come through the World Cup unscathed. Besides relying on Lynn Williams to take up the scoring slack from leading scorer Crystal Dunn, he’s assessing the chemistry between player combinations, such as Williams and Spetsmark.
When talking about having Zerboni available—at least as things stand now—Riley said, “She wasn’t in the original May plans but she’s in the May plans now.” Riley said having her in the lineup has changed his plans for Cari Roccaro. “[Rocarro] was supposed to come in for McCall, obviously, when she left and we trained her in the six and now we’re thinking of pushing Cari probably into the 10 or into the back line, depending on what our needs are.”
Final Notes
- While the Courage had four players called up to the USWNT for the World Cup, McCall Zerboni was somewhat controversially left off of the roster. When asked how the week’s events affected her, she responded, “I’m incredibly mentally strong. That’s why I’m able to put in a good shift for the group tonight. And it’s not about me it’s about the group and you know sometimes when things happen in your life you just gotta set those things aside and focus on what’s in front of you and I still have a lot to be happy and grateful about and have a fantastic club that I love playing for so yeah baby.”
- The game against Sky Blue was Stephanie Labbé’s last before she leaves for the Canadian national team camp. Paul Riley hopes to have last year’s starter, Katelyn Rowland, back in net when they take on the Chicago Red Stars on May 12. Other players leaving for World Cup duty are Abby Erceg (New Zealand), Debinha (Brazil), and Heather O’Reilly will head to France as an analyst for Fox Sports.
- Sky Blue head coach Denise Reddy was satisfied with the point her team got against North Carolina but expressed her frustration that they didn’t fare better last week against Portland. “We think the second half we deserved three [points]and we’re not happy with just because it was Portland, we’ve got a point at home. We dominated the second half, we wanted three points. So we’ll take a point here and this weather and the circumstances but not happy with the Portland point.”
Lineups
North Carolina Courage: S. Labbé; J. Hinkle, A. Erceg ©, K. Kurtz, M. Mathias; M. Zerboni, D. O’Sullivan, K. Hamilton (H. O’Reilly, 85’), Debinha; L. Williams, J.Spetsmark (L. Pruitt, 53’)
Sky Blue FC: K. Sheridan; E. Skroski, E. Johnson, P. Monahan, C. Dydasco; I. Dorsey, S. Killion ©, J. James, N. Kawasumi; R. Rodriguez, J. Hoy (S. McCaskill, 52’)
Score:
North Carolina Courage: 0
Sky Blue FC: 0
Goals:
North Carolina Courage: none
Sky Blue FC: none
Discipline
North Carolina Courage: M. Zerboni, YC 86’
Sky Blue FC: P. Monahan, YC, 634’
Attendance: 5,039
Photo Gallery: North Carolina Courage v Sky Blue FC
All photos by Victoria Klum
