The San Diego Wave dropped their second consecutive home match and continued to slide down the National Women\u2019s Soccer League standings, suffering a 2-0 loss to the Seattle Reign on Sunday afternoon.<\/p>\n
In many ways, Sunday\u2019s televised match looked like a rerun.<\/p>\n
Two weeks ago, San Diego allowed Angel City to strike twice in the first 20 minutes. The Wave\u2019s rivals then sat back defensively, absorbing the Wave\u2019s pressure and holding on for the victory.<\/p>\n
Sunday, the Wave gave up goals in the 17th and 20th minutes to the visiting Reign (6-7-2).<\/p>\n
\u201cI think there are far more positives today in the performance than we had against Angel City,\u201d Wave coach Jonas Eidevall said. \u201cWe need to keep working on those details and understand that at any given day in the season, they can make a difference.\u201d<\/p>\n
The loss drops San Diego to 9-6-2, good for fourth place in the NWSL standings. It\u2019s a drop from a couple of weeks ago, when they were alone atop the table. Seattle, meanwhile, entered the match in the bottom five but jumped into the top 10 with 20 points.<\/p>\n
Midfielder Ainsley McCammon and goalkeeper Claudia Dickey played major roles in Seattle\u2019s victory.<\/p>\n
In the 17th minute, McCammon delivered a perfectly placed pass into the box to Cathedral Catholic High School alum Maddie Mercado, who got behind her defender. Mercado redirected a header toward the back post as Wave goalkeeper Sandra Pa\u00f1os was positioned at the near post, giving Seattle a 1-0 lead.<\/p>\n
Three minutes later, Seattle earned a corner kick. McCammon headed the service into the air, and Jordyn Bugg nodded it over the Wave defense and into the back of the net to double the lead.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the way we started the game, the spaces were big and the gaps were big, and I think that led to us being spread out and, you know, not covering for each other as much as we would have wanted,\u201d Wave defender Kristen McNabb said. \u201cI think it took us a little too long to settle into then kind of dictate our defensive line. So yeah, a bit of everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
From there, Seattle took a more defensive approach \u2014 even though that strategy backfired a week earlier. Last weekend against Gotham FC, the Reign scored two quick goals before conceding three in the final 20 minutes of a heartbreaking 3-2 loss.<\/p>\n
It wouldn\u2019t happen on Sunday. The Reign held San Diego scoreless, even though the Wave outshot the visitors 22-9 and had more shots on target (eight) than Seattle (five).<\/p>\n
Wave forward Melanie Barcenas had San Diego\u2019s two best chances of the first half.<\/p>\n
In the 25th minute, Wave midfielder Kimmi Ascanio drew a free kick after Phoebe McClernon was shown a yellow card. Barcenas\u2019 attempt sailed just over the crossbar but was well struck.<\/p>\n
Four minutes into first-half stoppage time, Wave left back Perle Morroni delivered a dangerous ball into the box that Barcenas met with a header, but Dickey reacted quickly to knock it away from danger.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was just one of those games where I feel like the ball just didn\u2019t want to go in,\u201d Barcenas said. \u201cWith that header, it was so close. She made a great save, and (it) hit the crossbar. So yeah, definitely just one of those games.\u201d<\/p>\n
San Diego found more of an attacking rhythm in the second half, particularly in the 68th minute. Midfielder Lia Godfrey\u2019s shot was blocked but fell to Gia Corley, who fired from close range only to be denied by Dickey.<\/p>\n
Two minutes later, Corley slipped a pass to Godfrey, who unleashed a shot toward the right side of the goal, but Dickey punched it away.<\/p>\n
Dickey frustrated the Wave throughout the afternoon, stopping all nine of San Diego\u2019s shots on target.<\/p>\n
San Diego continues to search for the offensive spark it has been missing since returning from the international break. The Wave are now 1-2-1 during that stretch, with both losses coming at Snapdragon Stadium.<\/p>\n
It won\u2019t get any easier for San Diego, which will travel to face the second-place Washington Spirit next Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we\u2019ve shown in past games that we can do a lot better,\u201d McNabb said. \u201cIt just wasn\u2019t our day today.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The San Diego Wave dropped their second consecutive home match and continued to slide down the National Women\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":413351,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[181,74,76,75,1083,127],"class_list":["post-413350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-latest-headlines","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=413350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413350\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/413351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=413350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=413350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=413350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}