The Orlando Pride knew they needed to be at their best against Angel City FC, and they delivered in a hard-fought 2-1 victory.<\/p>\n
Midfielder Haley McCutcheon scored both goals for Orlando, the second and match-winner in the eighth minute of stoppage time as the Pride improved to 2-2-1 and earned their first home victory of the season. McCutcheon tallied her first two goals of the season with the brace.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe definitely earned that result. I think that we defended so well,\u201d McCutcheon added. \u201cI think that we managed the momentum of the game, and in the end, got two pretty goals out of it. So really, really happy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Orlando was aggressive in the first half at Inter&Co Stadium, pressing Angel City (3-0-1) and forcing it into passing mistakes, though the first half ended in a scoreless draw. Unfortunately for the Pride, Angel City defenders Emily Sams and Sarah Gorden were able to keep striker Barbra Banda in check. Orlando managed three shots on target in the first half, but the Angel City defense kept the Pride from truly threatening.<\/p>\n
Jacquie Ovalle went down with a hamstring injury, forcing head coach Seb Hines to replace her with Summer Yates in the 58th minute. The move took away one of Orlando\u2019s most potent attacking threats, but the Pride continued pushing to find a goal. Marta then came on in the 66th minute to help add to the attack as the veteran leader builds up to full match fitness.<\/p>\n
The Pride finally found a way through, scoring in the 84th minute. Banda put the ball into the box, and McCutcheon managed to find it among a crowd of players to knock it home for a 1-0 lead. There was a lengthy VAR check for offside, but it was eventually ruled as a good goal for Orlando.<\/p>\n
Angel City made several offensive substitutions in the 90th minute, hoping to make the most of 10 minutes of stoppage time. It paid off in the second minute of stoppage time as Gisele Thompson\u2019s shot hit the crossbar and bounced just past the line to even things up at 1-1. It was Angel City\u2019s only shot on target in the match, and Orlando\u2019s defense did a good job of shutting Angel City down throughout the match.<\/p>\n
Orlando refused to back down, continuing to push for a late winner. Another corner kick left the ball in the midst of a scrum inside the six-yard box, and McCutcheon found\u00a0her way to it again to score her second of the game to make\u00a0it 2-1 in the eighth minute of stoppage time.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a really tough game. We knew that coming into this game,\u201d Orlando midfielder Angelina said. \u201cIt was going to be very physical, so we knew it was going to be a tough fight tonight, but we came ready and got the three points.\u201d<\/p>\n
Angel City was the last unbeaten team in the NWSL. The win gives the Pride plenty of positive momentum heading into the international break. Orlando\u2019s next match will be 5:30 p.m. April 24 at Racing Louisville FC.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Orlando Pride knew they needed to be at their best against Angel City FC, and they delivered…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":218310,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[28,1335,139,141,140,3968,2062,76046,110],"class_list":{"0":"post-218309","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-orlando","8":"tag-florida","9":"tag-orange-county","10":"tag-orlando","11":"tag-orlando-headlines","12":"tag-orlando-news","13":"tag-orlando-pride","14":"tag-soccer","15":"tag-social-sports","16":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}