ORLANDO, Fla. (May 2, 2026) \u2013 Orlando Pride (2-3-2, 8 points)\u00a0fell 4-2 to the\u00a0Washington Spirit (4-1-3, 15\u00a0points)\u00a0on Saturday evening at\u00a0Inter&Co\u00a0Stadium.\u00a0The match played following a\u00a0lengthy\u00a0delay due to\u00a0inclement\u00a0weather.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n
In just the second minute,\u00a0Sofia Cantore struck first for the visitors with a long-range finish to open the scoring,\u00a0with Trinity Rodman earning an assist on the\u00a0finish. On\u00a0the other end, Solai Washington rattled the post for the Pride in the sixth minute, but it was Cantore who doubled the Spirit\u2019s lead moments later. Another pass from Rodman played the forward through on goal, where she rounded\u00a0the keeper\u00a0and calmly finished into the back of the net.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Rafaelle recorded her first assist for the Pride in the 33rd minute,\u00a0after Ally Lemos\u00a0delivered\u00a0a corner that found\u00a0the head of Rafaelle who headed it down to\u00a0Barbra Banda. Banda then\u00a0turned and finished a six-yard volley in the box to put the Pride back in the match. The goal marked Banda\u2019s club-record fifth career goal from a corner in the NWSL.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Just six minutes later, Banda doubled her tally to level the match. Oihane\u2019s low cross found the Pride\u2019s No. 11 once more in the six-yard box, where she turned in traffic and fired\u00a0the ball into the back of the net\u00a0to bring Orlando back into the game.\u00a0The brace marked Banda\u2019s seventh\u00a0all-time\u00a0in\u00a0regular-season play, tying her for the third-most for a single club alongside\u00a0former Chicago Stars player Sam\u00a0Kerr\u00a0and Esther\u00a0for Gotham.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
After the break, the visitors regained control and pulled away with a pair of counterattacking goals in the 55th and 70th\u00a0minutes, as Claudia Mart\u00ednez and Trinity Rodman found the net to seal the match.<\/p>\n
\n Head Coach Seb Hines:<\/p>\n
\u201cFrustrating.\u00a0Obviously\u00a0we\u00a0don’t\u00a0like\u00a0losing, and we\u00a0don’t\u00a0like\u00a0conceding four goals, especially at home.\u00a0Really\u00a0disappointed\u00a0with the result. There\u00a0were\u00a0some good moments, but it\u00a0wasn’t\u00a0enough tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Pride will remain in the City Beautiful as they face the North Carolina Courage on Friday, May 8 at Inter&Co Stadium. The match is set to kick off at 8 p.m. ET and can be seen on Prime Video.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORLANDO, Fla. (May 2, 2026) \u2013 Orlando Pride (2-3-2, 8 points)\u00a0fell 4-2 to the\u00a0Washington Spirit (4-1-3, 15\u00a0points)\u00a0on Saturday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":256179,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[9576,115,111267,6217,139,141,140,3968,110708,6230,6225],"class_list":["post-256178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-barbra-banda","tag-news","tag-nicole-payne","tag-oihane-hernandez","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-orlando-pride","tag-orlvswas-05-02-2026","tag-rafaelle-souza","tag-summer-yates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256178","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=256178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256178\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/256179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}