{"id":379404,"date":"2026-08-24T02:44:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-24T02:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/379404\/"},"modified":"2026-08-24T02:44:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T02:44:08","slug":"quick-haley-mccutcheon-goal-leads-orlando-pride-to-1-0-win-over-washington","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/379404\/","title":{"rendered":"Quick Haley McCutcheon goal leads Orlando Pride to 1-0 win over Washington"},"content":{"rendered":"

Haley McCutcheon scored three minutes into the match and the Orlando Pride<\/a> made it stand up to earn a 1-0 victory over the Washington Spirit on Sunday in front of 16,417 fans at Audi Field in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n

Orlando ended a three-match losing streak<\/a> and improved to 8-11-2 with 26 points in the NWSL. Washington fell to 11-6-4 and remained at 37 points. Washington defeated Orlando 4-2<\/a> when the teams met in Orlando on May 2.<\/p>\n

\u201cA terrific result,\u201d Orlando coach Seb Hines said. \u201cReally gritty performance. We took an early lead and the attention to detail was really good with players playing their roles and doing their responsibilities and throwing their bodies on the line throughout the whole game.\u201d<\/p>\n

McCutcheon\u2019s third goal of the season \u2014 Orlando\u2019s earliest goal of 2026 \u2014 came courtesy of Barbra Banda<\/a>, who had been leading the league in goals until being overtaken by Ashley Sanchez of North Carolina. Sanchez has 13 goals coming out of the weekend to Banda\u2019s 12.<\/p>\n

It was Banda\u2019s effort as a defender, however, that led to Orlando\u2019s goal. She hounded Washington back Elisabeth Tse, forcing a turnover near midfield and sprinted free down the right side.<\/p>\n

As the defense started to collapse on her, Banda spotted McCutcheon cutting into the box from the left side and crossed a grounder that McCutcheon caught in stride and fired a right-footed shot from the center of the penalty area into the bottom left corner of the goal, beating Washington keeper Sandy MacIver.<\/p>\n

The goal ties McCutcheon\u2019s career high for most goals in a season. Banda recorded her second assist of the year and ninth career regular-season helper, which ties her with Alex Morgan for second-most in club history.<\/p>\n

Cosette Morch\u00e9<\/a> started in goal for Orlando in her NWSL debut and made three saves in recording a clean sheet, the Pride\u2019s seventh shutout of the season. Morch\u00e9 is the first keeper in club history to record a clean sheet in her debut. Anna Moorhouse<\/a> had started the previous 20 matches for the Pride and played every minute of the season. Moorhouse was a designated substitute for the contest.<\/p>\n

Orlando\u2019s backline and Morch\u00e9 withstood several attacks from the Spirit, including a sequence in the 12th minute when consecutive shots by Washington\u2019s Sofia Cantore and Tamara Bolt hit the woodwork. Washington also applied a ton of pressure as the match reached stoppage time, with three shots on target in the extra 12 minutes, including two by Ashley Hatch \u2014 one of which hit the woodwork \u2014 and another stopped with a diving save by Morch\u00e9.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, we had a little bit of luck,\u201d Hines said. \u201cGood teams are always going to create opportunities to score, and the post helped us out, but a really good collective performance from everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the win, Hines became the fifth NWSL coach to record 50 career regular-season wins with one club. The road team has now won each of the last four regular-season meetings between Orlando and Washington,<\/a> with the Pride winning four straight league matches at Audi Field dating back to 2023. The victory Sunday makes Orlando just the second club in NWSL history to win four consecutive regular-season road matches against the Spirit.<\/p>\n

Orlando hosts<\/a> the Utah Royals on Saturday at Inter.co Stadium in its next action. Kickoff is 7 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Haley McCutcheon scored three minutes into the match and the Orlando Pride made it stand up to earn…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":379405,"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":["post-379404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-florida","tag-orange-county","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-orlando-pride","tag-soccer","tag-social-sports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379404","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=379404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379404\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/379405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=379404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=379404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=379404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}