ORLANDO, Fla. (Aug. 29, 2026) \u2013 Orlando Pride (8-12-2, 26 points)\u00a0were defeated by the Utah Royals (12-7-3, 39 points) by a 2-1 scoreline on Saturday night at Inter.co Stadium. <\/p>\n
The Pride took the early lead right before halftime, with Summer Yates playing a beautifully weighted ball between two defenders. Barbra Banda was able to get on the end of it, dribble around the keeper and calmly pass the ball into the back of the net. The goal was her 13th of the campaign, which ties her single-season best and the Club’s single-season record. Yates recorded her second assist of the year on the play. <\/p>\n
Utah then scored two second-half goals to take the lead, with Cloe Lacasse and Paige Cronin finding the back of the net in the 50th and 69th minutes, respectively. Orlando continued to try and create chances to level the match but wasn’t able to find the equalizer.<\/p>\n
\n Head Coach Seb Hines:<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first half, we were all right. We created some good opportunities and took the lead. Going into the second half, we felt we needed to put a little more pressure on the ball and not allow Utah to gain too much territory. We were half a step off, and they were able to carve us open and get that goal.\u00a0I’m\u00a0disappointed to sit here and say\u00a0there’s\u00a0another defeat at home in front of our fans. Our fans are terrific and really supportive,\u00a0rain\u00a0or shine. They always turn up, and we need to get the results they deserve. We need to turn it around here at home.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n Orlando Pride Forward Summer Yates:<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought it was a tough one, obviously. We never want to lose at home. But I thought we came out and executed the game plan in the first half, and obviously, letting two goals in when we had a lead is just not what we expect at home. Not our best performance, but we’re hoping to learn from it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n Orlando Pride Midfielder\u00a0Ally Lemos:<\/p>\n
\u201cUtah’s a great team. They have a lot of great pieces, so for us, it’s just about staying fully switched on throughout all 90 minutes. Not really taking any time to buffer. I think we just weren’t really ready for the energy they brought, and we need to do better. That’s on us, but the fight we brought after we got scored on was great. It’s just a tough result.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Pride will remain in the City Beautiful as they close out their two-game homestand against the Houston Dash on Sunday, Sept. 6, at Inter.co Stadium (7 p.m. ET | Roku Channel).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORLANDO, Fla. (Aug. 29, 2026) \u2013 Orlando Pride (8-12-2, 26 points)\u00a0were defeated by the Utah Royals (12-7-3, 39…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":385070,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[9576,6229,147441,9947,6223,9946,9577,6659,115,139,141,140,3968,89862,6225,6224,140548],"class_list":["post-385069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-barbra-banda","tag-cosette-morche","tag-gabi-nunes","tag-haley-mccutcheon","tag-julie-doyle","tag-kerry-abello","tag-kylie-strom","tag-marta","tag-news","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-orlando-pride","tag-solai-washington","tag-summer-yates","tag-viviana-villacorta","tag-zoe-matthews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385069","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=385069"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385069\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/385070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}