{"id":392607,"date":"2026-09-07T05:18:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T05:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/392607\/"},"modified":"2026-09-07T05:18:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T05:18:09","slug":"orlando-pride-give-yolanda-thomas-a-win-in-her-debut-as-interim-coach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/392607\/","title":{"rendered":"Orlando Pride give Yolanda Thomas a win in her debut as interim coach"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Orlando Pride<\/a> earned a 3-1 victory over the Houston Dash on Sunday night at Inter.co Stadium in its first match under interim head coach Yolanda Thomas.<\/p>\n

Barbra Banda was involved in all three goals as Orlando (9-12-2, 29 points) stayed above Houston (7-11-5, 26 points) in the NWSL standings.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m so proud of what this group was able to accomplish on a really difficult week,\u201d said Thomas, who took over the team Monday after Seb Hines was fired<\/a> toward the end of his fourth season in charge.\u00a0\u201cSo, not very tactical, but the commitment to pour everything we absolutely had in us and leave it on the field and get three points was amazing to watch.\u201d<\/p>\n

Banda helped create Orlando\u2019s opening goal in the 14th minute. She drove deep into the penalty area and sent a cross in from the left of the goal. Houston<\/a> keeper Jane Campbell parried the low cross into the path of defender Leah Klenke.<\/p>\n

Klenke was unable to avoid the ball and it deflected off her foot for an own goal, giving Orlando an early 1-0 lead.<\/p>\n

Summer Yates was taken down in the box on a breakaway, earning a penalty for the Pride. Banda stepped up to take it, firing a shot low and to the left for an easy goal to make it 2-0 in the 45th minute.<\/p>\n

The goal, Banda\u2019s 14th on the season, was her first penalty kick goal for the Pride. It also gave her the club\u2019s single-season record for goals scored, breaking the previous mark of 13 that she tied in 2024. Marta was the original record-holder, scoring 13 goals in 2017.<\/p>\n

Defender Haley McCutcheon<\/a> made it 3-0 in the 65th minute with a spectacular goal, her fourth of the season. Banda passed the ball in toward McCutcheon who caught the ball on the bounce. Her left-footed shot curled past the outstretched hand of Campbell to put the game to bed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI saw Barb drag her defender, played her into the space,\u201d McCutcheon said. \u201cI know she\u2019s always going to get there first, and then just followed the ball and made my run inside and screamed for the ball. So maybe not the best first touch, but I think the finish made up for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Houston would pull one back in the 72nd minute when Kiki Van Zanten scored to make it 3-1. She beat Zara Chavoshi in the air and headed it past Orlando keeper Cosette Morch\u00e9, who was otherwise stellar with six saves in her third start.<\/p>\n

The Pride have won six of their last eight meetings with Houston Dash, including each of the last five in Orlando, marking the club\u2019s longest home winning streak against a single opponent.<\/p>\n

Norwegian forward Sanne Lekven made her first appearance for the Pride, coming on in the 78th minute. Orlando hopes she will become an important part of the attack. She looked comfortable alongside her new teammates in her limited time on the field.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will take some time to get used to the heat and getting to know all the players and how they want to play on the field and getting that connection, but it\u2019s been a very nice week,\u201d Lekven said. \u201cIt\u2019s a little different than back home, the physique and very fast players, strong players. So it was tough, but I hope I get some more minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Pride\u2019s second match under Thomas<\/a>, as Orlando tries to climb back into the NWSL playoff picture, is Friday on the road against the Kansas City Current. The Pride defeated Kansas City 3-0 on July 10.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Orlando Pride earned a 3-1 victory over the Houston Dash on Sunday night at Inter.co Stadium in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":392608,"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-392607","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\/392607","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=392607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392607\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/392608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=392607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=392607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=392607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}