The Orlando Pride scored a 2-1 victory over the Houston Dash on Sunday in Houston.<\/p>\n
The win improved the Pride to 11-14-3 with 36 points. Houston fell to\u00a08-14-6 and remained at 30 points before 7,248 fans at Shell Energy Stadium.<\/p>\n
\u201cReally happy with the three points,\u201d Orlando interim coach Yolanda Thomas said in comments provided by the team. \u201cI think that\u2019s the most important thing. We get out of here with a win. We had a really fantastic first half; not a great performance in the second half, but finding a way to win is what matters.\u201d<\/p>\n
Orlando applied pressure early in the match and it paid off as the Pride played without superstar Barbra Banda. The Zambian forward, second in the NWSL in goals with 17, is unable to compete because of Ebola travel restrictions.<\/p>\n
Rookie Solai Washington was tripped inside the Houston area and was awarded a penalty. Luana calmly converted from the spot to give the Pride a 1-0 advantage with her first goal of the season and second career goal for the club across all competitions.<\/p>\n
Washington, a Florida State product, doubled the Pride\u2019s lead in the 31st minute with her first professional goal.<\/p>\n
Marta received a pass near the center circle, spun away from her marker and sent a perfectly weighted long ball down the middle of the field into space for Washington. The forward outran her defender and then tucked a composed finish inside the far post to make it 2-0.<\/p>\n
Marta\u2019s assist marked her first of 2026 and the 20th of her career with the Pride. Marta is the fourth player in league history to reach 40 goals and 20 assists with one club.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously great to get three points on the road,\u201d Washington said. \u201cI think there\u2019s some things that we\u2019re still fixing. Like, I think in the second half we could have been more clinical, but it\u2019s good that we got three points and now we\u2019re just going to take the positives and prove that when we start our next game at home.\u201d<\/p>\n
Banda played an international match for her native Zambia in Uganda on Oct. 8 as part of 2028 Olympic qualifying and must wait 21 days before reentering the United States.\u00a0The CDC bans entry to the U.S. by foreign nationals who have been in Uganda because of ongoing concerns around an Ebola outbreak earlier this year. The restrictions also apply to Congo and South Sudan.<\/p>\n
Houston\u2019s attack woke up in the second half when the Dash generated their most dangerous chances, finally breaking through in the 55th minute. A corner kick from Kat Rader found Danny Colaprico in the center of the box.<\/p>\n
Colaprico converted from 6 yards for her second goal of the year, pushing a left-footed shot past Orlando keeper Cosette Morch\u00e9, who finished the match with two saves.<\/p>\n
The Pride return to Central Florida for their final home match of the regular season as they host Gotham FC on Sunday at Inter.co Stadium. Kickoff is 3 p.m.<\/p>\n
Information from the Orlando Pride and the Houston Dash was used in this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Orlando Pride scored a 2-1 victory over the Houston Dash on Sunday in Houston. The win improved…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":431655,"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-431654","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\/431654","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=431654"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431654\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/431655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=431654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=431654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=431654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}