Houston, Texas (10\/04\/2026) \u2013\u00a0The Washington Spirit earned an important 3-2 away win over the Houston Dash on Sunday night, moving to the brink of clinching its third consecutive playoff berth in the process.<\/p>\n
Defender Tara Rudd tallied her third goal of the season in the 11th minute, giving Washington an early lead amid a largely dominant first half in the attacking third. Fellow defender Esme Morgan provided service on a corner kick and Rudd connected with her second header goal of the year in the box. The Spirit maintained 66 percent possession through the opening 15 minutes of the match.<\/p>\n
Washington was able to take another six shots over the next 30 minutes of play, including three on frame to force Houston goalkeeper Jane Campbell to make saves. The Spirit also kept the ball in the Dash defensive third for over seven minutes of the middle third of the first half as well.<\/p>\n
Just before halftime, Houston was able to make the most of a rare attacking chance and level the match at one goal apiece. In the 44th minute, Miljana Ivanovi\u0107 netted her first career NWSL goal on a rebound chance to bring the Dash back even.<\/p>\n
Less than six minutes into the second half, Washington regained the lead. Forward Sofia Cantore made a perfectly timed run in the final third to receive a ball from Trinity Rodman and finish a one-on-one opportunity in the box. The goal was the tenth of Cantore\u2019s regular season career, making her the third person on the current Spirit roster to reach the mark after Rodman and Ashley Hatch.<\/p>\n
Over the following ten minutes, the Dash attack began to put more pressure on the Spirit defending third with four shots and two on target. In the 58th minute, Houston\u2019s Sarah Puntigam fired a deep shot on target that was met by a diving Sandy MacIver who put the ball out for a corner kick. On the ensuing corner, Ivanovi\u0107 found a loose ball in the box and buried it into the back of the net to level the match at two.<\/p>\n
Washington began to make substitutions a few minutes later, sending Clara Luvanga, Rosemonde Kouassi and Monique Ngock into the match for M\u00e9lissa Bethi, Cantore and Hal Hershfelt, respectively. The Spirit continued to find attacking chances but was unable to find a third go-ahead score. Late in the second half, the away side sent Claudia Mart\u00ednez on for Hatch as it looked for a winner.<\/p>\n
In the 80th minute, the Dash nearly found its first lead of the night when Clarissa Larisey put a header off the crossbar. Just four minutes later, however, Luvanga would deliver for Washington in just her second match with the side. Mart\u00ednez found Luvanga entering the box with a through ball and the NWSL\u2019s first-ever Tanzanian player did the rest to beat Campbell with a strike into the net for a 3-2 lead.<\/p>\n
The Houston attacking third would land two more shots on target over the final ten minutes of action but both were easily corralled by MacIver and Washington ran the clock out to earn an important three points. With the win, the Spirit moved to nine points above the playoff line and five points above the quarterfinal hosting line with three matches to play.<\/p>\n
Next up, many Spirit players will head off for international duty before the team returns to play at Audi Field for a meeting with rival Gotham FC on Saturday, October 17. Kicking off at 12:30 p.m. EDT, tickets are available at WashingtonSpirit.com\/tickets.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
-NWSL Match Report-\u00a0<\/p>\n
Match: Houston Dash vs. Washington Spirit\u00a0<\/p>\n
Date: Sunday, October 4, 2026\u00a0<\/p>\n
Venue: Shell Energy Stadium (Houston, Texas)\u00a0<\/p>\n
Kickoff: 6 p.m. CDT\u00a0<\/p>\n
Weather: Cloudy, high-70s\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Scoring Summary:\u00a0<\/p>\n
Goals\u00a0
\n1\u00a0
\n2\u00a0
\nF\u00a0<\/p>\n
Houston\u00a0
\n1\u00a0
\n1\u00a0
\n2\u00a0<\/p>\n
Washington\u00a0
\n1\u00a0
\n2\u00a0
\n3\u00a0<\/p>\n
WAS \u2013 Tara Rudd \u2013 11\u2032 (assisted by Esme Morgan)\u00a0<\/p>\n
HOU \u2013 Miljana Ivanovi\u0107 \u2013 44\u2032\u00a0<\/p>\n
WAS \u2013 Sofia Cantore \u2013 51\u2032 (assisted by Trinity Rodman)\u00a0<\/p>\n
HOU \u2013 Miljana Ivanovi\u0107 \u2013 59\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
WAS \u2013 Clara Luvanga \u2013 84\u2032 (assisted by Claudia Mart\u00ednez)\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lineups:\u00a0<\/p>\n
HOU: 1 \u2013 Jane Campbell; 27 \u2013 Lisa Boattin (6 \u2013\u00a0Messiah Bright, 85\u2019); 4 \u2013\u00a0Leah Klenke; 14 \u2013\u00a0Paige Nielsen; 15 \u2013\u00a0Avery Patterson; 17 \u2013\u00a0Sarah Puntigam; 22 \u2013\u00a0Kat Rader; 19 \u2013\u00a0Maggie Graham; 47 \u2013\u00a0Miljana Ivanovi\u0107 (9 \u2013 Clarissa Larisey, 70\u2019); 23 \u2013\u00a0Kate Faasse (13 \u2013 Sophie Schmidt, 46\u2019); 12 \u2013\u00a0Kiki Van Zanten (34 \u2013\u00a0Khyah Harper, 60\u2019)\u00a0<\/p>\n
Unused Substitutes: 40 \u2013\u00a0Caroline DeLisle; 2 \u2013\u00a0Allysha Chapman; 8 \u2013\u00a0Natalie Bain; 18 \u2013 Cate Hardin; 99 \u2013\u00a0Jordan Brewster\u00a0<\/p>\n
WAS: 18 \u2013 Sandy MacIver; 14 \u2013 Gabrielle Carle; 24 \u2013 Esme Morgan; 9 \u2013 Tara Rudd; 13 \u2013 Lucia Di Guglielmo; 7 \u2013 M\u00e9lissa Bethi (25 \u2013 Clara Luvanga, 66\u2018); 12 \u2013 Andi Sullivan; 17 \u2013 Hal Hershfelt (8 \u2013\u00a0Monique Ngock, 66\u2018); 2 \u2013 Trinity Rodman; 33 \u2013 Ashley Hatch (11 \u2013\u00a0Claudia Mart\u00ednez, 77\u2018); 27 \u2013 Sofia Cantore (19 \u2013 Rosemonde Kouassi, 66\u2018)\u00a0<\/p>\n
Unused Substitutes: 28 \u2013 Sara Wojdelko; 5 \u2013 \u00c9lisabeth Ts\u00e9; 16 \u2013 Tamara Bolt; 26 \u2013 Paige Metayer; 35 \u2013 Madison Haugen\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Stats Summary: HOU \/ WAS\u00a0<\/p>\n
Shots: 13 \/ 25\u00a0<\/p>\n
Shots On Goal: 6 \/ 8\u00a0<\/p>\n
Saves: 4 \/ 5\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fouls: 9 \/ 4\u00a0<\/p>\n
Offsides: 3 \/ 1\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Misconduct Summary:\u00a0<\/p>\n
HOU \u2013 Clarissa Larisey \u2013 86\u2032 \u2013 Yellow Card<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Houston, Texas (10\/04\/2026) \u2013\u00a0The Washington Spirit earned an important 3-2 away win over the Houston Dash on Sunday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":456668,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[56,58,57],"class_list":["post-456667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=456667"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456667\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/456668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=456667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=456667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=456667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}