Snapdragon Stadium lately hasn’t been Home Sweet Home as the San Diego Wave has lost a series of games with Saturday’s 2-1 loss to Seattle’s OL Reign being the latest.
While Wave Head Coach Casey Stoney was critical of last week’s loss, she stood firmly behind her team after the defeat before 22,682 fans on Pride Night.
“I hope our crowd is really proud of us tonight because my team didn’t lose the game,” Stone told reporters. ‘It wasn’t them that lost the game. … We were robbed at home.”
She said “we were a bit naive when we went down to 10 [players] and when we were not allowed to make a sub, when we should have been allowed to make a sub for someone that got fouled.”
In the last home match for the Wave’s five World Cup players, the visiting side (7-4-2, 23 points) opened the scoring in the eighth minute after a ball over the top from the single-name player Quinn found midfielder Bethany Balcer.
Balcer was able to get her head on the ball in the box that snuck past goalkeeper Kailen Sheridan.
San Diego (6-5-2, 20 points) tied the match just two minutes into the second half when forward Alex Morgan sent a cross into the box for midfielder Jaedyn Shaw, who scored her fourth goal of the season.
The 18-year-old headed the ball to the back post past a diving Reign goalkeeper to even the match for the Wave. However, the Reign would score 30 minutes later with Balcer adding another goal to close out the match and take all three points.
Said Stoney: “We created chances. We fought. … It’s the best I’ve seen this team play against in the time we’ve been in existence. So to come away with nothing is bitterly disappointing. The players deserve more. But yeah, that’s my verdict on it.”
The coach also commented on goalie Kailen Sheridan’s red card for knocking over a defender in front of the goal, and Shae Yanez coming in to take over tending duties.
“She’s devastated, obviously,” Stoney said, “but I thought Shae came on and did tremendously. First touch of the game she has to make a big save and she does. So it’s good because she’s gonna need to go again on Wednesday.”
“What massive circumstances to come on in,” Stoney said. “I haven’t seen the red card back. I’d like to see it as soon as she gave a yellow, and they made her review it, it’s going to be a red. So I need to see it back.”
Her message to the team?
“I’m really proud of them,” Stoney said. “We need to finish our chances. We were the better side tonight, in my opinion, for large periods of the game. So it’s about building them. We can’t lose confidence now. You know, this league is so tight. We got a big week ahead, we need to make sure that we recover, refresh and, and you know, get our mindset right for Wednesday.”
On Wednesday, the U.S. Women’s National Team announced defender Naomi Girma and forward Alex Morgan would be on the USA roster. Sweden announced that midfielder Sofia Jakobsson would be part of her fourth World Cup for her country. Meanwhile, midfielder Emily van Egmond (AUS) and goalkeeper Kailen Sheridan (CAN) have been named to the preliminary roster.
San Diego travels to Angel City in the UKG Challenge Cup on Wednesday at BMO Stadium. The match will air on CBS Sports Network with kickoff at 7:30 p.m.
