The Washington Spirit turned around their home results with a 3-1 win against the North Carolina Courage for Jonatan Giráldez’s last home game as head coach. The team had only won one previous home game this season, way back on March 28th, and had a 1-3-1 home record while being perfect on the road to put them in 4th place ahead of this match. This win saw the club move into a tie for second place with Orlando, although the Pride hold the goal differential tie breaker at the moment.
The game started with the Courage having a few early runs toward the Spirit goal, but the home side held strong. Then in the 23rd minute, the Spirit were able to take the lead when Brittany Ratcliffe got the ball up the right side. She was able to cut the ball back toward the top of the box where an unmarked Courtney Brown was able to easily slot it home. Only four minutes later, Ratcliffe would get her own goal when defender Casey Krueger sent the ball from outside the box to the other side, and Ratcliffe was able to send a header over the outstretched Courage goalkeeper to make it 2-0.
The Spirit stayed on the front foot for the next bit until the Courage got an interception and the ball was sent over the top to forward Manaka Matsukubo. As Spirit goalkeeper Aubrey Kingsbury and midfielder Hal Hershfelt converged to try to disrupt her, Manaka was able to chip the ball over Kingsbury to win one back in the 32nd minute. The score would remain with the home side up one for the remainder of the first half.
The second half was largely a back and forth affair with only one goal being scored. The second half started with a few good chances by the Spirit that just went wide of the goal until the 58th minute when a ball was chipped from near the end-line by Narumi Miura to an open Gift Monday, who headed the ball down and into the goal, giving the Spirit their two goal lead back. The remaining time saw attacks by both sides and a few concerning injuries for the beleaguered Spirit, but the Courage were unable to get another goal and the home side took their second home win of the season in front of 17,625 fans.
