On a day when the Spirit celebrated the US gold medalists on both teams—Sophia Smith and Sam Coffey for the Thorns and Hal Hershfelt, Croix Bethune, Casey Krueger, and Trinity Rodman for the Spirit—they were able to scrape out a win in a game with new minority owner Magic Johnson in attendance.
The first half was largely uneventful with each team having one good chance that came to nothing. Twenty minutes in to the game Spirit forward and leading scorer Ouleye Sarr had to come out of the game with a back injury, which brought Trinity Rodman in sooner than anticipated.
After the break, though, the Thorns were able to kick off the scoring in the 48th minute. It took another 11 minutes for the Spirit to equalize when forward Ashley Hatch got the ball to Rodman, who was able to cut the ball back against the defense and send the ball into the lower left corner. The team ran over to celebrate with their new minority owner, Magic Johnson, who was watching the game with majority owner Michele Kang in a field-level suite.
The Thorns had a number of other opportunities including a ball that came off the bottom side of the cross bar, but they weren’t able to regain the lead.
Finally, with 5 of 7 minutes of extra time gone, Rodman sent a cross into the middle of the box where Colombian international and midfielder Leicy Santos was able to head the ball into the right side of the goal, sealing the win in front of an announced attendance of 14,306. The win means the Spirit will maintain at least a 2 point lead over the third place team in the standings.
