Despite being up a player for a half and outshooting the Boston Legacy FC 19-8, a lack of precision in front of goal forced Bay FC to settle for a 1-1 draw at PayPal Park on Friday evening.
“Obviously frustrated, we didn’t get three points tonight,” said Bay FC head coach Emma Coates after the game. “I thought we probably should have been up two or three goals in the first half, obviously, especially when it went down to 10 players. We didn’t capitalize.”
Bay FC came out flying on the attack against the Legacy, looking to earn three points after tying the Utah Royals in their last game.
The home side put the Boston Legacy backline under constant pressure for the whole first half. In the first 12 minutes of the game, Bay forced 3 corner kicks and 3 saves from Legacy keeper Casey Murphy.
In the 14th minute Bay FC winger Rachel Kundananji received a through pass that almost got her in one-on-one on the keeper. However, as she tried to cut the ball back at the top of the box a Legacy defender swooped in to kick the ball away.
In the 18th minute, a cross from Bay’s Sydney Collins targeted forward Karli Lema’s head. It instead fell to the feet of Kundananji, but she was unable only place a soft shot on target that was easily saved by Murphy.
In the 19th minute, Lema got free in the box and unleashed a shot that was blocked out of bounds for a corner.
In the 26th minute, Lema got free again in the box, and the shot required a push save from Murphy. The ball ended up at the feet of Bay’s Dorian Bailey, but she was unable to get much pace on her shot, and it ended up being a simple save for Murphy.
In the 31st minute, Bay FC’s Lema got behind the Legacy defense and crossed to Kundananji at the top of the box. But once again, Kundananji’s shot had little pace, making for another easy save for Murphy.
Then in the 32nd minute, Lema looked to have snuck behind the defense, but was called for offside just before Murphy smothered the ball.
“I think we’re always striving to score goals and is the hardest thing to do in soccer,” explained Bailey when asked if the Bay FC players were frustrated to not put the ball into the net despite multiple chances in the first half. “For us I think it’s just being able to be more consistent, like create quality chances. I think it starts with just creating more chances in general, and then how can we upgrade our chances to the most quality chances we can create. It’s a work in progress.”
After Bay’s dominance on the attack, Boston got their first solid chance to score in the 40th minute. Boston winger Nichelle Prince was able to get a cross into the feet of Legacy Forward Amanda Gutierres. Fortunately for Bay FC the shot hit off the crossbar and out of bounds.
Shortly after the whole game was upended after a reckless foul by Legacy midfielder Bianca St-Georges. Referee Gerald Flores had no choice but to show a straight red card to St-Georges, who went studs up into the upper leg of Bay midfielder Claire Hutton in the 42nd minute. Despite the dangerous foul, Hutton was able to continue playing.
After the break, Bay FC capitalized on their one-player advantage and scored six minutes into the second half. Dorian Bailey was able to play a give and go with Lema which gave here enough space to score in the box.
“I saw Karlie [Lema] kind of through a seams, so one touch pass to Karli, and then she was able to play it back to me in a really nice pocket of space, and she made it easy for me,” explained Bailey about about her goal. “All I had to do was just finish it.”
Just when it looked like Bay was in cruise control to win the game the Legacy got the break it needed in the 59th minute to tie the game back up.
Boston’s Nichelle Prince delivered a cross in front of the goal that Legacy forward Aïssata Traoré redirected towards goal. Although Traoré’s shot went wide, her momentum collided into airborne knee of Bay FC goalkeeper Jordan Silkowitz causing her to fall to the ground clutching her head.
After a VAR review, referee Gerald Flores felt that the contact was a foul sufficient enough to stop a goal-scoring opportunity. He award the penalty to Boston and a yellow card to Silkowitz. Boston’s Gutierres stepped up to the spot and converted the penalty kick to tie the game 1-1 in the 64th minute.
“If I’m honest, my favorite thing about football is it’s a game of opinions. In my opinion, I think, it was a little harsh, the penalty that obviously we conceded,” explained Coates. She also noted that in her opinion there might have been two or three potential penalty opportunities for Bay FC during the game that were not called.
Despiate the setback, Bay FC dilligently attempted to reclaim the lead. However once again Bay FC was unable to deliver the final pass in the attack and get enough quality shots on target.
Bay’s best chance to get the win was in the 90th minute off a corner kick, the ball found Hannah Bebar who popping the ball up to Hutton in front of goal. She slipped on the ball, which then bounced to Kundananji, whose shot was blocked by multiple Boston defenders. The deflection redirected the ball into the path of Bay FC’s Joelle Anderson, who’s shot sailed just past the far post.
The last goal scoring chance for Bay FC was in the 96th minute. Tesse Boade forced Murphy to a sprawling save to the near top corner. Soon after the referee blew the final whistle and the match ended in a 1-1 draw.
Despite the obvious disapointment of not getting a win, there were silver linings for Bay FC to take away from the game.
It was the team’s third positive result in a row. During the span Bay FC has earned five points to move up to eighth in the NWSL standings. While the penalty goal Bay FC conceeded broke the team’s 300-minute plus opponent scoreless streak, it’s a vast improvement for a club that become known mostly for conceeding late scores to their opponents during their first two years in existance.
“Sometimes you feel like you earn a point, sometimes you feel like you’ve lost two, and that’s probably what it feels like tonight,” said Coates. “And I think the positive is we’ve now gone three games unbeaten. I think for this group that’s that’s massive.”
With Bay’s defense shaping up nicely its now up to the offense to start clicking. Despite outshooting Boston 19-8, including 9-2 with shots on target, it only led to one goal. Coates feels the work the team is putting into their attack will soon pay off.
“I think when [the goals] come, they’ll come. I’m sure you guys can see we’re working really hard in that part of the game,” she explained.
Next up for Bay is a midweek road game against Portland on Wednesday, May 20th.
“We’ve got good depth going into the game,” Coates noted. “The recovery is going to be important, and then we bounce back, and we go again, and hopefully get three points midweek.”
Another positive is despite the hard foul Hutton received she said she is all set to play next Wednesday. “I’ve got five day to recover and I’ll be good to go,” she said.
After the Portland game, Bay FC return home to PayPal Park to take on the Chicago Stars on Sunday, May 24th. It will be the team’s final home game before the league takes a break in June for the the FIFA Men’s World Cup tournament.
