Washington Spirit Beat Boston Legacy 2-1, But Boston Made Them Work For It
Boston Legacy went into Sunday's game at Centreville Bank Stadium 13th in the table against a Washington Spirit side sitting third, and for most of the afternoon the standings told the story. Tara Rudd opened the scoring with a looping header in the 25th minute that sailed over goalkeeper Casey Murphy, ending a 273-minute shutout streak for the expansion club. Trinity Rodman made it 2-0 six minutes later, collecting a pass from Gift Monday and finishing low past the keeper for her seventh goal in her last ten games (AP via WRAL).
That could have been the whole story. It wasn't. Boston kept pushing into a game that looked settled, and Sammie Smith got one back in the 88th minute, beating Spirit goalkeeper Sandy MacIver to make it 2-1 with barely any time left for a response (AP via WRAL).
Nobody is handing out credit for a loss, and Boston's record on the season, now 4-8-4, isn't going to turn heads. But an expansion team that had shipped nothing for over 270 minutes going into this game found a way to make a top-three side sweat in the final ten minutes of a match they were expected to lose comfortably. That's not nothing. Organization and a sold-out home crowd won't always be enough to close the gap between 13th and 3rd, but on Sunday it was enough to make Washington earn every point of it.
