The two teams who are playing the best in the NWSL right now met Friday night in Orlando, but the Thorns would be the team that would end up with the loss, 2-1 to the Orlando Price. Barbra Banda had two goals for the host, while Izzy D’Aquila had the lone goal for the Thorns.
In the 30th minute, Orlando would take the lead when the Thorns failed to clear a corner kick, and after an initial shot was blocked, Barbra Banda got her head on the rebound and Thorns keeper Shelby Hogan could not recover quickly enough, and the Pride had a 1-0 lead.
Then 10 minutes later, the Pride doubled in a very similar way, when in a breakaway chance, Banda had her initial shot blocked, and she then eluded Hogan and finished easily for a 2-0 lead for the hosts, which they held at the break.
The Thorns had their first good scoring chance of the match in the 54th minute when Christine Sinclair had a chance to finish a nice pass from just a few yards out into an empty net, but the difficult bounce on the shot meant her chance was over the crossbar.
In the 66th minute, Orlando had another great chance when Ally Watt redirected a pass across the goal, but just wide of the far post before any of her teammates could finish. Just a minute or so later, the Thorns had a great chance when Janine Beckie played a nice pass into the run of Izzy D’Aquila, but her shot was saved by Orlando keeper Anna Moorhouse.
But in the 71st minute, D’Aquila would make good on a chance when Olivia Moultrie made a nice deep run, and played a nice ball back to Izzy, who finished easily, and the score was now 2-1 Orlando. In the 83rd minute the Thorns had a great chance to tie when Sam Coffey lofted a nice pass that Ana Dias headed towards net, but the shot was off the crossbar.
The Thorns had a few moderately good chances to level the score, but didn’t seriously threaten to score again, and ended up at the short end of the 2-1 score, the first Thorns loss since Rob Gale took over coaching.
