“We Know How Good This Team Can Be”
It was a big night for Racing Louisville on Saturday when they earned a 2-0 victory on the road against Kansas City. Not only was this a historic third consecutive win for the young club across all competition, thanks to an odd schedule quirk, it was also the second straight victory over the Current in only four days. In the three games Racing has played in only eight days, they’ve scored eight goals, earned nine points, and moved from near the bottom of the table up to just out of playoff contention in seventh place.
In other words, purp is looking pretty darn big right about now.
“We’re thrilled,” said midfielder and captain Jaelin Howell of the team’s recent performance. “We’re going to continue to build and continue to look at the areas we can get better because we’re not done with this. We know it’s exciting, but we know how good this team can be. This is just the beginning. This was huge for our confidence.”
Racing got on the board early when Savannah DeMelo made a gutsy run to capitalize on a poor back pass to Kansas City keeper Cassie Miller. DeMelo got her body in front of Miller’s kick to send the ball ricocheting off her leg and into the back of the goal. Fifteen minutes later, a beautiful buildup from the back featuring picture-perfect passing from Wang Shuang to DeMelo to Kirsten Davis found the second goal of the night when Davis broke past Kansas City’s back line and beat Miller one-on-one.
That was the end of the goals from the night, but it wasn’t the end of the action. Kansas City continued their trend this season of coming out even harder in the second half and this game was no different. Three of Katie Lund’s six saves and two blocks were required in the final 15 minutes of the match. Lund once again showed off her immense skill when she not only blocked a quick shot from only about eight yards away but sent it out of danger instead of to the feet of one of the many attackers around her.
Racing has gone up by two goals in the first half twice this season only to settle for the draw in the second. The fact they were able to hold off a team that came at them harder in the second half and not just get the win, but also get a clean sheet is a major achievement for this team. It’s almost certainly a bigger, more important achievement than earning the winning streak in terms of the team’s mentality. Players have begged fans for patience and assured them they were…