74' 2-1 Van Wyk outlets to Motlhalo. Lavelle overtakes Motlhalo, outheights and outmasses her, delivers a body-thump to the ribs, then pushes Motlhalo off-balance with a right hand on her shoulder. Foul on Lavelle, the brute. Srsly, she looms over Motlhalo's slim build. Motlhalo is only 19.9 yrs old, still. 78' 3-1 Wow, wacky season arrives. Washington pushing high, awful turnover: RCB E.Johnson(?) waaaay up at circle top mid-right, tries an upfield pass -- but directly to Motlhalo's foot. Kgatlana promptly sprints upfield, already 3m behind Johnson but onside in her own 1/2 , Motlhalo chips past circle top mid-(her)left into Kgatlana's stride. Daly accelerates away from Church through circle top, trailing ball. Bledsoe charges (from box top? must have been) all the way out to 35m, slides, Kgatlana chips a delicate square pass over her. Daly touches ball up left post lane, alone through box top -- kind of nastily twists the screws by trotting at 1/4 pace behind ball rolling slowly, as Church keeps chasing her. At 2m 1/4 left, Daly finally deigns to kick ball across line. Even Church was pulling up, not seriously challenging. Daly extends the @HoustonDash lead to 3–1 after Kgatlana beats the Spirit backline and Bledsoe.#HOUvWAS | #NWSL pic.twitter.com/HR5sBKLxkM— National Women’s Soccer League (@NWSL) May 28, 2018
81' 3-1 Banini passes to Dydasco at 10m box left. Dydasco cuts back to 14m mid-left, shoots right instep curling to left post 1/2 high, Campbell dives and blocks with right palm, over endline left. 82' 3-1 Washington chips from the right, high to 6-top left. Campbell comes out and hop-basket catches, just as Pugh jumps for a volley try, and plants her right knee into Campbell's right ribs. Pugh gets spun down by the impact, tumbles into left end zone. Campbell comes up limping, Pugh limps even worse. 86' 3-1 Stoppage: Pugh is down on back at midfield far touch? 87' 3-1 Pugh limps off field? Washington has used all 3 subs, must finish with 10.
90+1' (of +4') 3-2 Brooks to H.Hanson facing away at 33m (own) box left. Hanson lags an awful backpass through own arc left. Hatch lurks and pounces from arc top (her) right, follows ball to 12m right post, shoots first-touch left instep bisecting Campbell and Van Wyk, into back left low. Harsh lesson! We're in stoppage time but the @WashSpirit aren't stopping. @ash_hatch33 picks up a late goal!#HOUvWAS | #NWSL pic.twitter.com/3NkxcQd7HQ— National Women’s Soccer League (@NWSL) May 28, 2018 FT 3-2. Wow, Houston soars to ... 5th place on 13 points
Houston has been a lot better this season than I thought they would be. The Mewis injury is a shame -- cause it looks like a you-know-what. (And maybe Pugh, also? Surely not. Hoping.) I don't know what Washington needed to do, but it let Houston play the long ball at will and gave Daly, Kgatlana, others acres of space. I thought Quinn did pretty well on her return to action; I didnt see much of Lavelle.
Well, it looks like Houston is doing better than anyone expected. And even the much-maligned South-African players are doing their part...
So Mewis is indeed out for the season. But it wasn't the ACL. The diagnosis is left knee sprain. https://www.houstondynamo.com/post/...-mewis-miss-remainder-season-left-knee-injury
The fact that ORL lost at home and then won away made me curious, so I went looking and now have this interesting statistic: More teams this year so far have better away records than home records, including three of the top four teams in the ladder (and the fourth looks like it has a better away record just b/c/o games played). Take a look at their PPGs below: NC -- 2.33H / 3.00A SEA - 2.33H / 1.67A (still has more wins A than H) ORL - 1.25H / 1.67A POR - 1.40H / 1.60A HOU - 1.50H / 0.80A CHI - 0.83H / 1.40A UTH - 1.60H / 0.75A DC -- 1.40H / 0.20A NJ -- 0.00H / 0.25A Worth noting that the teams who do better at home are generally doing MUCH better at home (all >0.6PPG difference), while the teams that do better away generally are just marginally better away (all <0.7PPG), enough that the league overall has 16 home wins to 14 away wins. But it's close!
This is an interesting piece of statistic in a "prediction thread" perspective also. Humans wanting to beat the robot should take this into account.
Looking at the last 98 games (a full season's worth for the current group of teams): Home Wins 41 (41.8%) Home Ties 23 (23.5%) Home Losses 34 (34.7%) This is fairly consistent with SiberianThunderT's numbers, but a larger data sample.