Former Breakers\u00a0forward Lauren Cheney\u00a0helped end Boston’s\u00a0four-game unbeaten\u00a0start\u00a0on Saturday\u00a0as FC Kansas City (3-1-1, 10 points) staked a 2-0 win at\u00a0Overland Park, Kan.<\/p>\n
Not only was Saturday the Breakers’ (2-1-2, 8 points) first loss of the season, but it was also marked the first time they failed to crack the scoreboard.<\/p>\n
“As we expected, Kansas City is a good team. They have good players all over the pitch,” Breakers Head Coach\u00a0Lisa Cole\u00a0said in a team release. “I thought we did a good job early on, creating opportunities, but we didn\u2019t capitalize on those opportunities. They were able to find the net first, and that put a little pressure on us.”<\/p>\n
A stacked Kansas City midfield that included Cheney and Kristie Mewis overwhelmed the Breakers and goalkeeper Cecilia Santiago, who made her\u00a0debut NWSL\u00a0start and allowed\u00a0a goal in each half.<\/p>\n
Cheney set up the first goal in the 17th minute, the former Breakers player finding Renae Cuellar in behind Boston’s backline with a long ball. Cueller collected Cheney’s pass, took a touch, and finished past Santiago for her fourth goal of the season.<\/p>\n
Cheney doubled the lead against her former club midway through the second half. In the 64th minute, she poked a freekick by Casey Loyd in past Santiago for her first goal of the season.<\/p>\n
Though Kansas City outplayed the Breakers, they did\u00a0need\u00a0Nicole Barnhart to make a few key saves. In the 69th minute, she reacted fast enough to tip away an effort by Kyah Simon from the top of the penalty area. Next, she saved a long distance effort by Lisa-Marie Woods in second half stoppage time to ensure victory and preserve her league-leading third shutout of the season.<\/p>\n
“They were just better than we were today,” Cole said. “But it was a good matchup, and we look forward to getting back on the field and changing the score the next time.”<\/p>\n
The game, which was originally scheduled for April 20, was postponed to Saturday as a result of the Boston Marathon attacks.<\/p>\n
Boston will take on the Washington Spirit at Dilboy Stadium in Somerville, Mass. this coming Saturday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ex-Breaker Lauren Cheney sent her former club to its first loss of the season, as Kansas City FC claimed a 2-0 win on Saturday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":19339,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[23,104,204],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/Cheney.png?fit=485%2C255","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19333"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19333"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19333\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19341,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19333\/revisions\/19341"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}