SOMERVILLE, Mass – Down a goal late, it seemed as\u00a0if the Boston Breakers were going to fall to the Washington Spirit in\u00a0Sunday’s season opener.\u00a0But Sydney Leroux’s stoppage time strike helped\u00a0the hosts salvage a 1-1 draw at Dilboy Stadium.<\/p>\n
Despite having most of the game\u2019s chances and controlling the bulk of the possession, the Breakers\u00a0had to wait\u00a0until the waning moments before they found the scoreboard. Washington goalkeeper Ashlynn Harris made seven saves, but couldn\u2019t keep Leroux \u2014 who had been knocking on the door all game long \u2014 from grabbing her dramatic equalizer in the 91st minute.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo get the point at the end was good,\u201d said Breakers head coach Lisa Cole. \u201cI thought it was only going to be a matter of time, but I thought we were going to run out of time. But yeah, I thought the goal was coming. We were battling and battling. They got tighter in their defense and that makes it harder to score.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Breakers fell behind early off a defensive lapse. In the 15th minute, Tiffany McCarty found space in between Kia McNeill and Cat Whitehill and headed a cross by\u00a0Stephanie Ochs\u00a0into the net past Ashley Phillips.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were letting in too many crosses,\u201d explained Whitehill. \u201cWe stopped that in the second half. But we have to get better at marking in the box. It\u2019s happened in the [past] too. So it\u2019s something that we\u2019re going to work on.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Breakers looked for the quick response but were thwarted by the Spirit, who quickly dropped numbers. After they scored, the Spirit only went forward via counter attacks and often had ten players behind the ball.<\/p>\n
Heather O\u2019Reilly had the first bid at an equalizer, a chip in the 25th minute that Harris plucked out of the air. Moments later, she fed Kyah Simon, who had her line drive from the top off the penalty area tipped over by Harris.<\/p>\n
Then, the Spirit switched out of their defensive shell and nearly doubled their lead. In the 41st minute Diana Matheson collected a long ball from McCarty, cut to the center of midfield, and fired a shot from twenty five yards that clanked off the crossbar and bounced out of play.<\/p>\n
Matheson\u2019s shot off the woodwork didn\u2019t push the Spirit to attack with numbers, as Boston remained the more offensive team into the second half. But the Breakers, playing in 4-3-3 formation with Leroux, Simon, and Katie Schoepfer as forwards, looked even more urgent to find an equalizer.<\/p>\n
But on the attack, the trio often got crossed up in a part of the field that was already congested due to Washington\u2019s defensive shape. As a result, the only real attempt at goal was a bullet from outside the penalty area by O\u2019Reilly that Harris palmed away in the 55th minute.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had so many opportunities,\u201d\u00a0said Whitehill. \u201cWe kept getting a knick here, a knick there. We were playing well, but we just weren\u2019t getting enough separation to get that shot. Harris played great. Their defense played great. But expected them to be a frustrating defense, they had a great game plan.”<\/p>\n
Cole made a change that would free up space for the Breakers to attack, withdrawing Simon as the third forward for midfielder Libby Guess in the 76th minute. The switch paid off, as Guess would produce the play that led to LeRoux\u2019s late equalizer.<\/p>\n
On their first connection, she played Leroux in behind the defense in the 76th minute.\u00a0Leroux slid onto the pass, connecting with Harris in the process. Harris managed to deflected away LeRoux\u2019s effort, though she stayed on the turf for a few moments as she took a cleat to the face. Leroux didn\u2019t walk away unscathed either, her both her legs bruised and bloody from the collision.<\/p>\n
However, Leroux made her second bite at the apple pay off. In the final seconds of stoppage time, she collected a pass from Guess on the left side of the penalty and fired a first-time shot at the far post that rolled into the net.<\/p>\n
The goal brought the sell-out crowd of 2,634 to its feet.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve got a few,\u201d said Leroux of her bruises. \u201cI slid and we both hit each other. It\u2019s going to be difficult to score. It\u2019s not going to be 5-0, 6-0 games anymore. We fought until the end, and we came out with a point.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe crowd was amazing. I\u2019m glad we made it exciting. Hopefully we don\u2019t make it that exciting next time and we finish the game earlier.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sydney Leroux’s stoppage time strike helped the Breakers salvage a 1-1 draw against the Washington Spirit in Sunday’s season opener.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":18996,"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":[33,104],"tags":[1282,266,359,357,358],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/SLEroux.png?fit=481%2C256&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18988"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18988"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18988\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19039,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18988\/revisions\/19039"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}