As winless skid reaches 10, Utah Royals continue building foundation
As winless skid reaches 10, Utah Royals continue building foundation
The Royals saw glimpses of getting over the hump in a 1-0 loss to Washington, their third-straight by such a margin, thanks to Mandy Haught's six saves.
As the losses keep piling up, Utah Royals FC can see a light at the end of the tunnel.
But how to flip the final switch and turn on the light is still lacking.
Kate Wiesner scored her first career NWSL goal in the 26th minute as the Washington Spirit took all 3 points on the road with a 1-0 win over the Royals in front of an announced crowd of 8,486 fans Saturday in Sandy, Utah.
It’s the third-straight loss by the same margin for Utah, which continued to cascade downward to 1-10-1 (4 points) in their inaugural season. The Spirit improved to 9-3-0 for 27 points, just 1 point behind league-leading Orlando.
And yet the Royals continued to find themselves in position to snap their winless skid, or at least take a result, through individual efforts — including Haught’s Herculean effort in goal, captain Paige Monaghan’s attempt that caromed off the crossbar, and Ally Sentnor’s ball that struck the woodwork in the first half.
“We’ve been knocking on the door this whole season,” Utah head coach Amy Rodriguez said. “Throughout the first half of this year, we’ve been so close so many times but unfortunately, you don’t get points for being close.
“Each and every week I stress to the group that it's time to go back, we hone in on the details, we go back to the drawing board, and we need to up the level. We needed that tonight and it's the reason that we didn’t walk out of here with any goals or points.”
The project continues, and a young team continues to learn. Rodriguez admitted that she is “still trying to figure out Ally Sentnor’s best position for us” of a mainstay in the United States’ U-20 national team who started at center forward Saturday before dropping deeper when Hannah Betfort came on in the 57th minute.
Similar tweaking continued, as well as the return to recovery of several players. Frankie Tagliaferri started her first match since March 31 as the Royals moved back to a more-familiar 4-3-3 formation. Even there came a surprise, with notably reliable center back Lauren Flynn — whose nickname “LoFlo” is catching on among the team and limited media that cover the team — playing wide at left back, with Zoe Burns pushed further back to the right side and Ana Tejada and Kate Del Fava plying the middle of defense.
The move paid off in the 67th and 78th minute with a pair of last-gasp defensive efforts that preserved the 1-0 scoreline.
No matter where she starts on the field, Flynn is discovering a unique knack for last-ditch defending.
“She’s the trick of all trades,” Haught said. “That's what I say she can do it all she’s very versatile. She a utility player for us you can put her outside, inside — it doesn’t matter. She is going to give it her all. She shows that in training and on game days. I think that’s why she is doing as well as she is and yeah, it’s always good to have Lo Flo on your backline.”
The two-time national champion at Florida State isn’t used to losing as much as the first of two 2024 expansion teams in this year’s NWSL. But neither are most of the players in the locker room playing together for the first time.
“Every bit of credit that Flynn gets is well-deserved and she’s a hard worker, she's a professional,” Rodriguez said. “From the moment she joined our team she was a versatile player that will take on any job in any way and give it 100% effort and that's all you can ask.
“We’ve required a lot out of her this year. She's jumped in as a rookie and played several different positions for us and she's handled all of those in stride. Tonight she had to go up against Trinity Rodman, full-time national team player, and she held her own. The one thing about Flynn is that she continues to show her aggressiveness both in the press but even out of possession and that's what we're really trying to hone in with her and to just keep drawing that out of her.”
The skid continues, and you don’t earn points for effort in a league like the NWSL.
But as the losses pile up, and the rough patch continues for the first-time professional head coach and her expansion team, the learning moments continue, as well.
“We are getting knocked down over and over and over again, but it's in times like this where I, as a coach, evaluate my team and say “Well, who is going to step up the next day? Who’s bringing the positive attitude to Monday morning training? Who’s showing up when it's dark and bringing in the light?” Rodriguez said. “It's becoming clear that we have a team that wants to be cohesive. We have a team that wants to put in the full effort. You see each and every game, we are inches away from getting that win, and the team continues to put in that effort and I'm proud of that.
“I still think that there's a next level to us. Absolutely. We go back to the drawing board this week, we figure out what those little adjustments might be and we go for another three points next weekend.”