Spirit driven by grit, fans for NWSL semifinal

After squeaking past Bay FC in a pulsating NWSL quarterfinal showdown, the Washington Spirit are convinced that their route to the Championship will be paved with grit, and the phenomenal lift they get from their fans.

The Spirit looked patchy for long swathes of that first playoff game on Sunday, especially the first half, where they failed to get into their rhythm. This could have been in part because of the rash of injuries the team had to deal with.

Rookie Croix Bethune, whose 10 assists are league-leading, is out after tearing her meniscus in August. The team’s joint leading goalscorer Ouleymata Sarr has been out with a back injury since September and veteran Andi Sullivan tore her ACL in October.

Those injuries took their toll, and the home side had four rookies in their starting team for the game. Goalkeeper Ashley Kingsbury acknowledged that that might have played some part.

“We are a young group so maybe it was a little bit of nerves we had to get out of the way in the first half,” she said. “But once we conceded, you really saw us like, ‘We got to go now. There’s no time to waste, our season is on the line.’

“Hopefully we got that out and we can be a little sharper in the semifinal.”

If there is one thing the Spirit have shown this season, it is that they have the guts to soldier their way through adversity. As they navigated the difficult challenge posed by Bay FC, forward Trinity Rodman, who forced the own goal that turned out to be the winner, said the occasion may have had something to do with it.

“I think the hardest part about playoffs is that it can get very distracting, very claustrophobic in a way,” the USWNT striker told ESPN.

“”I feel like it is a lot of emotions. There is a lot going on and just the high level that we are playing at. Sometimes you can get lost in that, in the momentum of the game and sometimes it gets a little sloppy. It was definitely a different energy but it was high energy, high intensity.

“What we do need to improve on is the calmness. We forced a lot of balls when we didn’t need to. We could have switched the ball when we had a lot more time than we thought we did. I think it was just the hectic energy. We’ll watch that for sure and fix that for the next game.”

All of the nerves, the pressure of the occasion and everything else seemed to disappear as soon as the home side went behind. Going down a goal seemed to be the catalyst for them to find their mojo. As Audi Field got louder, so did the Spirit’s intensity. The goal, when it came, was just seemingly an inevitability.

Rodman said it is in the team’s DNA: “Not just this year, every year I’ve been with the Spirit, it’s kind of like, when we get scored on, it’s coming. It motivates us so much when we are pushing for it, but also we are not stupid about it. I think we are strategic in the way that we are timing it, in the way that we are trying to make it happen.”

They were helped of course, by the non-stop chanting from the stands. Audi Field went briefly quiet when Asisat Oshoala scored, but then normal service resumed and the decibel level just kept rising and rising as the fans – clad in all black – in the stands got behind their team, almost willing them to get back in it.

When Tara McKeown, who was missing her sister’s wedding to play in the game, drilled the leveller in, the sound level could have brought down the walls of Jericho.

“The noise after we levelled was just incredible,” said defender Esme Morgan. “My ears were ringing.

“If you’re playing away, maybe you don’t feel that lift from the crowd whereas after Bay scored, they really just lifted and got behind us and it was almost Iike they were sucking the ball into the net for us. It’s giving me goosebumps just talking about it.

“It was just crazy and so much fun to be a part of. Obviously a sellout game, over 19000 people here, and I think that’s why we got the comeback.”

As they get ready to face Gotham in the semifinal, they will need those fans, who have set record numbers this season already, to do it again. But on the field, the players will also have to call on the mentality that got them through the season, and past what was a resurgent opponent in the quarterfinals.

Rodman expects it to get even tougher: “It’s going to be a hard game. But this was a learning experience for sure and I am glad that our rookies got to go through it. Now they have that under their belt, they’ve got the nerves out and now we can really focus on us.”

With a full week to rest and recover from the exertions of overtime, Kingsbury is harking back to echoes of their 2021 Championship-winning season, when they went through a similar route, pointing once again to the indefatigable spirit that carried them over the line.

“It is very similar,” she said. “We went to extra time in 2021. That never say die spirit was evident on the day. Tara played a heck of a game and scored. Her sister got married and she was here and committed to the team. You could tell, she was like, ‘I am not missing my sister’s wedding to go out in the quarterfinals!'”

That is the sort of mentality needed to get to the Championship game, and then win it.

“It’s one thing to have a great team,” defender Gabrielle Carle said. “It’s another to have a team that is strong mentally and I think that is what we have shown. It’s very important in the playoffs to have that kind of mentality and hopefully, that will take us through.”

Kingsbury has a warning for the champions as they come calling at Audi Field for the semifinal: “This team will fight, regardless of what happens and we can do anything with this kind of crowd behind us!”

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