Utah Royals record breaking season comes to an end in the first semifinal match on Saturday following a 2-1 defeat away against the Washington Spirit.
One last record broken
Cloé Lacasse scored the fastest goal in NWSL playoff history with a beautiful olympico goal, coming just 117 seconds into the match. In the end it wasn’t enough as the Royals season ended after reaching the semifinals for the first time in club history.
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Quotable
“I think the reason people are congratulating us on a season well done but we were 90 minutes away from changing the narrative and making it a better season. We didn’t lose today, we won today, we came out strong at the beginning of the game and kept ourselves in it for the whole 90′.” — Head coach Jimmy Coenraets on the Royals’ 2026 season.
Game summary
The Royals started on the front foot with an early goal off a corner kick taken by Canadian international Lacasse to give Utah the 1-0 lead two minutes in. Washington Spirit striker, Clara Luvanga, got crossed up with her goalkeeper at the near post that allowed the ball to sneak past Sandy Maclver.
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The Spirit equalized in the ninth minute following a strong run down the left touch line by Trinity Rodman, who then dug out a cross back into the penalty area for an onrushing Sofia Cantore for a tap-in goal.
The second half started with an early Spirit goal following a poor backward pass from Nuria Rábano that was intercepted by Luvanga, the Tanzanian attacker neatly chipping goalkeeper Mandy McGlynn to give Washington the 2-1 lead. The Spirit nearly made it two after Luvanga ran down the left side before crossing the ball into the penalty area with the outside of her boot. Mélissa Bethi scored the tap-in goal, only to be denied by the offside flag that kept the game at 2-1 in favor of Washington.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: Sports.yahoo.com
