All Those Goals, But No Gold

Week 27 gave us 16 goals across five matches, but none from the Golden Boot leaders, Addie McCain, Allie Thornton, and Mia Corbin. I don’t even know what the odds of that are, yet here we are. The front-runners better watch out, Natasha Flint and Ishata Hamid are just one back. Carlee Giammona is now sitting at seven after scoring against Lexington over the weekend and tied with fellow Tampa Bay Sun Natasha Flint.

Two-Minded Dallas

It was consistency that got Dallas Trinity to the top of the standings, yet in the last four matches, Dallas has gone 2-2. Back-to-back shutout wins against DC Power and Lexington SC are bookended by 3-0 losses to Carolina Ascent and Spokane Zephyr. Hard to understand and I’m not saying I do. It is interesting that Allie Thornton, Dallas’ goal leader and current co-owner of the Golden Boot, hasn’t scored in those four matches. You’d have to go back to the blowout in Brooklyn to find Allie’s last goal. Plenty of things to love about Trinity and their lineup is stacked, but losing both second-half matches against Carolina isn’t a good thing, especially considering Ascent is now in the top spot of the table.

Carolina Ascendant!

Since the midseason break, Carolina has been solid. 6-2-1 and doing the one thing they couldn’t seem to do in the first half: score goals. Led by Mia Corbin, the team has begun scoring goals as a unit. Audrey Harding has added three goals since the break, paired with four assists (just one back of the league lead), but no one else on the Carolina roster has more than two goals. To her credit, Jillienne Aguilera has five assists and is tied for the league lead in that category.

Carolina is now sitting in the top spot in the league (a place they held for most of the first half of the season before Brooklyn FC go feisty) and its a pleasure to watch this team. They just knocked off the aforementioned Brooklyn 5-0 and are now up four points over Dallas. Due to a quirk in the schedule, Carolina has two matches left this month (Spokane and Fort Lauderdale) before a three week break till May 17th. Three matches from that date till the end of the regular season.

Brooklyn 9-1-1

Brooklyn has got to snap out of it. Maybe the trip to Europe during the break was a bad idea? Brooklyn hasn’t had a win since LAST YEAR. They are one more loss from potentially dropping out of the playoff picture. I don’t know this team.

- Dan Vaughn