USL Super League | Saturday, May 9, 2026 | 6:30 p.m. CT Suncoast Credit Union Field | Tampa, FL Weather: Partly cloudy, 85° Broadcast: KFAA, WFAA+, Peacock, TUDN Radio
Dallas Trinity FC (9-10-7, 34 points) plays its final regular-season road match Saturday evening at Tampa Bay Sun FC (5-12-9, 24 points).
The Golden Girls hold fourth place by a single point over fifth-place DC Power FC and sixth-place Spokane Zephyr FC, who sit level on 33 and meet each other in Spokane the same night. Dallas can clinch a playoff berth this weekend with a win and a DC win over Spokane. Anything less and the math carries to the home finale against Fort Lauderdale on May 16.
The simpler version: win two and Dallas is in. That is the only path that does not require help.
Tampa Bay is no longer in the playoff picture, but the defending champion has won its last two. The Sun beat Fort Lauderdale 2-1 on the road last Saturday, Faith Webber scoring as a second-half substitute and Carlee Giammittorio becoming Tampa’s all-time leading goalscorer with her 13th goal across the regular season and playoffs.
Dallas saw what Giammittorio can do at the Cotton Bowl on March 31. She came on as a 58th-minute substitute and scored the winner in the 85th in a 2-1 Tampa victory that triggered the longest stretch of dropped points of Nathan Thackeray‘s tenure.
Dallas enters off a 1-1 draw at Audi Field. Bethany Bos opened the scoring in the 52nd minute, pressing a defender into a mistake, Ellie Gilbert headed in a corner in the 79th, and the Golden Girls walked away with a point against a DC side that outshot them 21-6.
The result kept Dallas in fourth and set up the trip to Tampa with control of the playoff race still on the table. DC then dropped a 1-0 home decision to Sporting JAX on Wednesday, leaving the chasing pack at 33 entering the final weekend.
The all-time series sits 2-1-3 in the Sun’s favor. Dallas is 0-1-1 against Tampa this season after a draw at Suncoast in October and the loss at Fair Park in March.
Recovery Report
Dallas Trinity FC: Heather Stainbrook (lower leg) is out. Wayny Balata (lower leg) is out.
Tampa Bay Sun FC: Hannah Keane (quad) is out. Yuki Watari (knee) is out. Parker Goins (knee) is out. Farrah Walters (quad) is out. Maci Tucker (illness) is out. Jordan Zade (quad) is out.
The Bigger Picture
Dallas can clinch this week with a win in Tampa and a DC win over Spokane. The cleaner path is the one that does not require help: win two. Dallas controls its own destiny only by handling business in Tampa and at the Cotton Bowl in the home finale.
The math without a win on Saturday gets messy. A draw plus a Spokane loss keeps Dallas alive. Two draws plus two Spokane draws gets Dallas in. A loss in Tampa, plus a Dallas win at home, plus a Spokane loss gets it done. Every other branch involves Dallas needing Spokane or DC to drop points that the Golden Girls cannot influence.
Spokane hosts DC at 9:30 p.m. CT, three hours after kickoff in Tampa. Dallas will know what it needs by the time it lands back in Texas.
Dallas Trinity
Thackeray is expected to roll out something close to last week’s lineup. Tyler McCamey in goal. Cyera Hintzen and Samar Guidry at fullback with Maya McCutcheon and Lauren Flynn in the middle. Amber Wisner captaining the double pivot alongside Caroline Swann. Chioma Ubogagu, Lexi Missimo, and Jasmine Hamid behind Sealey Strawn.
Dallas is the only team in the Super League without a goalscorer in the top 25 in the league. Strawn, Allie Thornton, Wisner, and Camryn Lancaster are tied for the team lead at three goals apiece. The chances have come. The finishes have not. Tampa has conceded 33 goals in 26 matches, and the Sun’s home record is 1-3-7. The opportunity to break the spring scoring drought is sitting there.
Amber Wisner — The captain has played every minute of every match in Dallas Trinity’s two-year Super League existence. She is the only player in the league to have competed in every minute across two seasons, and she will reach 5,000 career league minutes if she plays the full 90 in Tampa and the full 90 in the home finale against Fort Lauderdale. She was named to the Team of the Month for April, her third recognition of the season after September and February. She holds the NWSL record for most consecutive minutes played. She is doing it again here, in the league she has confirmed will be her final professional stop.
Jasmine Hamid — Five matches in a Dallas kit without a goal. She arrived from Fort Lauderdale as a two-time Player of the Month with 13 career regular-season goals. Tampa is the kind of opponent, and Saturday is the kind of night that should produce her first in maroon. If it doesn’t, the questions about the acquisition will follow her into the offseason.
Tyler McCamey — Forty saves on the season across 13 matches. Four against DC last Friday. Five at Brooklyn the week before. Six against Carolina. McCamey has been the reason Dallas is still in fourth place. A Tampa attack down four forwards is still a Tampa attack with Webber, Giammittorio, Shea Connors, and Sydny Nasello.
Tampa Bay Sun FC
Denise Schilte-Brown‘s side is the defending Super League champion, and the spring has not been kind to them. Tampa sits eighth on 24 points, eliminated from playoff contention weeks ago, with the league’s second-worst goals-conceded total. But the Sun has found something in May. Two straight wins, a tight loss to Carolina on a stoppage-time penalty, and a roster that has reorganized around new arrivals after a brutal stretch of injuries.
The injury list is significant. Four forwards out — Keane, Goins, Walters, Tucker. Watari, the playmaker who has driven so much of Tampa’s creative output, is gone with a knee. Schilte-Brown signed Connors in April, and Connors marked her debut against Carolina with a goal off a Jilly Shimkin cross. Webber, the March Goal of the Month winner, leads the line. Taylor Chism, the March Team of the Month defender, anchors the back. Nasello is the local thread, the Land O’ Lakes kid who played for Schilte-Brown at USF.
Carlee Giammittorio — Tampa’s all-time leading goalscorer as of last weekend with 13 across the regular season and playoffs, breaking a tie with former Sun forward Cecilie Fløe. She came off the bench in the 58th minute at the Cotton Bowl on March 31 and scored the winner in the 85th. Her last goal was the one against Fort Lauderdale that made her the franchise scoring leader. Dallas needs to track her closely off the bench again.
Faith Webber — Two goals since arriving during winter break, including the opener at Fort Lauderdale last Saturday off the bench. Webber was the league’s Goal of the Month in March for a finish against DC that involved popping the ball over a defender before sending it in. She is the kind of player Tampa has missed — a forward who can score the goal that wasn’t supposed to be there.
Emory Wegener — The goalkeeper Dallas put one past on 15 shots at the Cotton Bowl in March. Wegener has been one of Schilte-Brown’s most consistent performers all season, with multiple Save of the Month nominations. Dallas needs to make her work, and that means putting more than one of those 15 shots on frame.
What’s at Stake
Saturday doesn’t end the season for Dallas, but it could define it. A win makes the home finale against Fort Lauderdale a coronation rather than a coin flip. A draw keeps the door cracked. A loss puts everything on the final 90 minutes of the season at the Cotton Bowl, with Spokane and DC both still alive.
For Tampa, the stakes are smaller but real. One more home win avoids tying Lexington’s 2024-25 mark for fewest home wins in a Super League regular season. The defending champions would prefer not to share that record with anyone.
PROJECTED DALLAS TRINITY FC LINEUP (4-2-3-1): Tyler McCamey; Cyera Hintzen, Maya McCutcheon, Lauren Flynn, Samar Guidry; Amber Wisner (C), Caroline Swann; Chioma Ubogagu, Lexi Missimo, Jasmine Hamid; Sealey Strawn
Note: Flynn was limited in practice on Thursday. While I think she still may start, there may be an opportunity for Sydney Cheesman to make an impact.
PROJECTED TAMPA BAY SUN FC LINEUP (4-3-3): Emory Wegener; Carlee Giammittorio, Taylor Chism, Liz Beardsley, Brooke Hendrix; Jilly Shimkin, Erika Tymrak, Cheyenne Shorts; Sydny Nasello, Faith Webber, Shea Connors