Dallas returns from its bye needing a win to get back into the top four, on Brooklyn’s “Got Pink?” afternoon at a narrow Coney Island ballpark.
USL Super League | Saturday, Oct. 10 | 3 p.m. CT | Maimonides Park, Brooklyn, NY | Broadcast: Peacock
Dallas Trinity spent much of Tuesday’s training session on pressing drills. On Saturday, it takes that press to Maimonides Park, the Coney Island ballpark where the pitch plays narrow and where Dallas last won in March 2025.
Brooklyn FC will be short at both ends of the field. Their captain and starting goalkeeper, Bre Norris, is away with Mexico’s U-23s, and holding midfielder Jennifer Cudjoe is with Ghana. Two other regulars in their back line are out or doubtful.
Saturday is also Brooklyn’s “Got Pink?” match for Breast Cancer Awareness Month, presented by ACS Making Strides with Maimonides Health. A portion of ticket proceeds goes to the cause, and survivors in attendance will watch warmups from the field.
The Recovery Report
Dallas Trinity
Heather Stainbrook (M) is OUT (leg)
Ally Cook (F), Rajanah Reed (F) and Chioma Ubogagu (F) are out for the season
Brooklyn FC
Bre Norris (GK) is OUT (international duty)
Jennifer Cudjoe (M) is OUT (international duty)
Jackie Richards (D) is OUT (personal leave)
Jordan Thompson (D) is QUESTIONABLE (upper body)
Rebecca Cooke (F) is out for the season (torn ACL)
The Bigger Picture
Dallas hasn’t played since a 3-0 loss at Lexington SC on Sept. 25, yet they dropped out of the top four during the bye. Lexington’s draw at Tampa Bay Sun last Sunday moved the defending champions level with Dallas on 10 points and ahead on goal difference, now the league’s first tiebreaker. Trinity’s minus-two is the only negative goal difference outside the bottom two.
A win puts Dallas on 13 and back in the top four by Sunday night. Carolina Ascent stays ahead either way. So can the winner of Friday’s Sporting JAX–DC Power match, and Lexington if it wins at Fort Lauderdale on Sunday. Nobody else can reach 13. A loss opens the door for Tampa Bay, which hosts Carolina on Saturday night, to pass Dallas as well.
Saturday is also Meila Brewer‘s last league match for a while. The 17-year-old center back joins the U.S. for the U-17 World Cup in Morocco next week and will, at minimum, miss the State Fair Clásico and the Oct. 25 trip to DC Power.
Pressing in a Ballpark
Maimonides Park was built for the Brooklyn Cyclones, the Single-A affiliate of the New York Mets baseball team, and is the former home of the New York Cosmos. On matchdays, the pitcher’s mound stays in place, and a temporary fence line marks one touchline, which leaves a soccer field that plays narrow. The unique soccer venue may have the smallest dimensions of any sanctioned stadium in the country.
Hudson River Blue noted how tight it looked in Brooklyn’s first weeks at the ballpark in the spring of 2025, and how much trouble Dallas’s high press gave Brooklyn in that space. Dallas won that day, 3-0 on March 18, 2025, but they have not been able to manufacture a win in Kings County since.
Brooklyn took four points from the two meetings in Coney Island this past spring, a 3-0 win on April 11 with two goals from Rebecca Cooke and a 1-1 draw two weeks later. Dallas still leads the all-time series with four wins, two draws and three losses, and won the reverse fixture 3-0 at the Cotton Bowl on Sept. 5.
Tuesday’s session leaned on pressing drills and on switching play, moving the ball quickly from one side of the field to the other. Coach Lee Nguyen spent the session preaching decisiveness.
“If we change our minds, do it quickly,” he told the group.
Switching play was what Nguyen said went wrong at Lexington. Dallas out-shot the champions 17-12 that night and won four corners to Lexington’s zero, but put only two shots on target. Afterward, Nguyen said his side had trouble finding the spaces and that its switches of play could have been better.
Stainbrook Back on the Field
Heather Stainbrook was in training Tuesday for the first time since the end of last season. The midfielder, on loan from the Washington Spirit, has spent most of the fall recovering at home in Utah. She trained in a limited role and remains on the club’s injury report.
Stainbrook scored twice in eight league appearances last season and was named to the league’s March Team of the Month.
Lauren Flynn and Heather MacNab, who have missed all of the fall with lower-leg injuries, both trained fully. Captain Sophia Braun trained with her arm still in the cast she wore at Lexington.
Giulianna Gianino, signed from Boston University on Sept. 22, worked high on the right side but didn’t yet look fully part of the group’s patterns. Around her, the group talked constantly and picked each other up after mistakes.
Players to Watch: Dallas Trinity
Sydney Cheesman – The standout in Tuesday’s switching drills, and Dallas’s best bet to turn Brooklyn’s block around with one diagonal. She set up Jasmine Hamid‘s goal in the September meeting with a ball over the top. On the narrow field, a misplaced long ball comes back quickly, so her accuracy matters as much as her range.
Lauren Flynn – Won two NCAA titles at Florida State and was the 2023 NCAA Tournament’s Most Outstanding Defensive Player. She hasn’t played a minute this fall. If she starts, her first game back comes against a Brooklyn side whose last winner came from pressing a defender into a mistake.
Flynn’s defending changed more than a few games last season, and her ability to play both CB and FB is key for Nguyen’s flexible formations. Her return to the lineup could also allow Braun to return to her natural position in the midfield and bolster defending.
Camryn Lancaster – Four goals and an assist in seven career games against Brooklyn, the most goals of anyone in the series. She leads Dallas with two assists this fall, including the setup for Onyeka Gamero‘s opener in September. With Cudjoe gone from the base of Brooklyn’s midfield, the space between the lines should be easier to find.
After the First Clean Sheet
Brooklyn comes in off a 1-0 win over Fort Lauderdale United on Oct. 2, its second win in three home games this fall. Norris made three saves for the club’s first clean sheet of the season. Substitute Carlee Giammona won it in the 76th minute after Ashlyn Miller chased a defender into a back pass and Fort Lauderdale’s keeper lost her footing.
It was also Tyrone Mears‘s last match. Fort Lauderdale dismissed him four days later, the fifth mid-season coaching change in league history and the first to come after a loss to Brooklyn, earning the club their first “sack-assist”. Dallas has its own entry on that list. Fort Lauderdale parted ways with Ali Rogers in February, three days after a 4-0 loss to Trinity.
Brooklyn will be without Norris and Cudjoe on Saturday. Norris has started every game since being named captain this summer, and Cudjoe started each of the last four at the base of midfield.
The back line is thin, too. Jackie Richards, who started six of Brooklyn’s first seven, is out on personal leave. Jordan Thompson, tied with Sophia Lowenberg for the team lead with 29 clearances, is questionable.
Nikki Pasquarella was the unused backup in goal last week. Brooklyn signed Armenian international Sophine Kevorkian out of LSU on Tuesday, and she could make her debut. Head coach Alex Smith (DTID) credited her with “tremendous presence and confidence” when she signed.
Smith missed the Fort Lauderdale match to finish his Pro license course, with assistant Errol McFarlane in charge. The club hasn’t said whether Smith will be back on the touchline Saturday.
Players to Watch: Brooklyn FC
Carlee Giammona – Thirteen career regular-season goals, and two goals and an assist in seven games against Dallas, all of them for Tampa Bay. She has come off the bench in each of Brooklyn’s last three matches and scored the winner in the most recent one. Brooklyn’s limited squad will likely give her a chance to shine as a starter this week.
Ashlyn Miller – A Prosper native who played her college soccer at Texas. Her pressure on a Fort Lauderdale defender produced last week’s winner. On a field this tight, Dallas’s back line will have less time on the ball than it’s used to.
Catherine Zimmerman – Brooklyn’s only pick on the September Team of the Month, and the scorer of two of Brooklyn’s three goals in the 3-2 win over Sporting JAX that ended its 0-4 start. She leads the line alone. If Dallas’s press gets played through, she’s the one running into the space it leaves behind.
What’s at Stake
A win puts Dallas back in the top four ahead of the Clásico and the trip to DC, where it will be without Brewer. A loss leaves The Golden Girls fifth at best with six matches left, three of them at the Cotton Bowl.
A Brooklyn win would put it on nine points, one behind Dallas, with Tampa Bay coming to Coney Island next on Oct. 24.
Projected XIs
Dallas Trinity (4-2-3-1): Neeku Purcell; Sydney Cheesman, Meila Brewer, Lauren Flynn, Cyera Hintzen; Sophia Braun (c), Carissa Boeckmann; Jasmine Hamid, Camryn Lancaster, Onyeka Gamero; Seven Castain.
Brooklyn FC (4-1-4-1): Nikki Pasquarella; Sara D’Appolonia, Sophia Lowenberg, Lauren Gogal, Laila Booker; Jilly Shimkin; Ashlyn Miller, Carlee Giammona, Jess Garziano, Tziarra King; Catherine Zimmerman.
Kickoff is 3 p.m. CT. Dallas returns to the Cotton Bowl on Saturday, Oct. 17, for the State Fair Clásico against Chivas Femenil.