Dallas Trinity controlled 60 percent of the ball, put together three clear-cut chances, and held DC Power to none. It still took a nervy final half hour to turn that into a 2-1 win Saturday at the Cotton Bowl. It was the second straight victory and first back-to-back wins of the fall season for Lee Nguyen‘s Golden Girls, sealed in triple-digit heat.
The kickoff temperature read 100 degrees, and the sun spent the evening sinking behind the stadium’s west rim until the field sat almost entirely in the shade.
Dallas debuted its white and gold Foundation kit in front of a home crowd. DC Power came in a kit of bright sky blue, so there was no real overlap in color between the two sides even with Dallas out of its usual Sunrise Maroon at home.
The pitch still carried the yard lines from a high school football game the night before, and new LED boards now line both benches, moved from the opposite side of the stadium. It was also Dallas’s College Night, with discounted tickets included, but the paid attendance of 1,451 left plenty of empty seats in the lower bowl, with most of the noise coming from the supporters’ section.
Nguyen made two changes from last week’s lineup, starting 17-year-old Meila Brewer at left back and Felicia Knox in central midfield. Both were earned looks rather than injury replacements, and Brewer’s was her professional debut, just five days after signing out of Kansas City Current.
Omid Namazi made one change to his Power side from last week’s lineup, swapping Anna Bagley off the bench with Justina Gaynor.
A Blocked Shot Falls to Gamero
Dallas settled into an early rhythm, working the ball around and testing the channels outside. DC pressed, but they were unable to break down Nguyen’s formation. When they did, they often found themselves on the wrong side of the assistant referee’s flag.
In the 33rd minute, keeper Neeku Purcell made a diving save that never counted in the box score because the play had already been flagged offside. In the 34th, Jasmine Hamid appeared to finish from close range, only for the ball to strike her arm on the way in. Correctly, the goal was not given, and the whistle beat any real argument about it.
The Golden Girls broke through in the 42nd minute. Sofia Cedeño won the ball back in midfield and pushed it upfield to Knox, who played a first-time ball forward to Seven Castain sprinting between two DC defenders. Castain beat Claire Constant with a touch, sending her sliding to the ground, then tried to round keeper Katie Cappelletti, but Cappelletti got there first and pushed the shot away. The ball fell to Onyeka Gamero at the top of the box, and she blasted it into the roof of the net. It went into the books as unassisted.
Dallas took a 1-0 lead into the break.
Gamero described the buildup from the inside to Savannah Huemoeller on the broadcast at half. “Fee [Cedeño] found a really nice ball to Seven, and Seven did really well to try to shoot. She shot it, and I just got the rebound. It was really good team play,” she said, crediting the approach of attacking DC’s outside backs.
Hintzen Plays One Through
DC used its halftime substitutions to shift into a back five, swapping Gaynor in for Bagley and Gianna Gourley in for Loza Abera, DC’s leading scorer, who did not see the second half. The change came with more urgency in DC’s press, and for a stretch it worked. Nguyen credited it after the game. “For them, it’s about solving that first line of pressure. They’re really good at that,” he said.
Dallas answered in the 56th minute. Cyera Hintzen drove a long ball out of the back up the right channel, and Hamid ran onto it, took a touch past the advancing keeper, and rolled it into an empty net. It was Hamid’s 16th career Super League goal, one behind the two players tied for second on the club’s all time list. Nguyen singled out the pass afterward rather than the finish. “Hintzen’s been amazing all year, but something undervalued about her is her range of passing. She can play an entry pass into our sixes with good weight, or unlock the back line with balls over the top,” he said. “She was able to drive it, Jazz made a great run, and she put her through. It was a great goal.”
A Strange Sequence, and an Own Goal
DC pulled one back in the 66th minute, and the way it happened was odd. Cedeño went down from a slide tackle near midfield, and Hamid stayed with her to help her up while the ball stayed in play. Cedeño stayed down, and Hamid stayed with her while play continued. In that stretch, the ball ended up in the net off Brewer’s head. It counted as an own goal, and it cut the lead to 2-1.
First Career Yellow Card
The most instructive minute of the match might have been the 73rd, when two things happened close together. Hintzen came off for Drew Coomans after colliding with a DC player, a forced substitution, not a tactical one. In the same stretch, Nguyen picked up his first career yellow card as a head coach, shown for what the referee read as dissent.
Nguyen’s own account traced the card somewhere else. “I was a little frustrated because the sub card was up for about three or four minutes and we weren’t able to get the sub on,” he said. “I don’t know if it was technical difficulties or not understanding how to get the number up, but that can affect the game. It can change the momentum really quick. That’s kind of where the frustration was.”
Seven Corners, and a Hold
DC spent the last 20 minutes trying to force a second equalizer and rarely tested Purcell doing it. Dallas dropped deeper by the 82nd minute, absorbing pressure rather than chasing a third goal, and DC’s best route forward became the set piece. The board showed five corners for DC through the 90th minute, and DC won five more across seven minutes of stoppage time, part of a stretch that included a missed header by Alyssa Walker in the 97th minute. None of it produced an equalizer.
“That was a huge win,” Nguyen said afterward. “That was a game we needed to win against a top team. It’ll give us more confidence going into next week.”
DC Power’s Night
DC came in third in the table and left having lost for the second time in three matches, but the visitors were not without their moments. Cappelletti’s save on Castain’s shot in the buildup to Dallas’s opener was the difference between a clean look and conceding, and DC’s halftime adjustment created problems for Nguyen’s side.
Abera, the club’s leading scorer, watched the second half from the bench, and DC’s attack never quite replaced her end product without her. The corner barrage in the closing minutes was a real threat that Purcell and Dallas’s back line had to defend.
Brewer’s First Night
Brewer talked about the debut afterward. “Amazing. Super fun to be out here playing with the girls. It’s just so exciting, and I’m excited to learn and grow with them,” she said. Asked about settling in with a new team on short notice, she credited the group rather than any one player. “Everybody’s so nice to me, it’s super welcoming,” she said.
Her night carried one more piece of news. Brewer has been called up to the U.S. u-17 team for next month’s World Cup, and she is still working out what that means on top of her first pro season. “So excited. I feel like I’m in a great environment to prep for that,” she said.
Captain Sophia Braun, who lined up beside her most of the night, put the debut in simpler terms. “She did amazing. She’s so confident and so young, which is awesome to see, but she did really well. I’m proud of her,” Braun said.
Around the League
Carolina Ascent moved alone into first with a 1-0 win at Lexington SC, a rematch of the 2025-26 Super League final that Lexington won in extra time. Jenna Butler scored the only goal in the 88th minute. Carolina sits 4-1-0 with 12 points. Tampa Bay Sun beat Fort Lauderdale United 2-1 in a Florida derby delayed roughly 40 minutes by a lighting failure, with Sh’nia Gordon giving Fort Lauderdale an early lead before Tampa scored twice in the second half. The result of the round belonged to Brooklyn FC, which had not won all season and beat Sporting Jacksonville 3-2, ending Jacksonville’s unbeaten run and picking up Brooklyn’s first three points of the fall.
Dallas’s win moves the club to 2-2-1 on the season, 7 points, level with both DC Power and Tampa Bay and behind them only on goal difference. Two straight wins have turned an 0-1-2 start into something closer to the middle of the table.
Dallas takes that into a four-game trip that opens Friday at Fort Lauderdale United, 6:30 p.m. on Peacock. “We want to control the game with the ball,” Nguyen said of the approach heading into it. “The more we have it, the less dangerous they are, if we can play in their half.” Whether that holds up away from the Cotton Bowl is the question this team answers next.
Trinity will return to Fair Park during the road trip for the second annual State Fair Clásico, where they’ll host Chivas Feminil in a non-league friendly.