Dallas Trinity FC had 58 percent of the ball at Hodges Stadium on Saturday, passed it 604 times, but were unable to put a single shot on target. They lost 2-0 to Sporting Club Jacksonville, and the road trip that was always going to be their hardest of the fall confirmed the problem that has followed them since the opener.
Lee Nguyen’s Golden Girls have now controlled the ball in all three games this season and taken just one point from it. The first two results at least came with shots and chances. This one did not.
Both Jacksonville goals came off restarts, both from Dallas mistakes, and in between the hosts were the more dangerous team by a distance despite spending most of the night without the ball.
The Setup
Nguyen kept faith with the same eleven for a third straight match, the 4-2-3-1 that shifts into a back three in build-up. Sydney Cheesman had cleared the injury report on Friday and started in central defense next to captain Sophia Braun, with Neeku Purcell behind them and Drew Coomans held in reserve.
Jacksonville lined up nominally in a 3-4-3, but the shape was fluid. They defended with a back four for long stretches, a fifth dropping in when they needed it, and pressed Dallas in bursts rather than for full spells. It was the profile 3rd Degree flagged in the preview: a team happy to concede the ball, quick through midfield, and comfortable defending its own box. Coach Stacey Balaam, who reached the top of the league’s all-time coaching-wins list last weekend, had her side set up to counter exactly what Dallas do.
A Cagey First Half
Trinity had the brighter opening. They won a corner inside three minutes, and Jasmine Hamid met it with a header that flashed wide. Cyera Hintzen dragged a shot from distance in the 15th minute, and for a quarter of an hour Dallas found joy down the flanks, flipping their wingers to pull Jacksonville around.
Then the game slowed. Jacksonville pushed their press higher, packed the box with five when Dallas came forward, and the match settled into a midfield battle in the heat. It was 83 degrees at kickoff, and the referee called a drinks break in the 24th minute.
Around the half hour, Nguyen shuffled his front line, pushing Camryn Lancaster into the number 10 role with Onyeka Gamero and Seven Castain on the wings, before reverting to the original look after the water break.
The best Dallas chance of the half fell to Castain in the 35th minute, and she could not get a clean touch to finish it. At the other end, Baylee DeSmit was growing into the game. Purcell saved from her in the 28th minute and again in the 37th, and Jacksonville had begun to look the likelier to score. They did, just before half-time.
Punished Before the Break
The goal was the kind Jacksonville have scored all season, and it came from a Dallas breakdown. A throw-in was worked short, Jamie Shepherd lost her defensive duel, and DeSmit and Ashlyn Puerta played a quick one-two that left DeSmit on the ball at the top of the box. She took a touch and finished low into the far corner with her left foot. Purcell had no chance with it.
It was DeSmit’s fourth goal in three games, and it moved her clear at the top of the Golden Boot race.
“My teammates have brought me in good spots, and being able to turn and shoot, that’s what I want to do,” DeSmit told the broadcast at halftime. Asked how Jacksonville found their game after Dallas had held most of the ball early, she pointed to the closing stretch of the half. “Towards the end, finding the midfield, going out wide, just bouncing it, keeping the ball on our feet,” she said. “We just have to keep it up.”
No Way Through
Dallas came out for the second half with intent, working the ball through Carissa Boeckmann and Lancaster and again finding early room out wide. It did not last, and this time they drifted away from what had worked. Jacksonville stayed the sharper side.
Meg Hughes forced a save from Purcell in the 57th minute and headed narrowly over soon after, and Georgia Brown did the same from a corner. Ginger Fontenot, pushed up from the back line, matched Trinity’s runners all night and did as much as anyone to keep them out.
The second goal, in the 79th minute, was another gift. A back-pass toward Purcell was misjudged, Jacksonville pounced two-on-one, and Catherine Rapp, on for DeSmit four minutes earlier, slid the ball across for Sophia Boman to tap into an open net.
Balaam’s praise for Rapp’s confidence in front of goal had been relayed on the broadcast minutes before she set up the winner.
Nguyen’s own changes came late, Felicia Knox and Kalea Eichenberger arriving in the 84th minute off a bench that has looked thin all fall.
A Penalty to Cap It
Trinity threw bodies forward in the closing stages and won a penalty in the 92nd minute when Melina Descary handled in the box. Hamid took it. Her run-up rounded off, and she pulled the shot wide of the left post. She headed another chance over in the 95th, off an Aria Nagai cross, the last of Dallas’s six shots. Not one of them was on target.
The full-time numbers made the point plainly. Trinity had 58 percent of the ball and out-passed Jacksonville 604 to 426. Jacksonville had 14 shots to Dallas’s six, six on target to none, and made more entries into the final third than the team that dominated possession. Jamie Gerstenberg kept a clean sheet in the Jacksonville goal without being made to make a save.
Where it Leaves Dallas
This was a harder watch than the Carolina loss, and not just because of the scoreline. Against Carolina Ascent two weeks ago, Trinity out-shot their opponent 15-4 and could at least point to poor finishing and the woodwork. On Saturday the ball went nowhere. Three matches into a 14-game season, Dallas have one point, a goal difference of minus four, and sit seventh, above only winless Brooklyn FC.
The circumstances are not helping. Rajanah Reed and Chioma Ubogagu remain out for the fall. The only true CB and striker, Lauren Flynn and Ally Cook respectively, are also out and have not seen the pitch yet this fall. Heather Stainbrook, one of last season’s bright spots, hasn’t been seen at all since last season ended.
Nguyen has made little change to his eleven, and the bench has offered little on the nights he has turned to it late. As a result, he is still winless after three matches as head coach. He was measured in postgame interviews:
“The results don’t really tell the story of the game unless you’re watching. I told them, ‘They’ll test our frustration,’ and so, for me, it’s about keeping that patience when we’re controlling games and not trying to look too direct for those killer passes. In the second half, I was really proud of their performance. We controlled the game, created some chances, and were just trying to get them to see that final pass. We’re a little late on it sometimes, but the chances are going to come. We just have to be a bit more solid in the final third on our end.”
As our preview put it, this is a group that is not short of the ball or short of chances. It is short of the finish and the clean defensive moment, and against a good side both of those cost them.
There is history in it, too. Dallas’s only win over Jacksonville, across three meetings last season, came at Hodges Stadium on a late goal. It was the one bright spot in a lopsided series, and Saturday took it back. Jacksonville have now beaten Trinity in three of the last four, by a combined 8-1.
Jacksonville Go Top
For the hosts it was a third win in three, and it lifted them clear at the top of the table on nine points, the only unbeaten team left. A week after the first comeback win in club history, a 3-2 against Tampa Bay, they controlled this one from in front. DeSmit is the league’s most reliable finisher, Puerta its reigning Player of the Year at 19, and in Rapp they had a substitute who changed the game within four minutes of coming on. Balaam’s side look every bit the early standard alongside Carolina and champions Lexington SC.
Around the League
The rest of Matchweek 3 reshaped the top of the table. DC Power FC won 2-1 at Lexington, Loza Abera and Emily Colton scoring before Macaira Midgley replied in stoppage time, handing the champions their first loss. Fort Lauderdale United beat Brooklyn 1-0 on a Nicole Vernis goal, with Haley Craig keeping a clean sheet in goal.
In the Game of the Month, Tampa Bay Sun FC won 2-1 at Carolina, Shea Connors converting a first-half penalty and Sydny Nasello scoring the winner to hand the Ascent their first defeat. Nasello’s goal came with a milestone attached: she moved past 5,000 career league minutes, a mark only two players had reached before her, one of them former Dallas captain Amber Wisner.
Trinity returns to the Cotton Bowl next Saturday, September 5, to host Brooklyn FC on Pride Night at 7:30 p.m. CT. Brooklyn sit bottom of the table, still without a point.