Dallas Trinity came up short on a cool but humid evening in Lexington, Kentucky, on Friday night against the defending champs. Despite controlling the possession advantage in their usual way, 53% to 47%, Trinity just couldn’t create enough scoring opportunities.
“I think we had trouble today trying to find the spaces, and our switch point of attack could be better.” Coach Lee Nguyen said of the night. “We had chances in the second half to get one. There were crosses in the box that we weren’t able to get on the end of.”
While Trinity, on paper, had the larger number of shots with 17, a number of them came from distance (7), and according to Sofascore, the Golden Girls created no “big chances” for themselves. Compare that to Lexington’s 4, and you can see how Trinity came up short in goals.
“The second half was a little bit better for us in trying to create more chances in possession and being able to switch the point of attack,” said Coach Nguyen. His team collected 11 of their 17 shots in the 2nd.
Usual talismanic winger, Jasmine Hamid, was a focus for the opposition and came up short on the night with just 1 key pass, 0 successful dribbles, and 12 losses of possession. Her left-side counterpart, Onyeka Gamero, on the other hand, might have had the best game of the season with 5 key passes, 2/3 successful dribbles, and 89% passing overall.
“That was a big focus for us getting the ball on the wide areas,” said left back Cyera Hintzen after the game. “Me and Onyeka’s relationship is getting better in getting the ball to her quickly, so she can take people on one-on-one. So I think [Coach] Lee has really emphasized that, and we tried to show that tonight.”
Cat Barry and Addie McCain had goals for Lexington in the run of play, Barry added a second for her brace on a PK.
Dallas Trinity FC is on the road again on Saturday, Oct. 10th, at 6:30 pm CT against Brooklyn FC at Maimonides Park in Brooklyn, New York.
