San Diegans score for Seattle Reign in 2-0 win against Wave
Wave players regroup after conceding a goal to Seattle Reign in their 2-0 defeat at home (Emmanuel Alonso/Sandiego.futbol)
San Diego Wave lost 2-0 against the Seattle Reign, but San Diego Surf came out on top as two of the youth club’s alumni scored goals for the Reign within a few minutes to win 2-0.
The loss continued San Diego’s abysmal record against the Reign making it 1W-3D-10L across all competitions. Seattle featured a starting lineup of more native San Diegans with three former San Diego Surf players with Jordyn Bugg, Mia Fishel and Maddie Mercado.
The Wave came out a bit slow to start the match with limited quality attacking chances and conceded a goal in the 17th minute during a throw in. The Reign completed a quick thrown then 18-year-old Ainsley McCammon sent a long ball into the box for Surf alum, Maddie Mercado.
Mercado used her height to get over the Wave defense and head the ball in easily to make it 1-0.
The Reign controlled the momentum following the goal and earned a corner kick within a few minutes. Seattle sent the ball toward the back post and McCammon headed it forward for a better opportunity.
The ball went toward Jordyn Bugg, another Surf alum who trained with the Wave in 2023 and 2024 as a youth. Bugg headed the ball backwards and Mercado rushed ahead drawing the Wave center backs together and away. The ball floated back as the defenders moved forward allowing it to go past the line to make it 2-0 in the 20th minute.
“At the end of the day you choose where you want to put your belief, and I always fully believe all the way to the final whistle that this is going to be out game,” Eidevall said. “I think there’s a conscious choice for anything that you do in life that you can’t guarantee the outcome in anything that you do, but you choose where you put your belief.
“To believe in positive outcomes is really important. Not just in football, that’s for everyone in life. Believe in positive outcomes. The players certainly did that. They kept on going, that’s good for us we can build on that.”
Melanie Barcenas, another Surf product, had the best chance of the night after getting behind the Seattle backline to head the ball in, but Reign goalkeeper Claudia Dickey made a great save to keep the lead.
The Reign conceded the possession for the rest of the second half and were composed defensively with lots of numbers in the back, typical for a Laura Harvey coached squad.
Wave center back Kristen McNabb previously played under Harvey when she first became a professional, and spoke about the difficulties of breaking down the Reign’s defense.
“They’re always a very tactically sound team. They get a lot of bodies behind the ball, and they’re very compact and they’re hard to break down,” said McNabb. “Especially a team like us that loves to play central it makes it hard when there’s so many bodies in the middle of the field.
“But it’s not an excuse for how we played today. I think we’ve learned how to deal with that and we’ve shown in past games that we can do a lot better.”
Dickey continued to play an excellent match making a career-high eight total saves on the night against what ended as an expected goals on target differential of 2.40, an impressive number for any goalkeeper.
San Diego Wave now hold the fourth spot in the NWSL standings through 17 matches, and play their next match on the road on Sunday, August 2, against the top team in the league, the Washington Spirit.
