On a beautiful Saturday night in New Jersey, Sky Blue FC defeated the Boston Breakers 3-1.
Making her first home start since the Women’s World Cup ended, Kelley O’Hara scored in the 13th and 36th minutes to give the home team the lead going into halftime. Sam Kerr scored in the 52nd minute to put the game away for Sky Blue, although Boston’s Lauren Lazo managed to pull one back in the 82nd minute.
After the game, O’Hara admitted that she was exhausted. “I’m pretty exhausted, I’m not going to lie. Today, physically, it’s kind of the whole package exhausted, but it’s fun to be back and I’m happy. I love playing with this team.”
Despite her exhaustion, O’Hara was everywhere on the pitch, switching sides multiple times during the game and sometimes even dropping as far as the back line to cover a forward run by Caitlin Foord or Cami Levin.
The Boston Breakers are coming off of a stretch in which they played three games in eight days. Two of those three games were on the road, and both were losses. The Breakers battled to a 1-1 draw with the league leading Red Stars just three days ago.
“The girls were shattered,” Boston head coach Tom Durkin said. “Alyssa [Naeher] kept us in there.” Asked about positives taken from tonight’s loss, after praising Lauren Lazo and speaking about the shortcomings of his Brazilian players when in a tight physical game, Durkin said “The positive thing is that we don’t play for another seven days.”
“Either of these last three games could’ve turned it around for us,” Durkin continued. “We just have to solidify our lineup and just try to play well and see if we can get some results and try to enjoy playing.”
Sky Blue coach Jim Gabarra summed up the game by saying “I think we benefited from a fatigued team and… our strengths were really tough for them to match up against. We certainly came out strong and put them on the back foot. Attacking we’re starting to look really sharp and difficult to defend against.”
Sky Blue rookie goalkeeper Aubrey Bledsoe saw her first minutes of the season when she was subbed in at the 82nd minute. Gabarra said that he almost decided to start her in this game but being up 3-0 decided to use her as the third substitute to give her an opportunity to get onto the field. While she did let in a quick goal, she quickly got her feet under her and made a few saves to keep the score 3-1.
Sky Blue (14 pts, 3-6-5) will face the Western New York Flash (15 pts, 4-6-3) at home on Saturday, August 1st. The Flash recently added some firepower, signing Australian forward Michelle Heyman, who scored in her debut last week against Sky Blue, as well as the Colombian National Team’s Lady Andrade, who is mostly known by USWNT fans for punching Abby Wambach in the face during the 2012 Olympics.
