{"id":91904,"date":"2025-09-22T12:12:56","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T16:12:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/equalizersoccer.com\/?p=91904"},"modified":"2025-09-22T12:12:56","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T16:12:56","slug":"laulettas-heat-check-current-lock-up-the-shield-dash-on-the-rise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/equalizersoccer.com\/2025\/09\/22\/laulettas-heat-check-current-lock-up-the-shield-dash-on-the-rise\/","title":{"rendered":"Lauletta&#8217;s Heat Check: Current lock up the Shield, Dash on the rise<div class=\"eqs-premium-tag\"><\/div>"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/equalizersoccer.com\/2025\/09\/20\/kansas-city-current-capture-first-major-trophy-with-2025-nwsl-shield\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Kansas City Current locked up the NWSL Shield<\/a> over the weekend.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>Before anyone else officially clinched a playoff berth. Before anyone has been officially eliminated from playoff contention. That makes them pretty good, right? Let\u2019s examine.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s how the clubs shape up after most of <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/equalizersoccer.com\/category\/nwsl-national-womens-soccer-league\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">National Women&#8217;s Soccer League<\/a><\/strong> Week 21 action:<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Cream of the Crop<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><strong>z-Kansas City Current (17-2-2, 53 pts; vs Reign, 2-0)<\/strong>:\u00a0Once the Spirit dropped points on Thursday, the Shield was in reach for the Current, and they took a firm hold of it with a 2-0 win over the Reign. All that\u2019s left now is the record book and the playoffs. The Current are a win away from matching last year\u2019s Pride and Spirit with 18 wins, and the shutout was their ninth straight (812 minutes in all), far and away a league record. Lorena skipped two of those so her personal mark is 632 which breaks Nicole Barnhart\u2019s record of 588 that stood for more than a decade.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Best of the Rest<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><strong>Washington Spirit (10-4-7, 37 pts; @ Angel City, 2-2)<\/strong>:\u00a0It wasn\u2019t perfect but they got out of Los Angeles with a draw and get a 10-day break before hosting the Houston Dash on Sunday afternoon. Defensively, the match highlighted how important Hal Hershfelt is to the operation as she missed the match after a red card in Kansas City. Offensively, the re-emergence of Croix Bethune as a threat to score or create something dangerous every time she hits the attacking third adds an element that makes them a threat to win any kind of match.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<div class=\"equalizer-paywall\">\n<div class=\"paywall-block\">\n<div class=\"paywall-heading\">\n      Access the best women&#8217;s soccer coverage all year long\n  <\/div>\n<div class=\"paywall-body\">\n     Start your FREE, 7-day trial of The Equalizer Extra for industry-leading reporting and insight on the USWNT, NWSL and beyond.\n  <\/div>\n<div class=\"paywall-button\">\n      <a href=\"https:\/\/equalizersoccer.com\/eqs\/subscribe\">Subscribe<\/a>\n  <\/div>\n<div class=\"login-note\">\n  <a href=\"https:\/\/equalizersoccer.com\/?memberful_endpoint=auth\">Existing Users Sign In Here<\/a>\n  <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"paywall-fade-block\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Kansas City Current locked up the NWSL Shield over the weekend. Before anyone else officially clinched a playoff berth. Before anyone has been officially eliminated from playoff contention. That makes them pretty good, right? Let\u2019s examine. Here\u2019s how the clubs shape up after most of National Women&#8217;s Soccer League Week 21 action: Cream of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":91908,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","MSN_Categories":"Uncategorized","MSN_Publish_Option":false,"MSN_Is_Local_News":false,"MSN_Is_AIAC_Included":"Empty","MSN_Location":"[]","MSN_Add_Feature_Img_On_Top_Of_Post":false,"MSN_Has_Custom_Author":false,"MSN_Custom_Author":"","MSN_Has_Custom_Canonical_Url":false,"MSN_Custom_Canonical_Url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[82],"tags":[1791,34,768],"class_list":["post-91904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nwsl-national-womens-soccer-league","tag-extra","tag-featured","tag-nwsl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/equalizersoccer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/equalizersoccer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/equalizersoccer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/equalizersoccer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/equalizersoccer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91904"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/equalizersoccer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91904\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91907,"href":"https:\/\/equalizersoccer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91904\/revisions\/91907"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/equalizersoccer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/equalizersoccer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/equalizersoccer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/equalizersoccer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}