{"id":92012,"date":"2025-10-07T12:11:40","date_gmt":"2025-10-07T16:11:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/equalizersoccer.com\/?p=92012"},"modified":"2025-10-08T09:59:42","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T13:59:42","slug":"laulettas-heat-check-statement-win-for-racing-bays-futility-continues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/equalizersoccer.com\/2025\/10\/07\/laulettas-heat-check-statement-win-for-racing-bays-futility-continues\/","title":{"rendered":"Lauletta&#8217;s Heat Check: Statement win for Racing, Bay&#8217;s futility continues<div class=\"eqs-premium-tag\"><\/div>"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<p>Three weeks to go in the <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> regular season, and things are as tight as they\u2019ve ever been at this point in the season. Ten teams are mathematically alive for the final six playoff spots. Nine teams remain in the running to join the Kansas City Current as quarterfinal hosts. And the roster freeze date is not until Thursday (October 9).<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s how the clubs shape up after most of Week 23.<\/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 (19-2-2, 56 pts; @ Angel City, 1-0)<\/strong>:\u00a0Even the B-team doesn\u2019t lose or concede goals. Mary Long made her first NWSL start, Katie Scott her second and Alex Pfeiffer her first of the season. Temwa Chawinga did not dress. No matter. The Current\u2019s 1-0 win away to Angel City was their 19th, establishing a new single-season standard for the NWSL. The shutout brought the goals against average back under 0.50 with 11 goals conceded in 23 matches. Lorena now has 13 shutouts to tie a league record.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">https:\/\/twitter.com\/thekccurrent\/status\/1975587550401339498<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Title contenders<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><strong>x-Washington Spirit (12-4-7, 43 pts; vs Wave, 2-1)<\/strong>:\u00a0They had it. And then they didn\u2019t. And then they did. On an afternoon when finishing was not in vogue for the Spirit, they didn\u2019t let a stoppage time equalizer deter them. They pushed forward after that and stole the win back on Rose Kouassi\u2019s looping shot from distance that went over Kailen Sheridan\u2019s head into the far corner. They appear<\/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>Racing Louisville earned a statement win in Week 23, while Emma Sears makes a case for MVP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":92016,"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-92012","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\/92012","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=92012"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/equalizersoccer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92012\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":92036,"href":"https:\/\/equalizersoccer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92012\/revisions\/92036"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/equalizersoccer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/equalizersoccer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/equalizersoccer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/equalizersoccer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}