Red Star Casey Short (Photo credit: Don MacGregor).
BRIDGEVIEW, IL—Are the Chicago Red Stars starting to be in form as one of the best teams in the NWSL? Good question, but the season is quite young and about a quarter of the way through so far..
Consideration has to be taken in account for the Red Stars with a victory on the road in North Carolina last weekend and now a 3-2 win hosting the Courage at Toyota Park on Saturday afternoon. It also leaves Chicago with a mark of 4-2-1 and 13 points closing in on the top of the league.
“I thought we came out with a big response in the second half (against North Carolina),” said Chicago head coach Rory Dames with a couple of goals in a seven-minute span for a 3-1 lead. “We found our way into it a little bit. I really don’t know if we really found a rhythm. I part of that is a credit to (North Carolina). They had a midweek game and we didn’t. They found a way to fight back. They’re just a really really, really hard team to play against. We’ll take the points, because we know how hard it is to get points in this league.”
Still, trying to play a team back-to-back was no easy task for a coach or the players in planning or playing on the field two weeks in a row. Especially playing against a good team like North Carolina (5-3-0, 15 pts)
“I think the game plan we had against them was right,” Dames said. “I think it changed in the first half, because they changed in the first half (Saturday). In the second half, it was more the way that they play. So. we went back into it a little bit more.”
One thing that has changed for the Red Stars has been scoring goals and from different players than Christen Press, which has been a welcome site that makes other teams trying to figure out the main threats to stop. It’s something for Chicago to build on to get better as they keep growing this season.
“If you were telling me four weeks ago that we would be winning games 3-2, I would take it, Dames said. “We’re starting to find our scoring shoes a little bit. Our standards have gone up and our expectations have gone up. We know who we are and who we want to be. We want to keep working towards that.”
The Red Stars have another week to get ready for another test hosting the Seattle Reign Sunday, June 4th at 2pm.
