The win, which ended the crew’s three-game NWSL shedding streak, was simply the second within the league since May 3 for Angel City (5-9-3), which jumped to eighth place and a playoff spot within the 14-team league standings with 9 video games remaining.
The recreation additionally marked the return of Christen Press to the NWSL, coming off the bench within the 89th minute for her first league look in 26 months. A two-time World Cup champion, Press tore her proper anterior cruciate ligament eight video games into Angel City’s inaugural 2022 season and required 4 surgical procedures to restore the injury.
Press, 35, performed restricted minutes in a Summer Cup match with San Diego and a pleasant in opposition to FC Juárez earlier this month.
The Wave had been lacking seven gamers on account of damage, and Angel City took benefit within the twentieth minute when Thompson overcame a misplaced contact from Wave defender Hanna Lundkvist simply exterior the field, rounded goalkeeper Kailen Sheridan after which fired a left-footed shot into the again of the empty internet for her first objective.
Thompson celebrated by working to the Angel City bench, the place Press and backup goalkeeper Angelina Anderson hugged her.
She didn’t have to attend lengthy for her subsequent objective, doubling the lead on the finish of a Twenty ninth-minute counterattack. The sequence started with former Wave midfielder Meggie Dougherty Howard passing the ball to Thompson within the Angel City zone. After dribbling 40 yards up the center of the sphere, Thompson minimize throughout the highest of the penalty field to create house between a quartet of defenders, then pulled herself as much as put a right-footed shot by Sheridan’s gloved palms and simply over the objective line.
With the brace, Thompson’s first as an expert, the 19-year-old turned simply the second teenager, after Mallory Swanson, to attain a couple of objective in an NWSL regular-season recreation.
San Diego’s lone objective got here on Abby Dahlkemper’s header from an Alex Morgan free kick within the seventh minute of stoppage time.
