**Houston, Texas** – The Houston Dash and Racing Louisville FC dueled to a scoreless draw that highlighted once again the impressive play of Louisville goalkeeper Katie Lund, who was active the entirety of the match. The result comes even with Louisville going down a player just before the halftime break, meaning their second half performance required that much more.
Early pressure from the hosts forced Louisville goalkeeper Katie Lund into impressive back-to-back saves in the third and fifth minutes of action. A ball into the box in that early chance ended up causing a bit of confusion, though the follow up shot from a Dash player was cleared off the line and away from goal. Then, Salmon was played clean through on goal and into a one-v-one situation with the shotstopper Lund. With Salmon closing in, the attacker attempted to just beat the ball past Lund with some power only for the Racing netminder to do well and kick it away.
Another big opening in the 31 ^st minute this time as Lund almost committed an error on the edge of the penalty area. Coming to collect a ball in, Lund straddled the 18-yard box line where she realized she would have to let the ball go to prevent an infraction. Dropping the ball in a good spot for Houston, midfielder Shea Groom then had a look on goal and pushed it toward goal over the heads of all involved. However, the ball would land eventually wide of the goalmouth and the chance went missing.
Then in the 42 ^nd minute, Ebony Salmon received a pass on the edge of the attacking penalty are and, as she turned, she drew a foul on defender Satara Murray, who in turn would receive a red card having earned her first yellow card just 10 minutes earlier. Over the free kick stood Sophie Schmidt, but her delivery could not get up and down enough and the chance went missing.
At the half, though Houston feels as if they should have scored, getting to play up a player in the second half was an opportunity they would relish with all the points to play for.
The second half left far less to enjoy in terms of attacking opportunities when compared to the first half. Houston attempted to get forward Nichelle Prince more into the game while Louisville injected substitutes like Jessica McDonald into the game in an attempt to shine some light on the encounter. Multiple substitutes were made toward the end of the second half, and one of which saw forward Wang Shuang not only make her NWSL debut but also become the first Chinese player to feature in NWSL league play in its history.
The hosts continued to press Lund and her goal late on as they sought what would certainly be a winner, but a distance from effort by Sophia Schmidt with Houston was about as good as it got.
In the end, a point for both sides isn’t terrible considering the picture. Houston extends their unbeaten streak to four games now, while Racing Louisville draws their straight game in pursuit of a playoff position.

Match Highlights

Match Highlights