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Bhatia Shares Lead In Detroit; Russell Misses Cut
KANSAS CITY, Missouri -- The Kansas City Current set a new National Women's Soccer League record Friday with a 2-0 victory over the Houston Dash at CPKC Stadium, marking the Current's 17th consecutive game without a loss. It is the longest unbeaten streak in the league's 11-year history.
Kansas City entered the match tied for the record with the 2014 Seattle Reign FC, who went the first 16 games of that season unbeaten. Kansas City's current streak dates to 2023; the Current are unbeaten through 15 games this season and sit atop the NWSL table.
On Friday, Current forward Temwa Chawinga scored twice late, giving her an NWSL-leading 11 goals this season, as the Current improved to 10-0-5 (35 pts.).
Houston, which was without head coach Fran Alonso on the sideline for what the team described as an illness, spent most of the match defending. Kansas City dictated the flow of the match from the outset, outshooting Houston 17-2 in the first half, but the Current frequently squandered their opportunities in front of net.
Chawinga broke the deadlock in the 77th minute, pouncing on a scuffed back pass from Houston defender Tarciane.
Two minutes later, Tarciane's errant back pass in Kansas City's half of the field put Chawinga in alone on goal, and Chawinga calmly dribbled around Dash goalkeeper Jane Campbell to tap the ball into the net. The goal was Chawinga's 11th of the season, putting her in the lead for the NWSL Golden Boot.
"Very happy," Kansas City head coach Vlatko Andonovski said of the result in his postgame news conference. "You can't be successful if you think that you're going to score five goals every game. You can't be successful if you don't win 1-0, if you don't score in the 90th minute, if you don't score in the first couple of minutes."
"All these little things are part of the process of building a successful team. Sometimes you even have to be the worst team on the field -- or not the better team -- and win games. That's also part of being a successful team. Sometimes you've got to get lucky and win games."
Under former United States women's national team head coach Andonovski, Kansas City has now scored 39 goals this season, 10 more than the next highest-scoring team. Seventeen different players have scored for the Current this season, an NWSL record.
The Current play one more game before the NWSL's summer break for the Olympics: a July 6 home game against the Orlando Pride.
Orlando is also unbeaten this season, through 14 games. The Pride travel to Los Angeles to face Angel City FC on Sunday and could pull level on points with Kansas City again with a victory.
The July 6 match in Kansas City could be the first NWSL game to feature a clash of two unbeaten teams this late in the season. If Orlando wins on Sunday to keep its streak alive, a subsequent victory in Kansas City on July 6 would end the Current's unbeaten run at 17 games and give Orlando a share of that record, which had not changed hands in a decade.
The 2014 Reign side won the NWSL Shield but lost in the NWSL Championship to an FC Kansas City team (the city's previous NWSL club) coached by Andonovski.
"I remember that team -- I remember the year, too," Andonovski joked about the 2014 Reign.
"Honestly, we have not mentioned that at all in the locker room, on the field, among the players. No one talks about it; no one cares about it. That's something that our media department is really happy about, and that's for the fans, too. We are gonna try whatever it takes to keep winning for them."
