Kate Del Fava said the ball sailing toward her was so perfect all she had to do was get her head to it.
And after celebrating her game-winning goal — a breakthrough 1-0 victory that snapped Utah Royals FC’s 10-game winless streak — Del Fava wants to make sure her team stays headed in the right direction now.
“Now we know what we’re capable of,” the defender said after beating fellow expansion side Bay FC on Sunday. “We’re capable of a shutout. We’re capable of a three-point performance. So the standard definitely goes up.”
A 25-year-old veteran on a young expansion team, Del Fava acknowledged there had been trying times for the last-place Royals, who hadn’t won a match since March 22.
“It’s impossible not to know and to not kind of let it affect you a little bit,” she said. “But we just tried to stick to our process. We knew the performances we were putting in didn’t necessarily deserve 10 losses in a row.
“We just had to stick to the way we were going and we knew we were getting better with every game. We really felt like this was an opportunity to snap that.”
The Royals had suffered four straight 1-0 defeats heading into Sunday’s match.
“We were right there,” Del Fava said of their recent heartbreaks. “So I took a lot of responsibility, and I felt a lot of — not pressure — but I wanted to help the girls any way I could.”
She did that in a big way Sunday.
The defender had a late game-saving tackle against Bay FC’s Deyna Castellanos. Then Del Fava headed home the winning goal herself in the 89th minute, racing to celebrate with her teammates and head coach Amy Rodriguez after snapping their 10-game streak.
“On the inside I am jumping for joy,” the coach said afterward. “I’m so excited for my team. They found a way to win in a hostile environment.”
Rodriguez added: “When you’re an expansion team and you’re really digging yourselves out of the hole that we’ve been playing in, it’s exciting to see players step up. They deserved that win. I’m proud of them.”
Now Del Fava said she is intent on making sure her Royals don’t backslide into another ugly streak, starting with Saturday’s match in Orlando.
“It’s just a next-game-up mentality. Not looking too far into the future,” she said. “I think if we keep doing it the way we have been, pieces will fall into place and hopefully that won’t happen again.”
