It was a marquee matchup at America First Field on Wednesday: a top-three battle in the NWSL standings between first-place Washington and third-place Utah, made all the more dramatic by an hourlong weather delay in the first half.

Two of the league’s top offenses were ultimately stifled by the long layoff and an unpredictable whistle, resulting in a lackluster 1-0 win for the visiting Spirit.

The only goal came on a “lapse of five seconds against a world-class player,” according to Royals coach Jimmy Coenraets.

Washington’s Paige Metayer got the ball on a breakaway along the right wing in the 28th minute and delivered a perfect cross in front of the goal to the sprinting Trinity Rodman, who buried the ball for her eighth goal of the season.

“They can have one chance and put it in the back of the net,” defender Kaleigh Riehl said of what makes Washington so dangerous as an attacking team.

Capital lapses

The differences go deeper than just a five-second lapse, though, as Coenraets was happy to elaborate, going so far as to say the Spirit are in a phase “far above” Utah at the moment.

And yet, Coenraets and many spectators on Wednesday night would likely say that disparity was not as noticeable in a game that Utah dominated in every statistic but goals.

The Royals had 19 shots to Washington’s six and a staggering 36 touches in the opponent’s box to just nine for the Spirit. The oft-criticized “expected goals” statistic had Utah edging toward two goals, only for the night to end with none.

“Where they capitalized on five seconds, we probably had about one minute and 30 of those five-second moments, but we didn’t capitalize on it,” Coenraets said.

So what separates Washington at the top of the standings? Coenraets pointed to the playoff pedigree.

The Spirit appeared in the last two NWSL Championship games and won the whole thing in 2021. Rodman, at the ripe age of 24, has already played in a World Cup and Olympics for the USWNT, scoring three goals en route to a gold medal at the latter.

“They’ve played finals, they’ve played semifinals and quarterfinals — they’ve played it all,” Coenraets said of Washington. “As much as everything might go against them, they know how to bounce back. That will eventually be what we get to, but it’s just going to take time.”

What’s next?

If a little more than 50 NWSL games across three seasons for Coenraets have gotten his team to the top three in the standings, one can really start to dream about where the next 50 could take Utah.

As for the here and now, the 31-year-old coach has another game to prepare for on Sunday, this time welcoming the fifth-place Portland Thorns to Sandy for another potential playoff battle.

He just hopes the scoreboard looks a little different in that match.

“You’ve just competed with the best; just make sure next week you put those balls away, because you can’t keep on saying you competed with the best,” Coenraets said. “No, we want to compete, and we also want to win against the best.”

With two more wins this season, Utah will have already tied its combined win total from the previous two seasons. Thirteen more opportunities remain in 2026, including seven at home, starting on Sunday at 5 p.m. MDT against Portland.