Shea Groom headed in Mia Corbin's corner in the 63rd minute on Saturday, Sept. 19, at American Legion Memorial Stadium in Charlotte, and that was the whole of the scoring in Carolina Ascent's 1-0 win over Brooklyn FC. Carolina took 25 shots. Brooklyn took one, and did not put it on target.
The win kept Carolina first in the Gainbridge Super League, four points clear with a match in hand, and Sporting JAX, the club it beat in last season's semifinal, comes to Charlotte on Saturday, Sept. 26. Three of Carolina's five wins this fall are 1-0.
Head coach Philip Poole's assessment afterward was not about the defending.
"I just think we've got to make it less interesting," he said. "We've got to take some chances. We've got to hit the back of the net. I think we had a ton of chances."
On Sept. 5, after a 3-0 win over Fort Lauderdale United FC, Poole made a similar complaint: "This match could have been 6-6." That night Carolina scored three. Against Brooklyn it scored once from 25 shots. Carolina created the chances, did not take most of them, and won anyway.
First in the Table
Carolina, Charlotte's professional women's soccer club, is top of the eight-team Gainbridge Super League. The league publishes its standings on its own site, and as of Sept. 22 the table reads: Carolina Ascent FC, six matches played, 15 points, first. DC Power FC is second with 11 points from seven matches. Sporting JAX is third with 10 from six, level with Dallas Trinity FC.
Fifteen points from six matches is five wins and a defeat, which is the record the club states. The defeat was the home opener on August 29, 2-1 to Tampa Bay Sun FC.
Sixth in that table is Lexington SC, the club that beat Carolina 3-1 in extra time on May 30 in the first championship game in Carolina's history, the final of the league's previous season, and won the league doing it. Brooklyn FC is eighth with three points.
The fall season is 14 matches long and Carolina has played six. First place at the end of it takes the Players' Shield; the top four go to the playoffs, with semifinals on December 5 and the final on December 12. September standings are not a trophy. They are a different place to be standing than the club was in May.
What Brooklyn Did
The match was level at the hour, and Brooklyn goalkeeper Bre Norris had made the saves that kept it there.
Norris tipped Addisyn Merrick's shot over the bar in the 34th minute, on a counter Groom started. She deflected a second Merrick shot wide just after halftime, then got a hand to Audrey Coleman's cross-shot in the 55th. In the 90th, with Carolina still only a goal up, she shuffled across her line and caught a left-footed shot Groom hit toward the upper corner.
Brooklyn's own recap counts 70.6 percent of aerial duels won and 13 more clearances than the Ascent.
The goal came from the one delivery Brooklyn could not clear. Corbin swung a corner in from the left. By Carolina's account Groom headed it through a crowd and into the net; by Brooklyn's, the flick-on went through and the defenders could not get it off the line. The two clubs agree on the minute, the corner and the scorer.
Carolina's Coleman and Jill Aguilera were booked, in the 60th minute and the 70th. Emma Loving was booked for Brooklyn in the 81st.
Groom, Off the Ball
Asked about Groom, Poole answered about the parts of the night that were not the goal.
"I think a lot of what you don't see is what she does off the ball, the defending, the little angles she gives, the little moments she wins," he said. "I thought she was great today."
Groom said she was on the ball more than usual.
"Probably tonight more than a lot of the games this season, I felt like I was getting on the ball a lot, getting into dangerous positions or putting people in dangerous positions," she said.
Merrick, who had two of the chances Norris stopped, was more upbeat. "I think tonight was one of our more complete performances, and that shows we're moving in the right direction," she said. "I think our ceiling is so high."
Sporting JAX Next
Carolina is home again Saturday, Sept. 26, against Sporting JAX, the Jacksonville club it beat 1-0 in last season's semifinal on a sixth-minute goal from Mackenzie George. JAX is third, five points back, and has lost its last two.
Match detail and quotes are from Carolina Ascent FC's September 19 release and Brooklyn FC's September 19 release. Standings, including form, are read from the Gainbridge Super League's published table on September 22. Carolina's August 29 result is from The Charlotte Mercury's earlier coverage.