Bay FC Blank Racing Louisville 2-0 as Karlie Lema Ties Club Record and Jordan Silkowitz Hits 100 Season Saves

Bay FC spent 45 minutes knocking on the door, hitting the woodwork and staring at Jordyn Bloomer. Then it took the door off the hinges in six minutes.

Alex Pfeiffer scored in the 50th minute, Karlie Lema added a second in the 56th, and Bay beat Racing Louisville FC 2-0 on Sunday in front of 11,427 fans at PayPal Park. Jordan Silkowitz kept the clean sheet, the club's seventh of the season and a new Bay record, and along the way became just the sixth goalkeeper in league history to make 100 saves in a single regular season, according to the club.

All Pressure, No Payoff

The first half was a one-way street, and Louisville spent most of it walking backward. Bay held more than 60 percent of the ball early on, per the club, and the chances stacked up fast. Aldana Cometti had a header blocked off a 13th-minute corner and Lema blasted the rebound just over. Jenna Nighswonger forced Bloomer into a save in the 17th. Then came the 21st-to-23rd-minute flurry: Lema headed wide, Racheal Kundananji's header was saved, and Claire Hutton's header bounced off the crossbar.

Bloomer kept saying no. She stopped Kundananji from distance in the 40th minute and Lema from a tight angle in the 41st, and Hutton dragged a shot just wide in first-half stoppage time. Louisville's only real look of the half came in the second minute, when Emma Sears tested Silkowitz from outside the box.

Racing head coach Bev Yanez said the first-half problems came down to the team's "ability to secure the ball in transition," which left little chance to rest.

The Turning Point: Six Minutes in the Second Half

Bay finally cashed in five minutes after the restart. Kundananji drove a low cross into the box, and Pfeiffer met it with a left-footed finish into the top left corner. It was Pfeiffer's fourth goal of 2026 and her first since March 28 at North Carolina, per the club. Racing noted it was the third time in four matches it had conceded within the first five minutes of the second half, which is the kind of stat that keeps a coaching staff up at night.

Six minutes later, Bay doubled the lead out of chaos. Another Kundananji cross was blocked and cleared off the line, but Lema pounced on the clearance and finished from point-blank range. That was the ballgame.

To Louisville's credit, it did not go quietly. A triple substitution in the 71st minute brought on Audrey McKeen, Maja Lardner and Rachel Hill, and the visitors finally pushed Bay back. Lardner had a shot from the six-yard box blocked in the 80th, Silkowitz made her big save in the 82nd, McKeen's header was blocked a minute later and Lardner dragged another effort wide off a corner. It was the best spell Racing had all night, and it came about 30 minutes too late.

Head coach Emma Coates was happy, though not entirely satisfied. "Really pleased with the win tonight and the clean sheet," Coates said. "I think that does a lot for the team and the confidence. I actually thought we probably could have and should have scored more, I thought we created a lot of good chances."

Star Turns

Karlie Lema had five shots, two on target and one goal before coming off for Cristiana Girelli in the 64th minute. The club says it was her seventh goal of the season, tying Bay's record for goals in a single regular season, set in 2024.

Racheal Kundananji was the best player on the field without scoring. She assisted the opener, created the second and finished with five shots, three on target.

Alex Pfeiffer ended a long drought with the opener and had three shots, two on target.

Jordan Silkowitz only needed two saves, but the second one, an 82nd-minute stop on a Courtney Petersen strike from outside the box, put her in the history books. Per Bay, it was her 100th save of the 2026 regular season, and she sits within reach of the all-time single-season record of 113, set by Houston's Jane Campbell in 2024.

Jordyn Bloomer deserves her flowers in a loss: six saves, three of them on Kundananji. Without her, this was a rout.

Stats That Matter

• Shots: Bay 22, Louisville 6.
• Shots on target: Bay 9, Louisville 2.
• Possession: Bay 59.5 percent, Louisville 40.5.
• Saves: Bloomer 6, Silkowitz 2.
• Long balls: Bay completed 34 of 55; Louisville completed 14 of 55.

What It Means

Bay improved to 7-5-13 with 26 points. It was the club's first win since a 1-0 result against Houston on Aug. 23, it followed Wednesday's 2-2 draw at Denver to make it two unbeaten in a row, and it completed a season sweep of Louisville after a 2-0 win in Kentucky in July. Racing's recap said the result moved Bay up a place in the table.

Coates also pointed out the toll of the schedule. "Second half, I think we were just a little bit tired, and probably the three-game week probably caught up with us," Coates said. Bay gets a short breather before hosting the Orlando Pride at PayPal Park on Sept. 27.

Louisville fell to 7-2-16 with 23 points. Per the club, it was Racing's fifth straight loss, a skid dating to Aug. 23, and the team sat 15th with five matches left. Bloomer did not sugarcoat it. "The result is frustrating, and that's probably true for everyone watching as well," she said. "I know it's been a tough season for us."

Yanez was blunt, too: "Right now the reality is, full transparency, we all know it, we have to keep fighting." Defender Quincy McMahon pointed to the locker room as the thing holding the group together. "We have a lot of great people and a lot of great leaders," she said. Racing returns home to host the San Diego Wave on Friday.

Closing Take

For 45 minutes, Bay looked like someone trying to remember a password, typing every combination but getting locked out. After the break, it finally found the right one, twice in six minutes. Louisville fought, Bloomer starred, and Bay still walked away with the points and a goalkeeper who just joined a very exclusive club.

Stats from ESPN's match data. Postgame quotes as reported by BayFC.com and RacingLouFC.com.