Maja Lardner's Brace Lifts Racing Louisville Past Angel City FC

Angel City FC had the ball, the crowd and 30 shots' worth of good intentions on Sunday night. Racing Louisville had Maja Lardner, and that turned out to be the better hand.

Lardner scored in each half and Louisville survived a stoppage-time barrage to beat Angel City 2-1 at BMO Stadium in front of 15,908 fans. Sveindís Jónsdóttir pulled one back in the 80th minute, Riley Tiernan rattled the crossbar in stoppage time, and Jordyn Bloomer spent the final 10 minutes working the door like the strictest bouncer in Los Angeles. The result was Louisville's first win since a 3-1 victory over Portland on May 8, and it ended a six-match winless run of five losses and a draw.

Two Touches, Two Goals

Louisville's night started with a scramble. Macey Hodge went down early and was replaced by Sarah Weber in the seventh minute because of an injury, and Angel City, wearing custom rainbow-colored jerseys for Pride Night, settled into the kind of possession-heavy rhythm it likes. The hosts held 67 percent of the ball in the first half and outshot Louisville 11-8 before the break, according to the club.

Louisville did not need much of it. In the 24th minute, Katie O'Kane tried her luck from outside the box, Angelina Anderson made the first save, and Lardner was the only player who read the rebound. She poked it home from very close range into the bottom right corner, which also snapped Angel City's three-match shutout streak.

Angel City kept knocking. Ary Borges sent a header off a corner high and wide in the 28th minute, Emily Sams picked up a yellow card in the 36th, and the first-half stoppage time turned into a block party, with Louisville bodies throwing themselves in front of headers from Jónsdóttir and Borges.

Lardner nearly doubled the lead in the 52nd minute, when Anderson pushed away her shot from the center of the box after a Makenna Morris through ball. Three minutes later she made no mistake. Kayla Fischer swung in a cross, and Lardner headed it from point-blank range into the bottom left corner for a 2-0 lead. Five minutes after that, her night was done, with Emma Sears taking her place as Louisville started managing the game.

The Siege

What followed was Angel City throwing everything it owned at Bloomer. Ally Sentnor fired from distance again and again, Riley Tiernan came on in the 61st minute and Sophia Mattice in the 74th, and the pressure finally cracked something in the 80th. Mattice played a long ball forward, Jónsdóttir beat Arin Wright and slid a left-footed finish under Bloomer from the left side of the box. The club says it was the first assist of Mattice's career, in her first game action of the season, and Jónsdóttir's sixth goal of the year, tying Maiara Niehues for the club lead.

"The mentality was that we were always going to keep going forward, keep being positive," forward Claire Emslie said. "And we always felt like we were going to score, and we got one."

They nearly got two. Gisele Thompson's 85th-minute rocket rippled the side netting and briefly fooled the whole stadium. In the first minute of stoppage time, Tiernan cracked a shot off the bar from outside the box. A minute later, Bloomer had to deal with Mattice from the center of the box, and in the fifth added minute she got down to Sentnor's header off a Borges cross. Sears forced one last Anderson save at the other end before the whistle put Angel City out of its misery.

Who Showed Up

Maja Lardner gave Louisville everything it needed in an hour: three shots, three on target, two goals, and her first two goals of the season. The yellow card in first-half stoppage time was the only blemish, and honestly, a striker who scores twice gets to argue with the referee a little.

Jordyn Bloomer made five saves, and the timing of them mattered more than the number. The defense in front of her cleared the ball 47 times, and Kayla Fischer delivered the assist that turned out to be the winner.

For Angel City, Ally Sentnor was the most active player on the field with nine shots, but only two of them reached Bloomer. Jónsdóttir finished the one real chance that came her way, and Karsyn Cherry, per the club, made her first NWSL start and played 74 minutes before Mattice replaced her.

"Karsyn played a new position for her, and I think she did well," interim head coach Leif Smerud said.

The Turning Point

Lardner's header in the 55th minute decided this game. Angel City scored once and hit the woodwork once in the closing stretch, which means the second Louisville goal was not a luxury. It was the whole margin. Without it, this is a story about Angel City's comeback.

Stats That Matter

• Shots: Angel City 30, Louisville 14. Shots on target went the other way, 8-6 for Louisville.
• Possession: Angel City held 64 percent of the ball.
• Clearances: Louisville 47, Angel City 18.
• Saves: Anderson made six, Bloomer five.
• Crosses: Angel City attempted 27 and completed four.

What It Means

Louisville moves to 3-2-10 with 11 points, and the relief is real. The club had not won since beating Portland 3-1 on May 8, losing five times and drawing once in between, and this was a road win against a team that had just strung together three straight 2-0 victories over Orlando, San Diego and Chicago. Louisville's next stop is Kansas City on Wednesday.

Angel City falls to 7-1-7 with 22 points. Smerud did not want the result to wash out everything else.

"We have to look at more than the result," Smerud said. "When we lose, we have to find what was good, and when we win, we also have to look at what was not so good, so we can learn."

He also admitted the obvious. "The goal helped because we got the crowd going and [brought] more intensity," he said, before adding that "it's frustrating to lose a game like this." Angel City visits the Kansas City Current on Saturday, Aug. 1.

Closing Take

Angel City wrote 30 shots' worth of fan fiction on Sunday night. Lardner wrote the canon, in two lines, and nobody gets to edit it. Emslie summed it up better than any stat sheet could: "Unfortunately, we didn't put the ball in the back of the net enough times tonight."

Stats from ESPN's match data. Postgame quotes and additional details as reported by AngelCity.com.