Shaw stuns in 2-0 victory against Utah Royals

Jaedyn Shaw shooting her first professional penalty kick in San Diego Wave’s 2-0 victory against the Utah Royals (Photo courtesy of San Diego Wave FC).

San Diego Wave won their first weekday match of the season on Wednesday, May 8, at home against the Utah Royals for their first ever meeting in a decisive 2-0 result with an especially strong match by the 19-year-old United States Women’s National Team star, Jaedyn Shaw.

It was Shaw’s best match of the season and her first start in two matches as she managed to score the first goal with her first ever professional penalty kick and assisted the second with a perfect through pass. 

“I think we’re all tired of losing or tying. We want to win,” forward Jaedyn Shaw said. “It’s our standard to win, and that’s all it really was. We were extremely motivated to go out there and put in the work to win and get three points at home. It was a great response (to) last weekend.”

The first goal came in the 35th minute as 16-year-old Kimmi Ascanio took a shot from just inside the penalty area and hit a Utah player’s slightly outstretched arm. The referee initially ruled the play a corner kick for the Wave, but after a quick Video Assisted Review the referee reversed the call and awarded the Wave a penalty kick.Shaw took the kick and shot it to her right with plenty of force to take the 1-0 lead.  

Shaw played what she has called her favorite position as a ‘10’ and received high praise from her head coach Casey Stoney who commended Shaw’s ability to hurt opposing teams when she faces their back four defenders.

“Shaw’s a creative player, so if we get her in the right areas we know we can hurt opponents, but we’ve also got to have people that are willing to run behind,” Stoney said. “I think we’ve lacked that in games previously, but tonight we certainly didn’t lack that.” 

Wave player’s running behind stretched out the Royals’ defense throughout the match and eventually used one of those opportunities to put them ahead with another goal.

That goal came in the 77th minute that started with a great pass by Shaw to Makenzy Doniak who was just substituted on minutes earlier for María Sánchez. Doniak had fresh legs and much more speed than the opposition and ran behind their defensive line easily to track down the long pass and only needed one touch with her left foot to send it past the diving goalkeeper to make it the final score of 2-0.

The Wave face a quick turnaround and will play at home on May 12, at 4:30 PST against the reigning NWSL champions Gotham FC. The Wave previously beat Gotham 1-0 with a late goal by Alex Morgan in the NWSL Challenge Cup to begin their season