WUSA Week 18 Wrap

Playoff race comes into focus as season winds down

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By Scott French, Soccer America

END OF THE RACE: The complex scenarios produced by the tightest of the three WUSA playoff races turned simple in the penultimate week of the regular season, with Atlanta, Boston and Washington -- clearly the three best teams this season -- nabbing semifinal spots and San Diego taking control in the battle for the fourth berth.

The Beat, which has scored only two goals in its past four games, has the inside track for a home semifinal, with a two-point lead on Boston and Washington with two games to play. It may need wins over San Jose and Philadelphia to win the regular-season title but would settle for second place.

The Breakers -- playoff qualifiers for the first time -- won their season series with the Freedom and would be home should they tie for second.

PIVOTAL CLASH: San Diego neared its first semifinal with a not-as-close-as-it-sounds 1-0 victory, on Julie Fleeting's 10th goal, Sunday night over visiting Carolina in the season's most critical encounter. The Spirit will clinch on Wednesday should the Courage (at Boston) and San Jose (home against Atlanta) fail to win.

Carolina, less than a week ago, controlled the battle for the final berth. One-goal losses Wednesday at home to San Jose and then in San Diego -- both featuring nullified Courage goals -- destroyed the advantage, although the Courage also was outplayed in both games and outshot, 36-17, for the week.

Officials offered the Courage no help. A clear penalty -- Betsy Barr taking down Birgit Prinz in the eighth minute -- was missed by referee Rachel Woo, and a phantom offside call erased Venus James' 87th-minute equalizer in the 2-1 defeat to San Jose.

Unni Lehn's freakish goal to even things in San Diego -- a chip slapped onto the crossbar by the keeper that bounced with backspin into the net -- was waved off when referee Sandra Hunt and linesman Raymundo Prisco ruled that Prinz had ''participated'' in the play. Prinz tried to head Lehn's shot off its bounce, but she failed to touch the ball as it bounded over her head and into the net.

STATEMENT-MAKERS: Washington, the hottest team heading into last year's postseason, is warming up as the crucial matches arrive. An emphatic 5-0 victory over San Jose, fueled by Mia Hamm's first WUSA hat trick and a two-goal, two-assist performance by Abby Wambach, was the Freedom's second successive shutout and fourth game without a loss.

Hamm got her three goals in a 15-minute span late in the first half and early in the second, but Wambach -- chosen July's Player of the Month a few days earlier -- was more prominent.

Wambach's long run set up Hamm's first goal, her cross set up the second, and her flick header set up the third. The big forward added her 12th and 13th goals of the season late in the rout and has scored eight in her past seven matches.

Hamm's was the fifth WUSA hat trick of 2003, the 10th all-time.

ON THE VERGE: Washington needs to score just one more goal to tie the single-season league record, 40, set by the Freedom and Carolina last season.

BEST GOAL: The last of Hamm's trio, a 55th-minute death blow to the CyberRays, was pretty spectacular. Freedom goalkeeper Siri Mullinix, who had just caught a long shot from Sissi, punted the ball about 15 yards into San Jose territory. Abby Wambach tracked it, then twisted to outjump Thori Bryan, nodding the ball toward the box.

Hamm, behind Wambach when Mullinix booted, raced past Dianne Alagich while running to the ball as it bounced into the 'Rays' box. She got to it after the second bounce, about 13 yards out, a bit to the left of the penalty spot and just a few feet in front of goalkeeper LaKeysia Beene.

Hamm got to the ball on the volley, lifting it with the outside of her right foot over Beene's left shoulder and bouncing it into the right-side netting.

A DIFFERENT HAT: Maren Meinert had an assist hat trick in Boston's 3-2 win Friday night at New York, a brilliant series to set up Kristine Lilly's second goal of the campaign and Dagny Mellgren's 12th and 13th.

Meinert set up Lilly by angling the ball off Power defender Jaclyn Raveia's leg. She fed Mellgren after luring defenders away while advancing the ball, then presented the Norwegian an open net after racing onto Devvyn Hawkins' through ball.

Meinert had a three-assist game last season against San Diego. Hers is the fourth such total this season, the eighth in three seasons.

STATEMENT-MAKERS, PART 2: Its sad fate already determined, last-place Philadelphia responded Saturday by bombing the Beat, 3-0, on a pair of goals by Marinette Pichon and a goal and assist by Atlanta castoff Emily Burt. The win snapped the Charge's five-game losing streak and was its first victory in nine matches.

Atlanta, the only WUSA team to reach the postseason all three seasons, hadn't been beaten in five games, but they're struggling to score four games into a season-long five-game road stretch.

Philly is the second team to score three goals on the Beat, which had allowed only 14 goals through its first 18 matches. Carolina scored a 3-2 victory on July 4. Atlanta has surrendered two goals only twice ... to Philly and Carolina.

The Charge and Courage have each scored five goals in three games with the Beat. The rest of the league has scored seven.

FIRST SHUTOUTS: Philly's Hope Solo and San Diego's Jenni Branam, the only rookie goalkeepers seeing significant time this season, notched their first shutouts. Solo needed to make only two saves in the Charge's win over Atlanta. Branam made four as the Spirit topped Carolina.

ROUGH WEEK: For referee Woo.

Carolina was incensed -- although circumspect in its criticism -- with her after the loss to San Jose. Then she was injured in the first half of the Philadelphia-Atlanta game -- the nature of her injuries has not been disclosed -- and became the fourth official for the second half, with linesman Adam Smeltz taking charge of the whistle.

WUSA SUMMARIES WEEK 18: Freedom, Charge romp

July 30 at Cary, N.C.

Goals: Slaton (O'Hanley) 48; Alagich 46, Katia (French) 63.

Att.: 5,877.

Aug. 1 at Uniondale, N.Y.

Goals: Salisbury (Milbrett) 46, Janss (Boxx, Baumgardt) 92+; Lilly (Meinert) 2, Mellgren (Meinert) 12, Mellgren (Meinert, Hawkins) 90.

Att.: 4,467.