Vancouver Rise

Vancouver Rise fall 3-0 to Ottawa Rapid in last home match of regular season

The Vancouver Rise’s hopes of finishing first in the Northern Super League table took a big hit on Saturday, as they fell 3-0 to the Ottawa Rapid at Swangard Stadium. 

After suffering a tough 7-0 loss away to AFC Toronto last weekend, one that snapped an eight-game unbeaten run for the Rise, their troubles continued in this game, as they lost back-to-back games for the first time since June. 

As a result, they now sit nine points behind first-place AFC Toronto with four games left in the regular season, which may just be a gap too big for them to overcome. 

Plus, to add salt to the wound, the Rise also missed an opportunity to clinch a playoff spot with this defeat, too, as a victory or draw would’ve officially secured them the fourth and final berth in the NSL’s postseason. 

To be fair, the last factor is the least of their worries, as all they need from their last four games to make the playoffs is to either gain one point or have the Calgary Wild drop one point, but they would’ve loved to officially clinch a berth at home – and move up back into the top two in the process. 

Now, they’ll finish their season exclusively on the road, as trips to Halifax, Ottawa, Montréal and Calgary await them in those last four games, which is far from an easy schedule, leaving them with an uphill battle as they look to finish the season on a high note. 

For what it’s worth, though, while they’ll be frustrated with the nature of this heavy defeat, as it’s never easy to lose at home in such fashion, the Rise can be pleased with their performance, even if they’ll be unhappy with their execution. 

Especially in the first half, they had Ottawa pinned back, they seemed the likelier of the two teams to score. Because of that, it felt like a gut punch to see Ottawa eventually score in the 38th minute, as Stella Downing got on the end of a great flick from Delaney Baie Pridham, finding the bottom corner on the breakaway to give her team a 1-0 lead. 

That caught the Rise off guard, as they’d been the better team up to that point, leaving them to push more numbers forward as they tried to break down a resolute Ottawa side that was content with sitting back after a tiring week of travel. 

Therefore, despite the Rise’s best efforts to level the game, Ottawa eventually pulled away in the 78th minute, as Pridham snuck behind Vancouver’s defence on a counter-attack after a series of mistakes, and she calmly dispatched her league-leading 18th goal in the process. 

From there, Ottawa did well to add a third late, as Jazmine Wilkinson headed home a nice cross from Nicola Golen, and that’d be all this game would have to offer. 

Unfortunately, despite a late push, the Rise were unable to find the net, as they tried to send their fans home with a bit of a consolation effort. 

Now, this leaves the Rise in an interesting position heading into those last four games, as they now sit four points behind second-place Ottawa and three points behind third-place Montréal, sitting with a game in hand over Ottawa. They do play both teams on the road in a four-day stretch in October, so they could still turn things around and finish second, but that won’t be easy to pick up results in both matches. 

It won’t be impossible, as they showed that they’re capable of beating anyone during that impressive eight-game unbeaten run, but they’ll have to re-find the balance they found on both sides of the ball during that stretch. 

For example, in this game, despite doing quite well at creating chances and limiting Ottawa’s opportunities, as the Rise outshot their visitors 19-8, the Rise were unable to get any of their eight shots on target past Ottawa’s Melissa Dagenais, while Ottawa made the most of their five shots on target.

Yet, that shows that the focus heading into those next matches for the Rise will be to clean up the small details in their game. Since they started their mid-summer surge, they’ve seemed to find a strong identity on the ball, but they’ll now need to ensure that these two defeats doesn’t hurt their confidence in both boxes, having been outscored 10-0 by the top two teams in the league table. 

The good news is that they’ve got a great bounce-back opportunity in their next match, a visit to Halifax to take on the last-place Halifax Tides. It won’t be an easy match, as it’s tough to travel across the country like that, but with their next two games being those back-to-back games vs. Ottawa and Montréal, it’d set the table for what awaits them in those two matches. 

Because of that, look for them to show that their mid-summer form wasn’t an aberration against Halifax, as they’d love nothing more than to harness that energy as the business end of their first-ever campaign starts to approach. 

“We’re disappointed.” Rise head coach, Anja Heiner-Møller said after. “I don’t think the result from today showed the game. I think it was a game where we dominated most of the game and we produced chances.”

“We need to be sharper when scoring chances, but when we don’t, we also don’t want to concede as much. So yeah, we’re disappointed. We felt like in that first half, we were dominant, but we needed to close that match.”

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