Utah Royals FC come back late to tie Sky Blue 2-2

It was a dark and stormy night somewhere in New Jersey when your Utah Royals FC went down early to a struggling Sky Blue FC. Off a 14’ minute Katlyn Johsnon shot, the Royals found themselves in a tough spot. Were they going to be the first team to lose to Sky Blue, the entire season?

From there, things got worse. Utah was struggling to maintain possession, get quality shots off, or do anything we were used to seeing. Fortunately, we were able to get to halftime just down by one. Unfortunately, quite quickly, Utah Royals FC found themselves down two goals. Katlyn Johnson really found her stride and was challenging URFC. Despite the fact that URFC was keeping possession more in the second half, and looked dominate, we made sloppy giveaways.

Around the 50’ Laura Harvey subbed in the team’s leading scorer, Katie Stengel. When Stengel came in she instantly made a huge impact on the game. She was able to help the Royals find some of their attacking firepower. In response to this, come the 58’, the Royals swung the ball into the 18 yard box and were fortunate enough for Sky Blue defender Dominique Richardson to make a massive error and scored URFC their first goal.

For the rest of the game Utah was fighting like crazy for a goal. Especially Amy Rodriguez, who was taking shot after shot, just trying to get a goal. URFC fought and fought for the tying goal until finally, in the 94’ minute of a game with 3 minutes of stoppage time, Amy Rodriguez scored. It was a beautiful ball from Christen Press, and then, not long after play resumed, it was over. URFC, although narrowly, avoided being the first team to lose to Sky Blue this season. The Royals are now 7-7-8 on the season.