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The Utah Royals suffer a loss to Gotham FC in their final game of the season

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The Utah Royals suffer a loss to Gotham FC in their final game of the season

SANDY, Utah The Utah Royals have completed their first season in the NWSL after returning to the league as a reserve team. The Utah Royals and Gotham FC battled at America First Field on Friday night on the final day of the NWSL regular season.

Utah's playoff fate was already sealed as it had already been eliminated from postseason contention, but Gotham was competing for the playoff spot and the Royals wanted to play spoilsport.

First half

Gotham, which will enter the NWSL playoffs as the No. 2 seed, turned heads early, winning two corners in the first three minutes, both of which were conceded by Madison Pogarch.

Utah also tried to strike early, passing the ball toward the goal and forcing a corner of their own, but this see-saw start quickly turned on its head due to Gotham's ability to strike quickly.

In the 15th minute, a series of dribbles and well-placed passes on the other side of the field led to a mini-breakaway for Gotham, as Gotham found themselves with numbers on Utah's defensive line. Ella Stevens played a pass into the box and Rose Lavelle, knowing there weren't enough Royals in the box to cover her and her teammate, cleverly left the ball lying there and set up Yazmeen Ryan to put it into the net from close range to plug range.

The Royals tried to regroup after the goal, but just two minutes later Gotham struck like lightning again. Gotham owned the attacking half and looked for a pass into the box. The ball came in from the other side of the field but took a deflection as it entered the penalty area and flew towards midfield. It landed at the feet of Mandy Freeman, who had space and fired a shot from just outside the box, resulting in a wonderful goal for her first goal in the NWSL. The game went from a scoreless draw to a 2-0 lead for Gotham in just two minutes.

Gotham continued its fireworks as Esther González fired three more shots into the net within four minutes, one of which actually went into the goal before being overturned due to a handball.

Just before halftime, Rose Lavelle tried to put a score on the stat sheet with two shots, but the Utah defense kept the score at 2-0 until halftime.

Second half

Cameron Tucker came on for Mina Tanaka at halftime.

Gotham FC's Esther González started the half with two quick shots.

For most of the second half, Gotham played to protect their lead, with the Royals getting plenty of chances to advance the ball towards the goal, with Gotham also getting some of their own dangerous possessions.

In the 54th minute, Ally Sentnor fired two shots, one from inside the box that missed to the right and one from outside the box that missed to the left, as Utah was still looking for its first goal of the night.

In the 77th minute everything finally came together for the Royals. Utah had just gotten the ball back and players were moving from one end of the field to the other. Hannah Betfort had a step on her defender and made a perfectly timed run to stay onside. Kate Del Fava saw it and put a perfectly timed pass over the goal line, leaving Betfort 1-1 with the goalkeeper. She shot the ball before the goalkeeper could come forward to defend and kissed the ball into the goal from the inside of the right post. Utah was within one goal with 13 minutes to play.

Utah tried to apply pressure to get the equalizer, but that opened things up at the back and gave Gotham space to work with whenever they got the ball.

Gotham scored their third goal of the night with another great strike as Esther González finally broke through and hit the goalkeeper on her first touch of the ball from outside the box.

Gotham added another before the final whistle blew, their fourth goal coming from a set piece. Yazmeen Ryan played the corner into the box and Esther González ran towards the near post, deflected the ball with the inside of her right foot, directed the ball to the back post and pushed it into the corner, which was good for her brace.

Seven minutes of added time would have been played, but the score would remain 4-1.

Utah Royals in their first season

In their first season as returning members of the NWSL, the Utah Royals finished with a record of 7-4-15 and 25 points, just six points out of the playoffs.

The Royals announced just a week ago that they would be hiring current interim head coach Jimmy Coenraets as the club's manager to give the team stability in the offseason and hopefully allow them to build on the momentum of their first year in which they ended up in the middle of the table.

Tanner Tripp is a sports writer for KSL Sports, covering every team in the state of Utah. Follow him here on X @tanner_tripp and Instagram @tanner.tripp.

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