Kizer scores twice as KC Current win for 1st time in ’23 (hours after coaching change)
Hours after firing head coach Matt Potter, the Kansas City Current put together their most complete 90-minute performance of the season.
Cece Kizer scored both goals in the Current’s 2-0 road win over the Houston Dash in an opening match for the 2023 NWSL Challenge Cup on Wednesday evening.
Less than eight hours before kickoff, the Current announced they’d parted ways with Potter. During a postmatch interview on the TV broadcast, Lo LaBonta said players learned through a team meeting that Potter was out.
She and her teammates were shocked.
“We had no knowledge that this was going to happen as players,” said LaBonta, who captained the team against the Dash. “That’s where the whole shock came from.”
Interim head coach Caroline Sjöblom led the way in Houston as the Current took the field. And a renewed level of focus seemed to emerge.
“In the locker room before the game, when you see in the eyes of the players, they were really, really, hungry,” Sjöblom said. “You can see that they’re switched on, and I can feel that energy in the room when we went out to the pitch.”
Kizer’s first goal came in the 38th minute thanks to a perfectly weighted ball over the top from LaBonta. Kizer was one-on-one with Dash goalkeeper Jane Campbell, and the Overland Park native deftly chipped the ball over Campbell’s head.
Kizer added her second goal 30 minutes later, finishing Kate Del Fava’s cross at the back post. The play was created on a counter-attack thanks some expert playmaking skills from Debinha.
Sjöblom shook up the Current’s starting XI a bit Wednesday. Croix Soto debuted on the backline and Izzy Rodriguez shifted out to play as a true left wing-back in the absence of Hailie Mace, who was ruled out with an illness. Cassie Miller also started in net for AD Franch.
The Current had a game plan Wednesday night, and it worked. Part of that can certainly be credited to Sjöblom, whose duties as an assistant coach to Potter included scouting the opposition. She’s in her first year with the club, but she’s earned the players’ trust.
“She has a lot of familiarity with the group,” LaBonta said. “We’ve trusted her since she arrived, and she took us to victory today.”
Kizer elaborated on the trust aspect, saying, “She called us all out for things not being the quality we wanted it to be and the standard we had set for ourselves.”
In a pre-game message Wednesday, Sjöblom gave her players three words to consider: focus, energy and together.
“That’s exactly what we executed, and we did the entire game,” LaBonta said. “... There should be a roller-coaster of emotions. But the game helped us focus, and we always want to win. And we also want to get a shutout, and we were able to get both of those done today.”
The Current will return home Sunday, playing host to the Orlando Pride in a 4 p.m. game at Children’s Mercy Park.
This story was originally published April 19, 2023 at 9:27 PM.