KC Current drenches Portland Thorns with torrent of goals at Providence Park

The Kansas City Current has yet to lose a match this season.

The club’s latest victory, a 4-1 rout of the Portland Thorns on Sunday afternoon at Providence Park, also returned the Current to the top of the National Women’s Soccer League standings.

The Orlando Pride won 6-0 Friday to grab the NWSL’s top spot on goal differential. But Sunday’s drubbing in Oregon shot KC back in front with a record of 9-5-0.

The Current players, coaches and support staff were en route to Portland, aboard a flight, during Orlando’s impressive shutout.

“Today it was not our goal to put that many goals in the net,” Current midfielder Lo LaBonta said. “We always just focused on the first one. But then (the goals) just kept raining, and it felt great.”

The Current’s 14-match unbeaten streak this season surpasses a 13-game string the club put together in 2022. The team’s record during the 2022 streak was 9-4-0, with a plus-9 goal differential; during this streak, KC’s goal differential is plus-17.

Including the end of the 2023 season, the Current has not lost in its last 16 competitive games. To say it’s a start that coach Vlatko Andonovski saw coming would be a stretch.

“To be quite honest, I didn’t think what the results, or the score, or the standings were going to be 14 games into the season,” Andonovski said. “But I certainly had an idea of how I wanted the team to look halfway through the season, at the end of the season (and) in the playoffs ...

“I still feel like there are things we can do better, and we’re still going continue working on those things. I’m just happy where we are at right now.”

LaBonta opened the scoring in the 30th minute of Sunday’s match, flicking a headed shot behind her from close range. The header was a redirection from a shot initially headed by teammate Temwa Chawinga.

Stine Ballisager Pederson cleaned up a loose ball in the box and scored in the 38th minute to double the Current’s lead, and LaBonta made it 3-0 in the 40th with a thumping strike from outside the box to the top corner.

Andonovski said he was very happy with Ballisager’s goal. She’s the last center-back on the roster to score a goal this season.

“They were joking in training that she’s the only center-back on the team that hasn’t scored a goal,” the coach said. “So here it is. Now we’ve completed that task.”

Chawinga scored KC’s final goal with an incredible individual effort in the 47th minute. Controlling a long pass from the Current’s penalty area, she took on three Thorns defenders by herself, running all the way into the Portland penalty area before shooting and scoring.

Portland got its lone goal in the 73rd minute as Sophia Smith scored her 10th of the season.

The Current players were not overwhelmed by the electric atmosphere at Providence Park, thanks in large part to their own raucous home-field environment at CPKC Stadium.

“It’s never easy to play in Portland, regardless,” Andonovski said. “But it’s certainly easier if you are used to the crowd noise and the pressure. It makes it easier.”

LaBonta hopes to see more crowds like that across the league.

“Portland was the first stadium and team to set the tone of creating this amazing atmosphere and environment, and then Kansas City caught on and we’re doing the same thing,” she said. “So if it is now gonna be the norm for the entire league, that’s gonna be amazing.”

The Current will seek to extend its unbeaten streak to 17 matches Friday night, playing host to the Houston Dash at CPKC Stadium.

Daniel Sperry covers soccer for The Star. He can be reached at sperry.danielkc@gmail.com.

This story was originally published June 23, 2024 at 5:10 PM.