San Diego Wave suffered its worst home loss on Friday, June 28 after falling to the Chicago Red Stars 3-0 at Snapdragon Stadium. The Wave has not known the taste of victory since May 8 having gone winless over its last eight matches and sits as the 10th seed in the NWSL standings.

With interim manager Paul Buckle taking over for Casey Stoney as of June 24, the team will need to find a way to turn things around quickly with only nine games left in the regular season while being one of four clubs trying to catch up with Bay FC, which currently holds the final playoff spot.

“I think the people who can control what we do moving forward is us in the locker room,” said midfielder Savannah McCaskill. “We have to stick together as a group. I think that’s super important no matter who the coach is.”

San Diego Wave won the Supporters’ Shield last season after finishing with the best regular season record but its offense has been a far cry from 2023 averaging 1.4 goals per match as opposed to the .8 goal so far this season.

In terms of defense and goalkeeping, the team had remained relatively even to last year up until the performance versus Chicago, which was punctuated with a penalty kick miss by forward Alex Morgan late in the game.

San Diego Wave will now travel to Providence Park to play the Portland Thorns on Friday, July 5. This will be no easy task since Portland is winless over the last three matches and was humiliated in front of its home fans on June 23 after a 4-1 blowout by the KC Current.

Photo by David Frerker