{"id":683036,"date":"2026-03-26T11:42:30","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T11:42:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/683036\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T11:42:30","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T11:42:30","slug":"san-diego-wave-turns-the-tide-against-portland-with-3-1-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/683036\/","title":{"rendered":"San Diego Wave turns the tide against Portland with 3-1 win"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"San Diego Wave\u2019s Dudinha scores against the Portland Thorns on March 25, 2026, at Snapdragon Stadium. Photo by Nate Tubbs\/EVT
\nSan Diego Wave FC walked into Snapdragon Stadium tonight with vengeance on its mind. After Portland bounced them from the playoffs last year, the Wave have the chance for an early leg up in 2026.<\/p>\n

SAN DIEGO \u2014 After a strong road win against Utah in week two, the SD Wave were riding some momentum going into a two-match homestand.<\/p>\n

The scoring got started early for the Wave with Dudinha finding the back of the net in the second minute.\u00a0 Her second goal of the season was a beautiful right-footed strike. The Brazilian forward has been a major part of San Diego\u2019s offensive production so far this season.<\/p>\n

Portland answers back<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t take long for Portland to answer, with Peitra Tordin scoring the equalizer in the eighth. A bit of an unlucky break for Wave keeper Leah Freeman, because the ball took a hard ricochet off the post that provided an easy second-chance angle for the Tordin.<\/p>\n

After a chaotic series of shots in Portland\u2019s box, the Wave jumped back in front with a Lia Godfrey goal in the 27th minute. The rookie now has two goals on the season already, stepping into the needed scoring gap that\u2019s been presented by San Diego\u2019s roster changes. Her effort kept the Wave in front 2-1 going into halftime.<\/p>\n

\"\"San Diego Wave\u2019s Lia Godfrey centers the ball at Snapdragon Stadium on March 25, 2026. Photo by Nate Tubbs\/EVT.
\nA strong second half for San Diego<\/p>\n

Wave FC kept their foot down in the second half, something coach Jonas Eidevall and his squad have been focused on<\/a> after their week one defeat. They ended up with a 65\/35 possession split at the final whistle.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

That momentum crescendoed in the form of a splendid touch from Kenza Dali to Melanie Barcenas, who put the game away on a second attempt goal. This is Barcenas\u2019 third career goal and first of the season, joining Dudinha and Godfrey in the scoring column.<\/p>\n

\"\"San Diego Wave\u2019s Melanie Barcenas (7) celebrates after scoring a goal at Snapdragon Stadium on March 25, 2026. Photo by Nate Tubbs\/EVT.<\/p>\n

SD Wave FC came into the match with the second most shots (24) and shots on target produced (15). They tacked on another 18 shots, with 11 on target tonight.<\/p>\n

The thorn in the Wave\u2019s side<\/p>\n

The two West Coast clubs have a history of intense battles, most recently in last year\u2019s NWSL playoff quarterfinals. Portland edged out a victory in extra time after a scoreless 90 minutes, a brutal way for San Diego to see its season end.<\/p>\n

\"\"San Diego Wave fan celebrates after a goal at Snapdragon Stadium on March 25, 2026. Photo by Nate Tubbs\/EVT.<\/p>\n

Portland entered the building with six points already, defeating Washington and their rivals, the Seattle Reign, to open their season. In stopping the Thorn\u2019s perfect start, San Diego\u2019s three points bring them to a tie at the top of the leaderboard.<\/p>\n

They are among three other teams atop the NWSL standings, as Seattle (2-1-0), Houston (2-0-0), and Angel City (2-0-0) all have two wins so far.<\/p>\n

Angel City will be hosting Houston on Friday, March 27, which will produce a new league leader, or co-leader, depending on the outcome.<\/p>\n

The Wave\u2019s next contest<\/p>\n

It was Dudinha and Lia Godfrey who got the scoring done in San Diego\u2019s\u00a0 2-1 victory in game two. Then the two again in game three, with some added flair from Barcenas. Game four will be at home on March 28, with the offense starting to find its identity.<\/p>\n

San Diego is hosting the Chicago Stars in that contest. Their star, Mallory Swanson, is out on maternity leave until the second half of the season, and the team is off to a 1-2-0 start.<\/p>\n

Sophia Wilson is just now coming off maternity leave for Portland. The USWNT star was showered with \u201cwelcome backs\u201d from the seats. Wilson and Swanson are two-thirds of the \u2018triple espresso<\/a>,\u2019 the third being the Washington Spirit\u2019s Trinity Rodman.<\/p>\n

\"\"Portland Thorns\u2019 Sophia Wilson warms up before entering the game against the SD Wave at Snapdragon Stadium on March 25, 2026. Photo by Nate Tubbs\/EVT.<\/p>\n

San Diego will see Washington for the first time in the middle of May. By then, they hope to have a USWNT weapon of their own, Catarina Macario, settled in.<\/p>\n

The team has yet to officially announce Macario\u2019s acquisition, but there are chatters of a potential debut on Saturday.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Nate Tubbs is a recent graduate of Journalism at San Diego State University. In his time at SDSU, he wrote and photographed several different sports for Aztec Link, the school\u2019s NIL collective. He also co-hosted a weekly podcast featuring Aztec athletes, sharing their stories and goals for the season. Tubbs is passionate about photography, storytelling, and most of all, San Diego sports.<\/p>\n

\t\tContinue Reading<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"San Diego Wave\u2019s Dudinha scores against the Portland Thorns on March 25, 2026, at Snapdragon Stadium. Photo by…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":683037,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,286923,286924,286925,60092,3549,80895,7264,286926,53518,286927,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-683036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-america","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-dudinha","tag-lia-godfrey","tag-melanie-barcenas","tag-portland-thorns","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-wave-fc","tag-sandiego","tag-sd-wave","tag-snapdragon-stadium","tag-sophia-wilson","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116295300030618847","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=683036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683036\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/683037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=683036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=683036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=683036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}