DC Power FC rode a brace from Tatum Thomason to a late win against Fort Lauderdale United FC on Tuesday afternoon at Audi Field. Thomason’s two goals were enough to offset Abi Hugh’s goal for the visitors.

It was a sloppy, slow match on what was a wet and dreary midday match at Audi Field, and while the team didn’t play to their best, they were happy to take the win.

“Yeah, in general, I didn’t think we played particularly that well, and the girls know it,” head coach Omid Namazi said after the match. “We’ve been much better at times and we’ve lost games and tied games here. So we’ll take the W, but I felt that our press and the way we were pressing in the 1st half, uh, they were breaking us down a little bit.”

It took a while for the teams to get their footing in the first half of the match. The first opportunity came for Fort Lauderdale in the 10th minute, when Kiara Locklear got the ball inside the left side of the box and fired a shot that got past Katie Cappelletti. Fortunately for DC, the shot hit the right post and stayed out. Four minutes later, after DC was able to get down and challenge the net, the rebound off Sam Angel’s cross flew out, and DC was caught with too many numbers forward. Sh’nia Gordon led the break after a nifty move to get past a DC defender, eventually passing it off to Kiara Locklear. Sydney Cummings was able to get back and deflect her shot out of play for a corner.

“We talk about controlled aggression and not going and selling yourself and at times, and I felt like a couple plays we dove in where we could stay on our feet and make sure that we delay things until we get help from the top,” Namazi remarked. “And we would sell ourselves and now they’re just running against our back line and the middle of the field is wide open.”

DC Power had a difficult time once again in the final third getting the ball into a position to get a shot on goal, but Fort Lauderdale wasn’t able to provide much in the form of attack, either. An Emily Colton shot in the 44th minute was the only shot on goal by either team in the first half, and the match was scoreless at the halftime whistle.

Both teams continued to struggle to generate anything in the final third in the opening minutes of the 2nd half. However in the 62nd minute, DC Power finally broke through. After some buildup, Sam Angel was able to fight the ball away from a defender on the left side around midfield and get it forward to Tyler Lussi. Lussi passed it to Loza Abera, who found Emily Colton sprinting into the left side of the box. Colton drew the goalkeeper out and laid off a square pass to substitute Tatum Thomason, who was wide open in front of the net after subbing on just a few minutes earlier. Thomason calmly tapped the ball into the net to give DC the 1-0 lead.

It didn’t take long for Fort Lauderdale to respond. After their first shot on goal required a Katie Cappelletti save in the 66th minute, the rebound bounced in the air and Abby Boyan was able to clear the ball out of play for a corner. However on the ensuing corner, Kelsey Oyler sent the ball to Abi Hugh at the top of the box, who one timed a low shot to the left corner of the net and in to level the score at 1-1.

The action on the field opened up a a tiny bit more as both teams aggressively looked for the game winner, however it was in the 89th minute where DC Power was able to get the winner. An injury to captain Susanna Fitch (concussion protocol) caused some confusion on a triple sub that DC Power wanted to make, stopping play for several minutes while they sorted it out. After the restart, DC was able to get the ball upon the kick by Fort Lauderdale goalkeeper Haley Craig to get the ball back into play, and Justina Gaynor got the ball to push forward. She passed it to substitute Mak Whitham, who sent an arching cross into the box across goal. Tatum Thomason got a head on it and glanced it over Craig. The ball trickled across the line before it could be cleared, giving her the goal and DC Power the 2-1 lead.

“I was so relieved!” Thomason exclaimed. “I mean, it was a great ball, and that was what was said to me before I came into the game: ‘On crosses, come inside. Don’t hang out wide, you’re not gonna make a play on the ball to score a goal from out wide.’ So, that’s the only thing that was going through my head was, ‘Oh my gosh, get to the back post.’ And honestly, I was trying to redirect it back across for somebody, but it just worked out, and it was a great team goal from the back to the front.”

“[Namazi] just told us, ‘we gotta make an impact, and we gotta do something in this next half and make it challenging for the opponent,'” Mak Whitham said of Namazi’s instructions at halftime. “And I feel like when I went in, I just wanted to create something and thankfully, my cross connected and Tatum did a really good job getting at the end of it.”

DC Power had seven minutes of stoppage time to close out the match and get the win. Fort Lauderdale tried desperately to ge the equalizer. But it was not to be, and DC Power secured the win and the 3 points.

Halfway through the 2026 sprint season with 7 matches completed and 7 to go, the win temporarily vaults DC Power into second place in the USL Super League standings. They now have a 17-day break before they hit the road to play Sporting Jacksonville on October 9th. They hope to pack the confidence this win provided with them when they get back on the field.

“We have to be just better in possession and keep the ball a little bit more and take control and develop some kind of rhythm and tempo,” Namazi said of what they hope to continue to build upon as they have a few days off. “That’s where we’re going to go back and work on, you know, through this break that we have.”