A few months ago, Crystal Dunn of the Washington Spirit was left off of the USWNT, and she hasn’t let anyone forget about it since. She currently is the highest scorer in the NWSl with 12 goals in 14 games, and she showed she thoroughly deserved that being in that position with her performance against the Houston Dash this past weekend.
Squaring off against a player made famous for her own pyrotechnic scoring, Carli Lloyd, Dunn made sure that she was the one that everyone was talking about after the match.
She scored a first half hat trick, and every goal showed a serious thirst for the back of the net. But, it was her first that truly caught the eye. It was a solo run past 3 Houston Dash defenders that showed off the immense pace she has at her disposal.
After the match, Dunn was the picture of motivation when asked about her performance.
“As bummed as I was about not being called to the World Cup, I’ve been very focused on defining myself as a player and I carried that into this game. Obviously, there’s a lot of hype, there’s a lot of great players on the opposition team and I think I kind of used that as momentum to just be like you know they’re a great side (but) I’ve been working hard this season and I’m going to throughout this game.”
If Dunn can maintain her position as top scorer, she can make a real push toward being named MVP of the 2015 NWSL season. Getting the Spirit into the playoffs will help Dunn’s case further, because there is no guarantee that the team will do so.
The Spirit are sitting comfortably in third at the moment, but as the league continues to renormalize after the return of players who took part in the 2015 Women’s World Cup, they will have to fight to maintain their spot.
On that note, scoring a hat trick against the 4th place Houston Dash is exactly the kind of thing the 23-year-old Dunn needs to do. Hopefully, if she can make a habit of coming through in big ways in big games, she will make the USWNT when it goes to Rio in 2016.
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