WUSA week 7 news and notes

by WUSA Press Release
Published on May 29, 2001 under Women's United Soccer Association (WUSA)

WUSA Press Release

WUSA PLAYER OF THE WEEK - LIU AILING, PHILADELPHIA
Liu Ailing scored her first two goals of the season to help the Charge post a 3-2 road win over Boston on Sunday. Her first, a 35-yard blast into the upper right corner in the 36th minute, evened the score at 1-1. She made it 2-1 in the 77th minute on a breakaway and, after Boston tied it up again, nearly gave Philadelphia a 3-2 advantage, but the Breakers' goalkeeper made a diving stop of a low line drive. Liu finished with Charge season highs of five shots and five shots on goal in Sunday's match. She also led the team in shots in Thursday's 2-0 setback vs. Atlanta.

WEEK 6 WRAP-UP

Atlanta Beat 2, Philadelphia Charge 0
The Philadelphia Charge dropped their first match of the season last Thursday night as the Atlanta Beat blanked them for the second time this season in a 2-0 decision at Villanova Stadium. Philadelphia fell to 2-1-2 (eight points), while Atlanta improved to 2-0-3. Atlanta opened the scoring in just the second minute, when Cindy Parlow lined a shot over goalkeeper Saskia Webber's head from just outside the penalty box. Atlanta doubled its advantage in the 40th minute, as defender Dayna Smith assisted on Marci Miller's first goal of the season.

Carolina Courage 4, San Diego Spirit 3
Looking for their first win of the season, the Courage jumped out to an early lead and dominated the early portions of the first half. Then disaster struck in the form of two goals by San Diego in the 31st and 45th minutes of the first half, taking the life out of Carolina. They needed a spark as the game entered the 63rd minute, so Head Coach Marcia McDermott turned to her bench and subbed in Danielle Fotopoulos. With that move the entire game changed. Five minutes later, Carolina tied the score on a strike by Meredith Florance. Two minutes later Fotopoulos found the back of the net to give Carolina back the lead. The Spirit had answered with Shannon MacMillan's second goal of the game. But Fotopoulos had the "final" answer in the game's 85th minute, controlling a pass from Hege Riise, turning and firing a shot past Jamie Pagliarulo for the game-winner.

Philadelphia Charge 3, Boston Breakers 2
Liu Ailing scored a pair of goals and Laurie Schwoy's header off a corner kick in the 83rd minute of play was the difference as the Philadelphia Charge posted a 3-2 victory Sunday over the Boston Breakers at Nickerson Field. Boston's Kristine Lilly provided a nice through pass to Dagny Mellgren 80 seconds into the contest to put the Breakers up 1-0. Philadelphia countered in the 36th minute with an unassisted goal from Ailing, the WUSA Player of the Week. Ailing added another goal in the second half at the 77th minute to pull Philadelphia ahead 2-1. The see-saw battle continued when Boston's Maren Meinart scored in the 81st minute to tie the score at 2-2. Two minutes later, Schwoy put the Charge on top for good.

Washington Freedom 2, New York Power 1
An overflow crowd of 9,996 fans turned out for Mia Hamm's only New York area appearance this season, but it was Bai Jie who stole the show. With a goal in the opening minutes of the game and in the final minute of stoppage time, Bai Jie led the Freedom to their third victory of the season. Both goals were scored off beautiful assists, the first by Pretinha and the second on a well-struck corner kick by Hamm. Seeing her first minutes of action this season after being sidelined with an injury, Ann Kristin Aarones netted the only goal for the Power.

Atlanta Beat 1, Bay Area CyberRays 0
What will it take to score a goal against this team? That's got to be the question on the minds of any team that goes up against the Atlanta Beat these days. Just ask the CyberRays, they couldn't crack the mystery as they fell to the Beat 1-0. For the second time this week Briana Scurry and the Beat put a "goose-egg" up on the board, continuing an impressive stretch that now has them surrendering only one goal in their six games this season. Atlanta's Charmaine Hooper netted the only goal of the game off a pass from Cindy Parlow in the game's 13th minute, giving Atlanta sole possession of first place.

A FAMILY AFFAIR

The WUSA is full of games that could be labeled as "for bragging rights." Whether it be one of the four sets of twins going toe-to-toe or Boston facing off against New York or former teammates now on opposite sides of the ball - there are plenty of interesting match-ups in the league's first season. Well you can add another one to the list this weekend as for the first time in professional sports history, a husband and wife will face off on the field of play. San Diego captain Julie Foudy will face her husband, Bay Area Head Coach Ian Sawyers, at 4:00 pm (PT) this Saturday at Torero Stadium. The couple have been married since July of 1995.

TRYING TO GET A WORD IN

This Thursday night, May 31st, the San Diego Spirit's Julie Foudy will be joining the panel on Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher. Joining Foudy in airing their opinions will be political analyst Kiersten Andersen, Rob Schneider of the new hit movie The Animal and Jamie Presley from the WB's Popular.

TAKING IT TO THE MAX

For each WUSA national televised game one player will be chosen as the ERA Max Player of the Game. In recognition of that player's efforts, ERA Max will make a donation in the amount of $1,000 in the player's name to the Women's Sports Foundation. Below is a list of the winners from this season's games.

Date	Event			ERA Max Player of the Game
April 14	Bay Area at Washington	Siri Mullinix, Washington
April 21	New York at Atlanta	Gao Hong, New York
April 28	Washington at Carolina	Mia Hamm, Washington
May 12	San Diego at Atlanta	Charmaine Hooper, Atlanta
May 19	Washington at Carolina	Hege Riise, Carolina
May 27	Philadelphia at Boston	Liu Ailing, Philadelphia

WE'VE GOT IT ALL COVERED
The WUSA announced that every game played by the league's eight teams will be televised during its inaugural season. The ambitious national and local television package will include more than 250 hours of programming that will be broadcast over a combination of a dozen regional sports and cable affiliates in addition to a 22-game nationally televised package on TNT and CNNSI.

Regional sports networks carrying WUSA games include: AT&T 3, CNNSI-Regional, Cox 4, Comcast SportsNet (Philadelphia and Washington DC), CN8, Fox Sports Bay Area, Fox Sports NY, Fox Sports South, MSG Network, Metro Channel (New York), KICU (San Jose), and WJAL (Washington DC).

WUSA-CHINA RELATIONS
China Central Television (CCTV), the national TV network of the People's Republic of China, will air the remaining 15 WUSA national games shown in the United States currently on TNT and CNNSI.

WUSA PLAYERS OF THE WEEK
Below is a list of the WUSA Players of the Week from this season.

Week WUSA Player of the Week	Notes
1    Kelly Smith			goal, forced pk
2    Mia Hamm			game-winning goal, assist in return to UNC
3    Shannon MacMillan		first-ever WUSA multiple (2) goal game
4    Tisha Venturini		game-winning goal, returning from injury
5    Dagny Mellgren		unassisted goal, assist
6    Liu Ailing, Philadelphia   	multiple (2) goal game, near hat trick

WUSA TRANSACTIONS
None.

WUSA INJURY REPORT
Philadelphia forward Kelly Smith will be sidelined for 1-2 weeks with a stress fracture of her right ankle. The Charge will also be without goalkeeper Melissa Moore for 1-2 weeks due to a fractured right hand. Both have been sidelined since the team's inaugural game.

Carolina's Nicole Roberts will miss the rest of the season with a broken right leg. The Courage placed the midfielder on "Cap Relief".

Women's United Soccer Association Stories from May 29, 2001

• WUSA week 7 news and notes - OSC Original by WUSA Press Release

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer(s), and do not necessarily reflect the thoughts or opinions of OurSports Central or its staff.