CARY, N.C. – The Utah Royals stuck around and delivered when it mattered most to steal a point on the road against the North Carolina Courage at First Horizon Stadium on Saturday.
After conceding a penalty in the 89th minute, Utah trailed 1-0 and was on the brink of heartbreak. Forward Paige Monaghan stepped up and saved the result with a close-range goal to make it 1-1 in the 94th minute.
The Royals have now forced draws in four of their last six matches.
Bringing +1 home to Utah! pic.twitter.com/UHcIGKqRLI
— Utah Royals FC (@UtahRoyalsFC) September 7, 2025
Utah Royals Save A Point In North Carolina
As has been a theme of late for the Royals, they were put into their defensive third early and often.
The Courage unleashed four shots in the first 15 minutes. With one bouncing off the post, one missing high, and two more getting saved by goalkeeper Mandy McGlynn, Utah escaped by the skin of its teeth.
Slightly different in this match, though, Utah put together a few pretty threatening counterattacks. They had three attempts of their own in the first 15′. A miss from Claudia Zornoza, a block on Mina Tanaka’s shot, and Aisha Solórzano forced an NC save.
In fact, after a late string of attempts before the first-half whistle, Uth led in shot attempts through the first 45 minutes. Solórzano, Zornoza, and Monaghan each called their own number multiple times.
However, North Carolina’s back line and their goalkeeper were on point. Most shots were blocked or forced to be at a tough angle. Any that got through were taken care of by Marisa Bova.
The first half came to a close with the score knotted at 0-0.
Headed into the break scoreless pic.twitter.com/9rCERMIJDq
— Utah Royals FC (@UtahRoyalsFC) September 7, 2025
The second half played out similarly.
There were some attempts, but most of the action happened between the boxes. After the break, there were no shots on target until the 73rd minute. Tanaka loaded up from outside the box, but Bova made the save in the bottom corner.
Fast forward to the final minutes of regulation, and the score remained untouched.
Until the 87th minute, when Utah committed a foul in the penalty area. North Carolina’s Jaedyn Shaw stepped up to the spot and buried the PK to give the home side a 1-0 lead.
Instead of hanging their heads, the Royals turned the intensity up, playing to the final whistle. In the 94th minute, Monaghan capped off some chaos in front of the goal with a turnaround shot that found the top shelf.
That’s back-to-back games with goals from our No. 4 🫡 pic.twitter.com/32GBtRkwuK
— Utah Royals FC (@UtahRoyalsFC) September 7, 2025
The Courage got one more shot off a couple of minutes later, but McGlynn was able to get her gloves on it.
Utah held on through seven more minutes of stoppage time to secure the result and take a point back home.
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The Utah Royals will return home to take on the Houston Dash on Sunday, September 14. Kickoff is at 4:00 p.m. MT.
Live radio calls of every game can be found on KSLSports.com. Select games will be broadcast on the KSL Sports Zone (97.5 FM/1280 AM) and KSL NewsRadio (102.7 FM/1160 AM).
Find KSL Sports coverage of the Utah Royals here.
Chandler Holt is a co-host of the Jazz Notes podcast, a Locals In The NFL Insider, and Digital Sports Producer for KSLSports.com. Follow Chandler on X for Utah Jazz and Locals In The NFL updates.
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‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source kslsports.com ’
