<\/p>\n
KANSAS CITY\u00a0(March\u00a014,\u00a02026)\u00a0\u2014 <\/strong>The Kansas City Current (1-0-0,\u00a03\u00a0pts., 1st place)\u00a0won its third consecutive home opener at CPKC Stadium on Saturday afternoon, using a second-half comeback to best the Utah Royals (0-1-0, 0 pts., 14th place),\u00a02-1. After Utah opened the scoring in the first half, midfielder Croix Bethune\u00a0capped\u00a0her club debut with a goal in the 57th minute to level the contest. Twelve minutes later, midfielder Ally\u00a0Sentnor\u00a0put the Current ahead with a dazzling\u00a0individual\u00a0effort.\u00a0<\/p>\n Bethune and\u00a0Sentnor\u2019s\u00a0first goals in Current colors gave Kansas City a lead it would not relinquish, and the Current opened 2026 in winning fashion behind another sellout crowd at CPKC Stadium.<\/p>\n Saturday\u2019s contest marked head coach Chris Armas\u2019 National Women\u2019s Soccer League (NWSL) regular season debut.\u00a0In addition to Bethune, forward Penelope Hocking made her club debut as a second-half substitute in the 61st minute\u00a0and forward Gianna Paul made her\u00a0first professional appearance\u00a0in the 88th minute.\u00a0Additionally, forward\u00a0Michelle Cooper\u00a0returned\u00a0to the pitch\u00a0after being activated from the season ending injury (SEI) list on Friday.<\/p>\n “Opening days are so exciting.\u00a0It’s\u00a0easy to see that and\u00a0it’s\u00a0easy to feel the energy of what opening day means to our fans, and that was clear,\u201d said Armas. \u201cThis is never as easy as you want it to be,\u00a0but on\u00a0these days, you also learn a lot about who you are. And this is a different KC Current team, the 2026 version.\u00a0Today we learned that we still are a\u00a0really gritty\u00a0team.\u00a0We’ve got\u00a0really good\u00a0attackers and we have depth.\u00a0Going down a goal and coming back was a\u00a0really good\u00a0sign for this team.\u00a0That’s\u00a0going to be\u00a0a way\u00a0we’ll\u00a0have to win games. I’m so proud of the team and it\u2019s a good first start to the season.”<\/p>\n Kansas\u00a0City\u2019s\u00a0first threatening moment came in the eighth minute when Bethune and defender Izzy Rodriguez combined on a give-and-go that culminated with Rodriguez fizzing a low ball across the penalty area\u00a0that\u00a0ultimately\u00a0went\u00a0over the endline for a corner kick.\u00a0The game\u2019s first shot on target came in the 28th minute from\u00a0Utah forward Clo\u00e9\u00a0Lacasse\u00a0whose\u00a0shot\u00a0from\u00a0distance\u00a0was snared\u00a0comfortable\u00a0by\u00a0Kansas City goalkeeper Lorena. One minute later, Scott\u00a0fired a low effort on\u00a0target\u00a0for the Current\u2019s first goal-bound shot of the contest.<\/p>\n Utah closed the first half on the front foot\u00a0and\u00a0opened\u00a0the scoring minutes\u00a0in the 35th minute.\u00a0Lacasse curled the ball into a crowded penalty area, and\u00a0defender Tatum\u00a0Milazzo latched onto the cross and poked it past Lorena. Utah\u2019s one-goal lead\u00a0held\u00a0as the halftime whistle sounded.<\/p>\n The Current\u00a0came out of the break pressing and found the equalizer shortly into the second half.\u00a0Kansas\u00a0City\u2019s\u00a0first goal of the 2026\u00a0campaign came following a corner kick in the 57th minute. As Utah\u00a0attempted\u00a0to clear its lines, defender Gabrielle Robinson lofted a ball back into the attacking\u00a0third from\u00a0near midfield. Robinson\u2019s forward lob met\u00a0fellow defender Kayla\u00a0Sharples at the top of the penalty and, with a deft flick,\u00a0Sharples\u00a0steered the ball between two Utah defenders to an\u00a0unmarked\u00a0Bethune, who\u00a0took a touch into space and curled the ball past Utah goalkeeper Mia Justus.<\/p>\n The goal marked Bethune\u2019s first for the club \u2014 on her club debut\u00a0\u2014 and her eighth career regular season\u00a0goal. The assist\u00a0wasthe\u00a0second of Sharples\u2019 regular season career.<\/p>\n Energized by Bethune\u2019s equalizer, the Current continued\u00a0looking\u00a0for a go-ahead goal\u00a0and a\u00a0moment of brilliance from\u00a0Sentnor\u00a0put the Current ahead for good in the 69th minute.\u00a0Debinha\u00a0started the move\u00a0by\u00a0racing towards\u00a0the penalty area\u00a0and\u00a0slid a pass to\u00a0Sentnor, who drove into the\u00a018-yard box\u00a0as multiple Royals defenders converged on the ball.\u00a0Sentnor\u00a0deked forward, then angled back towards the penalty spot to evade the first wave of Utah defenders. She split two more incoming defenders at the penalty spot, recentered herself\u00a0with a touch towards goal, then fired a shot\u00a0past Justus into the lower left corner.<\/p>\n The\u00a0strike\u00a0gave the Current a 2-1 advantage and marked\u00a0Sentnor\u2019s\u00a0inaugural\u00a0goal for the club, as well as the 26th career regular season assist of\u00a0Debinha\u2019s\u00a0career.\u00a0Sentnor\u2019s\u00a0goal stood as a game-winner, her first for the Current and third of her NWSL career.\u00a0<\/p>\n Kansas City saw the match out from there to take home a 2-1 victory, improving the Current\u2019s record to 3-0-0 in season-opening matches at CPKC Stadium. The Current also improved to 5-0-0 all-time against the Royals following\u00a0the\u00a0victory.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Cooper made her 50th career regular season start on Saturday\u00a0to become\u00a0the seventh player in\u00a0club\u00a0history to reach the milestone.\u00a0Bethune\u2019s debut goal came on her 25th birthday,\u00a0and she is\u00a0the 13th player in NWSL history to score on her birthday.\u00a0Midfielder Bayley Feist, who started and\u00a0played\u00a0the full\u00a090 minutes, celebrated her 29th birthday.<\/p>\n The KC Current now embarks on a three-game road swing beginning in Evanston, Ill., against the Chicago Stars on Sunday, March 22. Kickoff is set for 1 p.m. CT at\u00a0Northwestern Medicine Field at Martin Stadium. The match will broadcast on ESPN2 and fans in Kansas City can listen to the action on\u00a090.9 the Bridge, and the game will be available in English, Spanish and Portuguese on the KC Current App.<\/p>\n Single match tickets can be\u202fpurchased\u202fHERE<\/a>\u202fand single-match\u202fparking is available\u202fHERE<\/a>.\u202fMulti-match ticket packages\u202fare available\u202fHERE<\/a>\u202fand limited season\u00a0ticket inventory can be found\u202fHERE<\/a>.\u202f\u202fThe best way to ensure you\u202fwon\u2019t\u202fmiss a second of the action at CPKC Stadium is by joining the Current Club, the Current\u2019s trailblazing fan membership experience.\u202fClick\u202fHERE<\/a>\u202ffor\u202fmore information about\u202fjoining\u202fthe Current Club.<\/p>\n NWSL Match Report\u202f\u00a0<\/strong> Discipline\u202f<\/strong>\u00a0 Scoring\u202f<\/strong>\u00a0 Scoring Summary<\/strong><\/p>\n Kansas City Current\u00a0Lineup:\u00a0<\/strong>Lorena, Bravo-Young, I. Rodriguez, Robinson, Sharples, Feist, Scott\u00a0(78\u2019 Ball),\u00a0Debinha\u00a0\u00a9, Bethune\u00a0(61\u2019 Hocking), Cooper\u00a0(46\u2019 Hopkins),\u00a0Sentnor\u00a0(88\u2019 Paul) Utah Royals\u00a0Lineup:\u00a0<\/strong>Justus, Milazzo\u00a0(74\u2019 Tejada), Del Fava\u00a0\u00a9, Riehl, Simmonds\u00a0(61\u2019 Thomsen), Hammond,\u00a0Prasnikar\u00a0(74\u2019 Nagai), Delzer, Lacasse, Palacios\u00a0(83\u2019 Eichenberger), Mozingo\u00a0(83\u2019 Ream) \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.kansascitycurrent.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" KANSAS CITY\u00a0(March\u00a014,\u00a02026)\u00a0\u2014 The Kansas City Current (1-0-0,\u00a03\u00a0pts., 1st place)\u00a0won its third consecutive home opener at CPKC Stadium on Saturday afternoon, using a second-half comeback to best the Utah Royals (0-1-0, 0 pts., 14th place),\u00a02-1. After Utah opened the scoring in the first half, midfielder Croix Bethune\u00a0capped\u00a0her club debut with a goal in the 57th minute […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1950140,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2328609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Match-Preview-Kansas-City-Current-Travels-to-Utah-Royals-for.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2328609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2328609"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2328609\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2328610,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2328609\/revisions\/2328610"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1950140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2328609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2328609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2328609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Match:\u00a0Kansas City Current\u00a0vs.\u00a0Utah Royals\u202f\u00a0
Date:\u00a0March\u00a014,\u00a02026\u202f\u00a0
Venue:\u00a0CPKC Stadium,\u00a0Kansas City,\u00a0MO
Kickoff:\u00a03:04 p.m. CT\/2:04 p.m. MT\u00a0
Weather:\u00a066 degrees, sunny\u00a0
Attendance:\u00a011,500<\/p>\n
51\u2019\u00a0Kansas City\u00a0\u2013\u00a0Scott\u00a0(Yellow)<\/p>\n
35\u2019\u00a0Utah\u00a0\u2013\u00a0Milazzo\u00a0(Lacasse)
57\u2019 Kansas City \u2013 Bethune (Sharples)\u00a0
69\u2019 Kansas City \u2013\u00a0Sentnor\u00a0(Debinha)<\/p>\n\n\n
\n \u00a0<\/td>\n 1<\/strong><\/td>\n 2<\/strong><\/td>\n F<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Kansas City<\/td>\n 0<\/td>\n 2<\/td>\n 2<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Utah<\/td>\n 1<\/td>\n 0<\/td>\n 1<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
Unused Substitutes:\u00a0Jordan, Rouse, White,\u00a0Suliafu, Carusa<\/em><\/p>\n
Unused Substitutes:\u00a0Jackson, Cronin<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n