Moni's Excellent Night With The Houston Dash

Been a rough week for me, and I got the opportunity thanks to Mike Craig to knock things off my Houston bucket list.  

I got the opportunity to on a cooler than normal Saturday night to not only check out BBVA Compass Stadium for the first time, but watch the Houston Dash play.

It was the first time since 2001 I'd gotten the opportunity to see a Houston based women's professional sports franchise play a game since the dearly departed Houston Comets played WNBA games in the former arena that is now Joel Osteen's sanctuary.

That's another post and another sport, so back to focusing on our femme footballers.

The opposition for the Dash was the Western New York Flash, and the Dash were missing six total players who were doing Women's World Cup duty for the USA and Canadian squads.  Carli Lloyd, Meghan Klingenberg and Morgan Brian were playing for Team USA and Erin McLeod, Lauren Sesselman and Allysha Chapman for the host Canadians. 

The Dash coming into this game were on a bit of a hot streak, having gone unbeaten in four straight games and looking to extend that streak in this World Cup shortened 2015 NWSL season in which every match is critical and only the top four teams make the playoffs.

My seats were in section 110, in the corner where I could along with the rest of the peeps who came see the corner kicks and all the action developing in front of goal.  We.also had a Latino guy in our section named Carlos who was attending the game as an early Father's Day gift from his wife and he was making this even more fun.

It took a while but we were finally rewarded with a Dash goal in the 24th minute as Jessica McDonald headed the ball into the upper left hand corner for her 5th goal of the season and a 1-0 Dash lead they would take into halftime.

The party continued for us and Carlos as Kealia Ohai, the sister in law of Houston Texans linebacker Brian Cushing, scored her third goal of the season in the 63th minute to build a 2-0 lead and grant Carlos' wish for a Dash victory, three points in the standings and just one point away from first place.

Carlos even got us and the 3,400 peeps in attendance after several tries to do the wave.

Mike had another surprise for us when the game was over and we got to meet a Dash player after the match.

That player turned out to be Dash forward Ella Masar.   She signed autographs and took photos with us to cap off a thoroughly enjoyable evening for me and my crew.

Can't wait to check out another Dash game, and the next time it'll be when all of our players doing World Cup duty will be back.