Gotham FC continues the unbeaten run with a victory away to Bay FC

NJ/NY Gotham FC continued their great form with a 1-0 win over Bay FC. This extends their unbeaten run to five and is their 10th win of the season, becoming just the second club to reach that mark in 2026.

A big storyline going into this game was that Ann-Katrin Berger was dropped in favor of backup Shelby Hogan. Postgame, acting Head Coach Shaun Harris clarified that this was just an opportunity for Berger to rest for a game and was seemingly not indicative of any sort of change to who the number one keeper is. This is Gotham FC's last midweek game for the season, with only the traditional weekend matches to follow. This makes it much easier for Berger to play every game for the rest of the season barring injury.

For Bay, this was their second consecutive 1-0 defeat, putting them in a difficult spot in the playoff race. They sit in 14th, four points behind Angel City FC, who currently occupy the eighth and final playoff spot. This is then further complicated as four of the six teams between them and the final playoff spot have a game in hand on Bay while also maintaining a points advantage as well.

As mentioned earlier, this extends a great run of form for Gotham. After a very slow start that saw them win only once and score just two goals in their first five games, the NJ/NNY side has won eight and only lost one of their subsequent 11 matches. Jaelin Howell mentioned postgame how this regular season has been more consistent, whereas last year had many more ups and downs. Their second position in the table would agree with Howell's assessment of 2026 so far.

Another W in the Bay for Gotham FC

The match started in a near carbon-copy way to Friday's game against Portland Thorns FC as Midge Purce scored the opener less than two minutes in. Off a corner kick from Jaedyn Shaw, Howell headed the ball back across goal into Purce, who quickly settled and shot the ball into the Bay goal to give Gotham FC another early lead.

Then five minutes later, a truly bizarre sequence of events occurred. A long goal-kick from the home side's goalkeeper Jordan Silkowitz caused a bit of confusion between Jess Carter and Hogan. What looked like a weak back pass was picked up by forward Karlie Lema. Lema then rounded Hogan but, despite having what looked like plenty of space to shoot into an open goal, elected not to. Then, on the recycle of the ball, a cross was bundled around in the box and toe-poked into the net by Kennedy Fuller for what looked like her first goal for the club.

Or so it was thought. After a lengthy VAR review, Lema was deemed to be offside on the initial pass from Silkowitz. Looking at the play, a Gotham player touched the ball in the midfield, but that was correctly deemed unintentional. The real question was the back pass from Carter.

While Carter did intentionally play the ball back, which theoretically would have placed Lema onside, because Lema was involved in the play from an offside position when the pass was played, that negates the usual ruling fans see where an intentional back pass in this scenario keeps everyone on the opposing team onside.

After that, it felt like a lot of bend don't break from the Gotham backline. Despite what at times felt like a bombardment from the Bay, they could only muster three shots on target and 0.15 xG in the first half. The Bats went into the halftime break up 1-0.

Five minutes into the second half, Gotham had a chance to double their lead when a Guro Reiten cross found the head of Sam Kerr. The Australian's header was headed toward the back post when Silkowitz again managed to get a hand on it.

In fact, the Bay FC goalkeeper would come up big again multiple times in the second half. There was a chance off a corner that Tierna Davidson shot a right-footed volley that she saved spectacularly. Then, in the 86th minute, Silkowitz made her best save of the night, this time on Jordynn Dudley. Dudley was slipped behind the Bay backline after a great pass from second-half sub Andrea Kitahata. Dudley created some space with her speed and got the shot off that Silkowitz spectacularly saved with her left foot.

Rose Lavelle was potentially available for a cutback pass, but it is good to see the rookie have the confidence to take that shot on herself, which is a quality not always seen from young forwards who can tend to default to the pass to the more experienced player in that scenario.

Bay FC had chances too, including a unique scenario with consecutive free kicks in virtually the same spot within a minute of each other. In the 80th minute, Reiten fouled Fuller outside of the top of Gotham's box. Fuller took the free kick, but it deflected off of the Bats' wall for a corner. On the ensuing corner, the ball bounced out to the edge of the box where Lavelle fouled Hannah Bebar in basically the same spot, earning a yellow card. This time it was Alex Pfeiffer who stepped up, but her shot went high and wide and ultimately did not challenge Hogan in goal.

Then, in the second minute of stoppage time, there was a weird play where a Carter clearance went off Bruninha, another second-half sub, and fell right to the feet of Pfeiffer. Bruninha, trying to get back into place after being stunned by the clearance, got a fantastic block on Pfeiffer's shot, preserving the clean sheet and ultimately the win for Gotham.

A clearer look at the standings

This round of midweek games also saw the Kansas City Current in action as well as a clash between the Washington Spirit and Utah Royals FC. As such, all of the top seven teams in the standings are now on 17 games played, making the top of the table picture clearer than the past few weeks.

This win, combined with Washington's win over Utah, means that the NJ/NY side maintains second in the table, two points behind the Spirit but four points over Utah. This gives them a small margin for error on the clubs below them, but given Washington's quality, they'll have zero margin for error when trying to catch up to them in the hunt for the first NWSL Shield in club history.

Gotham FC will wrap up this three-game western road trip on Saturday night when they take on the Houston Dash for the second and final time this season. An interesting wrinkle is that Khyah Harper, who joined Houston from Gotham earlier this week, might end up making her Dash debut against the club that she started her career with and was a part of just a week prior.

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