Nigeria defender and WAFCON 2024 winner, Michelle Alozie, scored a stoppage-time winner to hand Houston Dash a dramatic 2–1 win over Gotham FC, www.aclsports.com reports.
The result not only gave Houston all three points on the road but also ended Gotham’s four-match unbeaten run in the NWSL.
Michelle Alozie, who recently returned from international duty with Nigeria, brought her big-match composure to Sports Illustrated Stadium on Sunday, scoring a stoppage-time winner that sealed a dramatic 2–1 win for Houston Dash over Gotham FC.
Gotham made a strong start, taking the lead in the 8th minute through Spanish striker Esther González, who finished off a flowing move for her league-leading 11th goal of the season. But the Dash remained resilient and were gifted an equaliser in the 51st minute, when Emily Sonnett’s attempted back-pass slipped past her own goalkeeper and into the net for an own goal.
A two-hour weather delay due to thunderstorms interrupted the momentum, but Houston came back from the break with purpose.
In the dying moments of stoppage time, Alozie struck. Capitalising on a defensive lapse inside the box, she took one touch to steady herself before calmly firing past the keeper in the 93rd minute, a cool finish that sealed her first NWSL goal of the season and sent the Dash bench into wild celebration.
It was a performance that echoed her recent form on the international stage, where she scored a late winner in the semi-finals of the 2024 Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (WAFCON). Nigeria went on to lift a record-extending 10th continental title, and Alozie’s confidence hasn’t dipped since.
For Gotham, the late goal was a gut punch and a frustrating end to a night that had looked promising.
