Photo by ISIphotos.com

By CHRISTA MANN

Week Eight revealed some lingering final third issues as teams in Women's Professional Soccer once again experienced a bit of down scoring. The combined total of goals resulted from two 1-0 finishes, a 1-1 tie and a somewhat slower pace of the game.

In the first match-up of the weekend, the Sol defeated the bottom team and returned to a convincing position at the top.  Its opponent, Sky Blue FC (New Jersey), experienced more bad luck as it suffered injuries to both Natasha Kai and Sarah Walsh in addition to its some continued finishing woes.

The Bay Area's FC Gold Pride and Chicago Red Stars finally settled the battle for middle of the pack, and the Washington Freedom did just fine without Abby Wambach against  Breakers.

The action began on Friday when the L.A. Sol picked up its second win against  Sky Blue FC  with a 1-0 result.

The Sol took control of the first half with its dangerous chances from Aya Miyama, Aly Wagner, Han Duan and of course Marta, but near misses and shots straight to SBFC goalkeeper Jenni Branam had both teams tied scoreless at the half.

SBFC hung around long enough to generate an attack, and believe it or not, New Jersey took a 9-3 advantage in total shots and drew two more corners than L.A. in the second half. The downfall for Sky Blue is that with nine shots overall, zero made it on target.

Bad luck continued for SBFC as Natasha Kai had a bad collision with L.A. goalkeeper Karina LeBlanc and had to be carried off in the 84th minute. Jersey Head Coach Ian Sawyers said that "it appears to be a quad contusion" and that "she's going to be questionable for next weekend."

SBFC's Austrailian born Sarah Walsh missed the entire game due to a tweaked hamstring that couldn't make it through warm-ups.

Of the few things New Jersey will take away from this one, L.A.'s game winner in the 80th minute marked the Sol's latest finish since the 87th minute goal in the WPS inaugural match. SBFC played tough defense to contain the Sol, but the final 10 minutes have been detrimental.

If SBFC could have held L.A.to at least a tie, another scoreless game would have been a little more productive. As it is now, the loss further cements the SBFC at the bottom and once again presents the same uphill battle that the team had just recently overcome

Of course Marta's finish this week gave the Sol it's first win in three games and was enough to keep L.A. in first place with three points clear of the next closest team. 

The ups and downs of Week Eight continued into the second game where the Bay Area's FC Gold Pride met and defeated the Chicago Red Stars.

Both teams have been somewhat out of their sync in recent games, so getting back to square one became a main priority for each side.

With a very similar style of possession, both teams begin the attack by working the ball around the back line and finding the midfield.  Once the ball gets to the center of the park, the teams look to spring an outside back who combines with a forward to serve dangerous balls into the box. At times when the outside back is not the best option, forwards will either find seams for slotted balls or will lay it back for a midfielder's outside shot.

So how does that break down team by team?

For the Bay Area, it means that  Kandace Wilson comes out of the back to link up with Tiffeny Millbrett, Christine Sinclair, Tina DiMartino and Eriko Arakawa. For Chicago, Marian Dalmy comes forward for to link up with Karen Carney, Christiane, Megan Rapinoe, and LindsayTarpley.

Although the teams are very even in their style of play and statistically the Bay Area only had a slight 5-3 advantage in shots on goal, the pounding really came from FCGP in creating the more dangerous and more abundant chances in the final third.

Most expected there to be a much larger margin than 1-0 victory, but FCGP's Christine Sinclair finished the game's only score in the 30th minute.

The Bay Area is getting back on track slowly but steadily while it may really just take Chicago to earn another road victory before it can do the same.

The Bay Area and the Red Stars have remained in the middle of the pack for this first quarter of competition, but that's not say that the Boston Breakers and Washington Freedom have not done their parts to keep them there.

Neither Boston nor Washington played to its usual strengths this week as the Freedom was without Wambach while the Breakers' Kelly Smith struggled to find her rhythm.

As other players took over the game, both goals in the 1-1 result came from some of the league's quieter players.

The Freedom's Rebecca Moros put away the first goal of the game in the 33rd in only her second start of the season. She is a solid worker who should gain a bit more playing time with national team call-ups coming this week.

Also showing her face for the first time, Canadian goalkeeper Erin McCleod finally made her WPS debut after only spending her first week in training with the Washington Freedom.  McCleod played well and was very vocal throughout the game.  In time, a little more experience with her back line should save her from having to make so many unbelievable saves.

As for Boston, Sue Weber and Alex Scott  had good showings but Smith was not quite herself.  Smith usually does well to body up, control under pressure and find combos with the midfield. This week, it seemed that her touch may have been a little heavy and that she was trying to do a little too much on the ball.

Weber played well after Washington scored the game's first goal.  On that finish, Weber was flat with fellow center back Amy LePeilbet and a released Heather Mitts left the gap open for a through ball to beat all three defenders.

On the attacking end. Kudos to the Breakers' Alex Scott (England) who made several attacking runs out of the back to create both her goal in the 49th and some other dangerous scoring opportunities. The English native has great pace and does a great job of getting in behind.

As far as other notables,  Washington's Lisa DeVanna put in a great effort, played a lot of minutes and assisted the first goal of the game.

Washington has continually done well to score in every match, but even some of its better places were pretty quiet against Boston.

The weekend ended with the two 1-0 results and the 1-1 tie.  It was nice to see Marta get back to being Marta, but some of the other superstars are still having a rough time getting back to their usual selves.  The great thing about the WPS is that there are so many quality players that when one is down, there are many others who can pick up the slack.

SBI WPS Power Rankings

1. L.A. Sol (4-1-2)

The Sol currently has the most wins (4), only has one loss, has a positive five in goal differential, and has allowed the least amount of goals.  Every win has been a shutout and the only goals against came from Boston's 2-1 victory in Week Six. The Sol remains at number one because the Breakers were unable to gain a second and game winning goal to defeat the Freedom this week.

2. Boston Breakers (3-2-2)

Strong enough not to take a loss in Week Eight and some different faces began to show a few other hidden strengths. Boston has defeated L.A. head to head but still has one less win and one more loss than the Sol.  The Breakers are second in number of goals scored with nine but break even with nine goals scored against.

3.  FC Gold Pride (3-3-1)

FCGP has been on a bit of a lull lately but is coming back around.  This week's win against Chicago does well to push it into the top three. FCGP has more scored goals and has more wins than Chicago; however, it also has more losses and has conceded more goals than its middle of the pack competitor. That makes tougher to conclude that without a doubt the Bay Area is the better team. But, given the FCGP head to head win, the Bay Area gains an advantage here.

4. Chicago Red Stars (2-2-2)

Chicago is a strong team that has yet to recover from the out of sync return it made after the Week Six bye.  The Red Stars need a win to get back on track and need to finish with a quality two or three goal result.  Losing to an equally matched FCGP hurts the Red Stars chances of rating any higher this week.

5. Washington Freedom (1-2-3)

The Freedom did well to score the first goal against the Breakers this week but really need a win to make a case for a higher position.  With three more goals against than scored, Washington is also in need of a two goal result to move out of the bottom three.

6. St. Louis Athletica (1-2-2)

The St. Louis Athletica took the bye this week and are in a position to challenge the Washington Freedom for the fifth spot. The Athletica's advantage is that it has given up seven less goals and it has at least one win at home.  Because St. Louis is one game behind Washington, the Freedom's extra tie keeps the Athletica closer to the bottom.

7. Sky Blue FC (1-3-2)

SBFC is scrapping tooth and nail to get out of the very bottom but the results continue to fall short of the team's optimism.  With more losses than any other team, new Jersey also has the least amount of goals scored.  SBFC does post the third fewest number of goals against which brings out at least one positive note.

What were your favorite moments from the weekend?  Agree or Disagree with the Power Rankings?