CARSON — Angel City Football Club closed the books on its best regular season Sunday.
Angel City capped off a 4-1 win over Boston Legacy FC at Dignity Health Sports Park with a first-half goal from Nealy Martin and second-half goals from Evelyn Shores, Sviendis Jónsdóttir and Claire Emslie.
The game moved to Carson because of a scheduling conflict with LAFC, who had an MLS home game scheduled for the evening.
The win extends Angel City’s unbeaten streak to 10 consecutive games (8-0-2), and it’s the best way to send the club into the second-ever playoff appearance.
Angel City (15-8-7) finished the season on 52 points, good enough for fifth place, but not good enough for the team to start the playoffs with a home game.
The final day of the season is called Decision Day, but with that comes a bit of the chaos. All eight games were being played simultaneously, with the live standings operator and web pages getting an extra workout.
By halftime, Angel City was still in the fifth spot, and with the Kansas City Current and Washington Spirit recording their wins, that’s where Angel City would remain in the final standings.
Kansas City Current ended up defeating Racing Louisville 2-0 and the Spirit defeated Chicago 2-0. That left Kansas City in fourth place and the first playoff opponent for Angel City in next week’s quarterfinal round.
Shores scored the go-ahead goal in the 17th minute, knocking in a header of a free kick from Jónsdóttir. In the 72nd minute, Taylor Suarez set up Jónsdóttir, sliding across a ball from the left wing, which Jónsdóttir put into the back of the net. The goal was the 10th of the season for Jónsdóttir, making her the first double-digit goalscorer for Angel City in its history.
Riley Tiernan set the individual goal-scoring record last season with eight.
Claire Emslie capped the scoring in the 84th minute.
Angel City will start the playoffs Saturday at CPKC Stadium against the Current at 9 a.m. Angel City won the first meeting May 20, 2-1 at home and the second one, Aug. 1, in Kansas City, ended in a 1-1 draw. The Current have a 32-game consecutive home unbeaten streak still intact.
This will be Angel City’s second playoff appearance. The first came in its second year, 2023. That year, Angel City finished fifth in a 22-game regular season.
The first meeting against Boston, Aug. 31, was the kickoff to Angel City’s current nine-game unbeaten streak. Angel City won that game 5-2.