Sarah Bouhaddi Earns NWSL Save of the Week
The National Women’s Soccer League announced today that OL Reign goalkeeper Sarah Bouhaddi has earned the NWSL Verizon Save of the Week for her save in the 54th of the match on Saturday, August 21, against NJ/NY Gotham FC at Cheney Stadium in Tacoma.
The National Women's Soccer League Save of the Week is a weekly award given to individual players in the National Women's Soccer League since 2016. The honor is awarded by popular social media vote to the player deemed to have made the best save over the past week.
Bouhaddi made three saves to preserve the win for OL Reign last Saturday, bringing her to 23 total saves this season. On loan from Olympique Lyonnais in France, Bouhaddi has started and played in 11 games for OL Reign. In her 970 minutes of playing time, she has earned three clean sheets.
Her 54th minute save against NJ/NY Gotham FC was spectacular. Caprice Dydasco served a ball into the box for Carli Lloyd, who got a solid head on the end of it. It looked like Gotham was poised to extend their lead to 3-0, but Bouhaddi game up big, diving in goal to get a hand on the ball and knock it off the post and out of danger. Just three minutes later, Kristen McNabb scored OL Reign’s first goal, which kickstarted the team’s 3-2 comeback win.
“In the second half, we only gave Gotham one or two opportunities. The big one was Carli Lloyd’s header, which Sarah made a great save of,” said OL Reign head coach Laura Harvey.
This is Bouhaddi’s first time winning the award, as well as the first time she has been nominated for the award.