Delaney Baie Pridham scored her league-leading ninth goal of the season as the Ottawa Rapid defeated the Calgary Wild 3-1 in Northern Super League action Saturday.
Pridham has nine goals in nine games for the Rapid (4-3-2), who are third in the six-team league with 14 points.
Melanie Forbes had her first career goal and an assist off the bench for Ottawa on her 26th birthday. Nicola Golen also scored for Ottawa.
Sonia O'Neill had the only goal for the Wild, who fell to 3-4-2 and remained in fourth place, ahead of Vancouver on goal differential.
Pridham opened the scoring in the 32nd minute with a shot redirected off the goal post.
Forbes put Ottawa up 2-0 in the 65th minute, then set up Golen's first career NSL goal in the 87th.
“It feels great," Forbes said. "It's like icing on the cake, literally."
Golen's goal came after O'Neill had cut Ottawa's lead to 2-1 in the 83rd minute, 10 minutes after she came into the game.
"You could tell a lot of our players were tired because of the heat so when you come off the bench it’s your job to get that push and help the team," O'Neill said. "With how close everyone is in the standings, we know goal differential is important, so even if we didn’t win the game, I knew it was important to score."
Later Saturday, Kaylee Hunter scored twice as AFC Toronto defeated the visiting Halifax Tides 3-1.
Halifax took an early lead on a Toronto own goal five minutes into the game, but Hunter's brace and an insurance marker from Esther Okoronkwo improved Toronto's record to 5-3-1 for 16 points, one back of league-leading Montreal.
The last-place Tides fell to 1-5-1.
COMMENTS
When submitting content, please abide by our submission guidelines, and avoid posting profanity, personal attacks or harassment. Should you violate our submissions guidelines, we reserve the right to remove your comments and block your account. Sportsnet reserves the right to close a story’s comment section at any time.