{"id":255682,"date":"2026-08-01T10:56:05","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T10:56:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/01\/ijeh-hattrick-leads-courage-in-bounce-back-5-0-victory-equalizer-soccer\/"},"modified":"2026-08-01T10:56:05","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T10:56:05","slug":"ijeh-hattrick-leads-courage-in-bounce-back-5-0-victory-equalizer-soccer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/01\/ijeh-hattrick-leads-courage-in-bounce-back-5-0-victory-equalizer-soccer\/","title":{"rendered":"Ijeh hattrick leads Courage in bounce-back 5-0 victory \u2013 Equalizer Soccer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div id=\"mvp-content-main\" itemprop=\"articleBody\">\n<div id=\"mvp-post-feat-img\" class=\"left relative\" itemprop=\"image\" itemscope=\"\" itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/ImageObject\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<meta itemprop=\"url\" content=\"https:\/\/equalizersoccer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/2026-08-01T012556Z_1861534683_MT1USATODAY29491182_RTRMADP_3_NWSL-ORLANDO-PRIDE-AT-NORTH-CAROLINA-COURAGE-1000x600.jpg\"\/><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<meta itemprop=\"width\" content=\"1000\"\/><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<meta itemprop=\"height\" content=\"600\"\/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n<p><!--mvp-post-feat-img--><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"mvp-feat-caption\">Photo Credit: Jaylynn Nash-Imagn Images<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The North Carolina Courage\u00a0beat the Orlando Pride, 5-0, at WakeMed Soccer Park\u00a0on Friday night, the largest margin of victory in the NWSL this season. It was an important win for the Courage after they fell 1-4 to the Utah Royals in their previous game.<\/p>\n<p>Forward Evelyn Ijeh led the way for North Carolina, becoming the first Swedish player to score a hat trick in the NWSL. The three-goal haul brought Ijeh\u2019s season tally to seven. There were other big milestone contributions among the Courage as well. <\/p>\n<p>Lauryn Thompson scored her first professional goal in the fourth minute, making the Wake Forest, NC, native the youngest player to score for the Courage in the NWSL regular season. Thompson would later assist Ijeh\u2019s second goal. England international Erica Meg Parkinson recorded the assist on Thompson\u2019s goal, the 18-year-old\u2019s first assist since joining during the summer window, making just the third teenager-to-teenager goal in NWSL history. Ijeh herself is just 24, meaning the future of the Courage looks bright.<\/p>\n<p>Ashley Sanchez capped off the win with her 10th\u00a0goal\u00a0of the season, putting her second in the Golden Boot race.\u00a0She also assisted Ijeh\u2019s first goal of the night.<\/p>\n<p>It is also notable that a key piece of North Carolina\u2019s defense, captain Natalie Jacobs, started a match for the first time since March 21. Additionally, Norwegian midfielder Vilde B\u00f8e Risa, who signed with the Courage this week,\u00a0made her NWSL debut in the 82nd minute.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-x wp-block-embed-x\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The Courage earn a 5-0 shutout win thanks to a hat trick from Evelyn Ijeh and goals from Ashley Sanchez and Lauryn Thompson.<\/p>\n<p>North Carolina Courage vs. Orlando Pride highlights presented by <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/Nationwide?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\">@nationwide<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/dS3pa67E6Z\" target=\"_blank\">pic.twitter.com\/dS3pa67E6Z<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 National Women\u2019s Soccer League (@NWSL) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/NWSL\/status\/2083380139816046635?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\">August 1, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p><!-- CONTENT END 1 --><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<!--mvp-post-tags--><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<!--posts-nav-link--><\/p>\n<div class=\"mvp-org-wrap\" itemprop=\"publisher\" itemscope=\"\" itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/Organization\">\n<div class=\"mvp-org-logo\" itemprop=\"logo\" itemscope=\"\" itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/ImageObject\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/equalizersoccer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/equalizerWhite-1.png\"\/><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<meta itemprop=\"url\" content=\"https:\/\/equalizersoccer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/equalizerWhite-1.png\"\/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n<p><!--mvp-org-logo--><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<meta itemprop=\"name\" content=\"Equalizer Soccer\"\/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n<p><!--mvp-org-wrap-->\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/equalizersoccer.com\/2026\/08\/01\/ijeh-hattrick-leads-courage-in-bounce-back-5-0-victory\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Photo Credit: Jaylynn Nash-Imagn Images The North Carolina Courage\u00a0beat the Orlando Pride, 5-0, at WakeMed Soccer Park\u00a0on Friday night, the largest margin of victory in the NWSL this season. It was an important win for the Courage after they fell 1-4 to the Utah Royals in their previous game. Forward Evelyn Ijeh led the way [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":255683,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6805],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-255682","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-womens"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255682\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/255683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}