The San Diego Wave hosts the Houston Dash on Sunday at 5 p.m., and there's good news and bad news.

The Good: Star forward Jaedyn Shaw finally appears to be healthy after being injured for most of the summer.

“She's doing great: she feels better. She moves really well. “It’s nice to have her back,” interim coach Landon Donovan told reporters this week.

“The timing is good because Mel is gone.”

There's the bad. Melanie Barcenas will miss Sunday afternoon's game at Snapdragon Stadium and the remainder of the Wave's regular season while playing for the U.S. youth national team at the U-17 Women's World Cup.

The San Diego native broke through at the age of 16 and began showing signs of becoming the team's next superstar.

It's a similar role to Shaw's last year, when she became one of San Diego's most sought-after players at just 18 years old. Accolades soon followed: Shaw was named MVP of the Conacaf W Gold Cup in March and was selected to compete in the London Olympics in June.

A quadriceps injury sustained during Olympic training prevented Shaw from contributing to a gold medal and she was limited in her return to the Wave.

However, Shaw played 45 minutes in the club's loss to the North Carolina Courage on Oct. 5 and is expected to play most, if not all, of Sunday's game.

Donovan said Shaw would take on the role Barcenas last played.

“Even though they are different types of players, they can play similar roles,” Donovan said. “I don’t have to coach (Shaw) on offense because she’s always in the right position, always wants the ball and then makes good plays when she has the ball. So our job is just to get her the ball into dangerous places as often as possible so she can make plays.”

The Wave (5-11-7) needs plays – and wins, the losses of some opponents and more than a little luck – to stay in the NWSL playoffs. They entered the weekend six points behind Bay FC for the final NWSL playoff spot. Teams receive three points for each win and one point for each draw.

The Wave have three regular season games remaining. There's the bad.

The good? Houston (4-14-5) sits last in the league with just 17 total points. Since trading forward María Sánchez to the Wave on April 20, the Dash are 3-11-4.

“It’s a trick game because they’re way better than their record shows,” Donovan said. “What they’re missing is what probably half the teams in the league are missing, and that’s a superstar attack player.”

Remarkable

Sunday is billed as a children's day and the Wave offers children free tickets with every adult ticket purchased. For more information, visit Wave's website or Ticketmaster.

• Donovan said he had “good, open and honest conversations” with the club president Jill Ellis and managing director Camille Ashton about his future with the wave. In mid-August he was appointed as the club's interim coach.

“The focus is on the next three games because it will be close,” he told reporters. “But we agreed to meet shortly afterwards and talk about what might happen next.”

Originally published: October 12, 2024 at 2:41 p.m