Ashlyn Harris Somehow Didn’t Get A Foul For This Draw-Preserving Takedown

There were seconds left in the game. Elizabeth Eddy got the pass. She was one-on-one with the goalkeeper. And Ashlyn Harris did all she could to preserve a draw for the Orlando Pride against Sky Blue FC, sprawling out to make the save.

Then, on the follow, she simply grabbed onto Eddy’s leg to prevent her from scoring. Hey, you do whatever you need to do to win the game.

The ref blew the whistle to end the game seconds later. Carli Lloyd, who scored the equalizer in the 88th minute and nearly had the game-winning assist on Eddy’s goal, said postgame she didn’t think it was a penalty. Maybe she’d think differently if she saw, say, the GIF at the top of this post.

As you can see from the video, the ref appears to have penalized Eddy for coming into contact with Harris before Harris grabbed her leg and tackled her. (As you can also see from the video, the goal Harris was defending was directly under Mr. Burns’s sun-blocking machine.)

Obviously, not everyone agrees with Lloyd. From this angle it looks like a pretty good takedown.

h/t Jonathan