Soul Drop First Game Ever at Merritt College, Fall 1-2 to California Storm
Entering Sunday afternoon’s home match at Merritt College, Oakland Soul had never lost a game at the venue, winning every prior game except one — a draw to California Storm. That record was broken by those same opponents, as Soul conceded a late goal and eventually fell 1-2 to Storm in their second home match of the 2026 USL W League season.
Historically, matches between the two sides have been evenly contested, and Sunday’s fixture started off looking no different, as both sides looked well matched through the first phase of play.
Storm opened the scoring in the 28th minute when a good lob into the attacking third found a duo of California forwards with some space to work near the top of the box. A good through ball to Storm’s Taina Gervais inside the Soul penalty area gave her just enough space to work a shot through three closing Soul defenders which rang the crossbar and crossed the line to give them an 0-1 lead.
Soul answered less than a minute later however, when several clean passes directly from the restart found Jasmine Leshnick on a run just outside the top of the box. Leshnick fired a strike from 20-yards out which found the top left corner past the diving hands of the Storm keeper to level things at 1-1 in the 29th minute.
The two sides continued to trade scoring chances for the remainder of the contest, but as the full-time whistle loomed it looked as if the match would end in a draw.
But in the 88th minute after some sustained pressure in Soul’s defensive third, Storm’s Dalia Asad received a pass up the middle, taking a touch to earn some space on a pressing defender before firing a long distance strike from nearly 30-yards out which arced just beneath the crossbar to give Storm a late 1-2 lead.
Soul were relentless in their pursuit of a leveling goal in the final few minutes of the match, nearly converting on multiple occasions. But despite the late pressure the final whistle blew before they could find another.
Soul will now face a two-game stretch of games on the road at Pleasanton Rage and Monterey Bay FC before returning to Merritt College for their next home game on June 7th at 3 PM PT.
