Boston

It has been a week since Angel City qualified for the NWSL playoffs. On Sunday, the team found out who and where it would be playing.

With a 4-1 victory over Boston Legacy, Angel City finished the regular season fifth in the standings and will travel to Kansas City on Saturday to meet the Current in its second-ever trip to the postseason. And it will enter the playoffs as the hottest team in the NWSL, riding a league-best 10-game unbeaten streak.

The goals Sunday came from Nealy Martin in the first half and Evelyn Shores, Sveindis Jonsdottir and Claire Emslie in the second. Boston’s only score came from Brazilian striker Amanda Gutierres just before intermission.

Angel City began the final game of the regular season with a chance to finish as high as third in the table, earning the right to open the playoffs at home. But to do that it, it needed a win and it needed the two teams directly ahead of it, Kansas City and Washington, to lose.

Neither the Current nor Spirit cooperated, leaving the standings mostly frozen where they were at the start of the week. Not that it really mattered, attacker Ally Sentnor said before the game.

“You have to beat the best to win a championship. You have to beat everyone, so doesn’t really matter who you play at the beginning,” she said. “Every team in the playoffs is a great team, so I think we are just focused on us and what we’re doing on the field and what we are going to produce on the field.

“We just take every game as it comes.”

Although Sunday’s match was a home game for Angel City (15-8-7), it wasn’t played at home. LAFC is the primary tenant at BMO Stadium and when MLS moved the team’s game with Minnesota United from Saturday to Sunday to avoid competing with USC’s football game at the Coliseum, Angel City was forced to relocate 12 miles down the freeway to Dignity Health Sports Park.

An enthusiastic crowd of approximately 15,000 followed the team to Carson for the “Decision Day” match.

But the move left Angel City playing a home game on the road in an effort to avoid the road and play at home in the playoffs. Not that the home-field advantage has meant much to the team this season: Angel City was 6-5-3 at BMO Stadium this season — the worst home record for an NWSL playoff team —- and 9-3-4 everywhere else.

However four of those five home losses came under former coach Alexander Straus. Interim manager Leif Smerud said this is a different Angel City team.

“We are good both home and away,” he said. “If I can choose, I would of course play at home in front of a fantastic crowd. And all the logistics would be a bit simpler as well.

“But that’s not up to me to decide and control.”

Ariadina Alves Borges of Angel City dribbles the ball against Alba Caño of Boston in the first half Sunday.

(Katelyn Mulcahy / Getty Images)

It’s unlikely Angel City would be playing anywhere in the postseason if not for the June coaching change that saw it replace Straus.

The team won just one of its final eight games under Straus and was 12th in the 16-team NWSL table at the time of the change. It has lost just twice in 19 games since, setting franchise records for wins (15), goals (54), points (52) and goal differential (a league-best plus-22).

Martin opened the scoring with the first goal of her six-year NWSL career in the 17th minute. Given tons of time and space just outside the penalty area, she settled a short pass from Sentnor, then patiently chipped forward a right-footed shot that Boston defender Deja Davis inadvertently headed into the net.

Boston (9-15-6) pulled that back in the 37th minute on a blistering right-footed strike from the edge of the box by Gutierres, her 11th goal of the season. That ended a 144-minute scoreless streak for Angel City keeper Angelina Anderson.

But Angel City went ahead to stay eight minutes into the second half when Shores headed in a long cross from Jonsdottir for her fourth goal of the season. Jonsdottir put the game away with her franchise-record 10th goal of the year on a breakaway in the 72nd minute and Emslie closed the scoring 12 minutes later with her first goal since September 2024. Taylor Suarez assisted on both goals.

NWSL playoff pairings
Quarterfinals

Friday
No. 2 San Diego Wave, 18-8-4 vs. No. 7 Utah Royals, 14-11-5, 5 p.m., Prime Video

Saturday
No. 4 Kansas City Current, 16-9-5 vs. No. 5 Angel City, 15-8-7, 9 a.m., CBS/Paramount+

Sunday
No. 1 Gotham FC, 18-5-7 vs. No. 8 Seattle Reign, 14-11-5, 9:30 a.m., ABC
No. 3 Washington Spirit, 17-9-4 vs. No. 6 Portland Thorns, 14-8-8, noon, ABC

The US coastguard says it has dispatched air and surface crews to search for the plane near Nantucket.

An air ambulance has gone missing while carrying six people on a flight from Bermuda to Boston.

The US Federal Aviation Administration told the coastguard early on Saturday that it had lost contact with the plane, a Gulfstream jet, ⁠a coastguard spokesperson told the Reuters news agency by email.

The ⁠coastguard said it dispatched air and surface crews to search for the plane near Nantucket, an island community south of mainland Massachusetts.

The National Transportation Safety Board said it was gathering information about the situation on Saturday morning but had no further update to share.

The Canadian-registered air ambulance jet had four crew members and two passengers on board when it departed Bermuda’s LF Wade International airport overnight for the flight to Massachusetts, according to a statement from the Bermuda airport’s operator, Skyport.

Canada’s Minister of Transport Steven MacKinnon said in a social media post that four Canadians were on the plane.

“We are closely monitoring the situation and are working with the relevant authorities as search and rescue ‌efforts continue,” MacKinnon wrote.

The aircraft, registered to Latitude Air Ambulance, departed Bermuda at 12:41am local time (03:41 GMT), according to data from flight tracking website FlightAware.

The plane was flying at 24,000 feet (7,300 metres) for much of the flight before descending 13,000ft (3,960 metres) in about two minutes shortly before flight controllers lost contact, data showed.

Last communication

Air traffic control audio posted by LiveATC.net offered a glimpse of the flight’s final communications before it went missing.

“Roger, you said you’re coming in blind. Is that what you said?” a controller can be heard asking the pilot.

The pilot’s transmission could not be heard in the recording. The controller later confirmed the pilot was declaring an emergency just before losing contact with the plane.

The Bermuda government is in contact with US ‌authorities and families of the passengers, Bermuda Premier David Burt wrote in a statement posted on Instagram.

“We are praying that all six people will ‌be ‌found safe,” he wrote.

Latitude Air Ambulance is based in Ontario, Canada, and provides medical evacuation services. The company ⁠did not immediately respond to a request for comment.