Lauren Milliet and her teammates celebrate Lo’s first goal of the match, her first goal of the season, and her first goal in Lynn Family Stadium. That’s a beautiful trifecta to celebrate this Derby season.

Credit to Michael for this week’s picture commentary title and for contributing to the playlist for the match that debuted Racing’s third kit. You may not have realized that along with Girls/ Women in Sports, Friendship Bracelets, and Rain, there was an underlying theme to the night that revolved (pun intended) around disco balls.

All themes were quickly overshadowed when Lo Milliet scored that first banger. It became Lo’s match and will forever be known as the match where Lo scored her brace. (Kudos to Weber for her header goal, Katie for her assist, Emma for the cross that would land in the net thanks to a perfect little tap from Lo…so much to really celebrate from that match.)

And how do I celebrate? In pictures and sarcasm, typos and metaphors, like if someone tried to narrate the Moon Landing but had zero knowledge of astronauts, space, or time, and was trying to use an Apple laptop with an external keyboard. Let’s blast off, shall we?

The warm-ups (the exercises and the jerseys) were pretty chill and need a mini gallery to get us ready for some action.

Lo seems to predict that this game would be “money” or maybe she was calling out the guy who cut her off on her drive to the stadium. I see you, green mustang, and stadium security is having your car towed.

After player intros but before they take the pitch, Swebs appears to get a cold chill. She tells Lo that it was the good kind of shivers (like Ed Sheeran’s). That she has a good feeling about the night (and when they say the party’s over then we bring it right back).

*Emma wastes no time bringing the ball to Orlando’s end and asking Marta about her bionic leg. “I’ll play into my fifties!” Marta responds.*

*Speaking of superheroes - Emma, not Marta - Superfan Lemmel dons his new cape to pump up the crowd.*

Time to pause for an Emma Gallery

*Kayla Fischer out here doing squats while everyone is out of breath (including me) after the last run on goal.*

The official Lo-Getting-Revved-Up Gallery including Katie’s nod to ship it.

*And finally…my most favorite picture that I’ve ever taken in my long and illustrious career* as a sports photographer.*
*Fine, I have no such career, so let’s just say it’s the best picture on the planet and let me have my moment.

Now for 3000 pictures of my girl celebrating “the best goal I’ve ever scored in my entire life” as she put it.

*Katie O’Kane takes the ball down the pitch hoping to get a goal of her own.*
(Side note/ true story. Had to take break from writing this after to attend a funeral. I wasn’t sure how I was going to get back into the right headspace to write about funny soccer pictures, but before we all sang “Amazing Grace,” the choir sang “Elvira” by the Oak Ridge Boys (please google it if you don’t know what I’m talking about). The minister of music played along on the upright piano from the 1800s, and when it got to the “giddy up” part, most of the church sang along. So, I’m back, Hi Ho Silver! (Rest in peace, Carolyn.))

The second stage of grief is “criticizing” so let’s get into it. When players are standing around and no one knows what’s going on, that usually means it’s VAR time (Very Aggravating Referee time). We had a lot of VAR time last night and are lucky that the lightning held off until exactly one minute after the final whistle blew. Can you imagine if we’d had to stay another 30 minutes to watch the final minute of play? Can you imagine if we’d then given up a goal and the win? We were way too close to that happening.

*Here, the ref is seen yelling at no one in particular because she forgot who had possession, what play they were reviewing, and who was supposed to be bringing her a buzzball.*

We can’t ignore the elephant in the room. (He doesn’t like that.) Racing’s defense had way too much fun volleying with the ball around our own net. We had some “whoopsie” moments but when it really came down to it, Bloomer kept the ball out of the net.

*Luckily Bloomer had help from Taylor Flint and a strong wind.*

Speaking of wind, it managed to bring a record amount of trash to the pitch during the game. I spotted a bag that previously held a Racing friendship bracelet, a used napkin, and an Aquafina wrapper (not to be confused with Awkwafina the rapper). See if you can spot the intruders.

Since Weber’s goal happened on the other side of the pitch, consider these shots some foreshadowing for her goal via header that will be celebrated shortly.

And now we celebrate!

Well I missed Weber’s header-goal but I managed to get Lauren’s 2nd goal because my camera is also a huge Lo Milliet fan. I don’t understand why some of the fans are confused. Maybe they were just trying to think of the word “brace”?

How did she get that brace? Lauren shared post-match that she saw Emma driving, knows that Emma kicks a mean cross, so she just tried to position herself in the goal frame. That’s all it took! That quick thinking in the 3 seconds leading up to what looked like it could’ve been a back heel kick into the net but really was more of a right-place-right-time foot placement. And of course, that killer cross from Emma.

*After Lo’s second goal, the stadium was electric making it the perfect time for some rain. Bloomer didn’t sweat it. She gave the all-clear.*

Once the pitch got wet, Lo was ready to take her celebration to the next level with some slip ‘n slide action! Either that, or the “who me?” player to the left gave her a nice shove to the ground. Was it a shove, Lo?

*That’s what I thought. Great job by the refs calling the foul. I mean, checking the VAR? Nope. they were sharing cotton candy or something because this went completely uncalled.*

*The rain is coming down again. (It was off and on like my interest in NFL football. Currently off.) The ball became a slippery little sucker.*

The refs thought the rain was a perfect time to be VAR, I mean see VAR? Or do they listen to someone else watch the VAR and then whisper in their ears? I should probably look that up. Anyway, the players were thrilled to stand in the rain while the refs sorted things out.