It may not have been as stunning as Chicago scoring twice — twice!! — but the Red Stars 2-1 win over Washington on Wednesday night marked the first time a WPS team had fallen behind and come back to win.

A Chicago win was probably the result the Athletica were looking for. It keeps them in third place, three points ahead of fifth place Chicago and with two more games to play.

And it was neat to hear an old friend, Dean Linke, doing the play-by-play.

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Closer to home, the Athletica worked on a lot of finishing at practice Wednesday. (They took Tuesday off and they traveled back from New Jersey on Monday.) In a drill that closed practice, players had 10 balls in a line at the top of the arc and had to shoot, first the one on the far left, then the one on the far right, back and forth, from the top of penalty box. Of course, last week, they worked a lot on corners and had none against Sky Blue, so that was a big waste of time.

“Welcome to soccer,” coach Jorge Barcellos said. “We had five shots on goal, no corner kicks. Soccer is opportunity. When you have an opportunity, you have to put the ball away.”

Sarah Walsh was watching practice as she recovers from a hamstring injury. Barcellos thinks she might be available on July 18 at Washington.

Barcellos on the win: “Those were the most valued three points I’ve ever got. It was tough. I really value those three points. It felt like we got six points instead of three.”

Barcellos said that on the play where the winning goal was scored, Elise Weber was supposed to take the throw in and pass to Melissa Tancredi, but the two switched roles and Tancredi threw it in to Weber. “It worked out for us,” he said.

On the trade that got Walsh for Kerri Hanks and Francielle: “We were looking for a more experienced forward, with a different style, faster. (Walsh) has a lot of experience. She played in the World Cup. She played against Brazil when I was coaching Brazil. She’s a good player.”

With two back-to-back games on the West Coast, the team is staying there between the Gold Pride game on the 5th and the Sol game on the 8th. The team will train in Southern California. The St. Louis-LA game, by the way, is the last home game of the regular season for the Sol, who are very close to clinching having the WPS championship game being played at the Home Depot Center.

Lori Chalupny and Hope Solo are expected to be called in for the U.S.-Canada games coming up in mid-July. Melissa Tancredi is being called in by the Canadian team.

Tip of the hat to everyone on the roster, whose contracts became guaranteed for the rest of the season at 7 p.m. on Wednesday.

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And a moment of remembrance for actor Karl Malden, who died Wednesday at the age of 97. While you’re saying, what does this have to do with soccer, I’ll pass along this story. At the end of the 1999 Women’s World Cup, the U.S. team had a practice session at the Claremont Colleges in Southern California, I think their last one out in the open before the final. Because of that, several hundred fans came out to watch the session in what was a really amazing summer. And among the people who came out to watch a pretty light practice, I saw Karl Malden. He just stood there among the crowd, probably with a granddaughter, and watched practice. So a tip of the hat to an Oscar-winning actor who came out was a fan for a day.