The San Diego Spirit scored three goals in the first 26 minutes, but then withstood a second half barrage from the Washington Freedom before holding on for a 3-2 victory and the first road win in club history in front of 10,742 fans at RFK Stadium. In a bizarre twist to the match, the Freedom made an illegal fifth substitute in the 79th minute, sending on Roseli, but neither the referee nor the fourth official noticed the mistake as WUSA teams are allowed only four field player subs per game. In the end, it did not impact the match, which was a tale of two halves as the Spirit controlled the first stanza with the Freedom dominating the entire second half. The win marked the first time the Spirit has beaten a team twice. With a win over the Bay Area CyberRays on Sunday at Torero Stadium (3 p.m. PT), the Spirit (3-5-2, 11 pts.) has a chance to move into a tie for fourth place and the final playoff berth. The Spirit scored first for just the second time this season, getting on the board just 10 minutes into the match. Mercy Akide kept a throw-in from Jen Mascaro alive on the right flank by playing a pass behind the Freedom defense. Freedom defender Emmy Barr was in good position and let the ball roll across her body, but San Diego’s Shannon MacMillan did not quit on the play. She ran down the ball in the right side of the penalty area and as it scooted past Barr, slid to strike a wonderful curling shot into the lower left corner from 14 yards out, catching goalkeeper Siri Mullinix, as well as Barr, by surprise. “I was just trying to get a piece of [the ball] to possibly get a corner kick and I beat her to it and got the shot off,” said MacMillan, who scored her sixth goal of the season, and coupled with an assist on Jen Mascaro’s second goal, tied her for the WUSA lead in scoring heading into the weekend games. The Spirit got its second goal just two minutes later as Traci Arkenberg played a flighted pass into the penalty area that the Freedom failed to clear. The ball bounced and Julie Foudy got a piece of it as she challenged Mullinix before both went down in a heap. Mascaro cleaned up the garbage as the ball sat on the turf for her to drive a shot into the middle of the open goal from 14 yards out. The Spirit went up 3-0 in the 26th minute after MacMillan played a beautiful pass through the Freedom defense to Mascaro, who had a step on Washington defender Skylar Little and then deftly lifted the ball over the sliding Mullinix with her left foot and into the net from six yards out. “On the first goal, there was a collision in front and I was able to get to the loose ball and score,” said Mascaro who tied a league record with five points in a game. “I just got lucky. The second goal was a great pass from Mac. As soon as she got the ball we made eye contact.” Aside from one dangerous MacMillan run and cross from the right flank and a volley from San Diego’s Shannon Boxx that whipped through the goalmouth after a corner kick, almost being deflected in by both Akide and Fan Yunjie, the rest of the match was all Freedom. Before the Spirit scored its third goal, Michelle French almost pulled one back, hammering a shot off the cross bar from an 18-yard free-kick that came after referee Sandra Hunt ruled that Fan fouled Washington’s Monica Gerardo at the lip of the penalty area. Playing its second of three games in an eight-day span, and playing in front of the largest crowd in club history as well as on the largest field, the Spirit set records for quickest two goals (two minutes), quickest three goals (26 minutes) and most goals in a half (three). None of that mattered to the Freedom who came at the Spirit for the rest of the match and if not for some poor finishing from Tracey Milburn, would have earned a tie or even the win. Suspect marking by the Spirit almost did them in as the Freedom had several chances inside the six-yard box with no defenders in sight. In the 29th minute, Hamm sent in a perfect cross from the right to a wide-open Pretinha, but the Brazilian flicked her header wide of the left post. In the 31st minute, French curled in a cross from the right flank to Emmy Barr, but her diving header stuck the side netting outside the goal. Spirit goalkeeper Jaime Pagliarulo once again saved the Spirit with a cadre of great saves. In the 34th minute, she denied Finish international Anne Makinen, pushed a bullet shot over the crossbar with a brilliant flying save. “To be honest with you, what she did today, she does every game for us,” Spirit coach Carlos Juarez said . “She literally saves two or three goals per game, not just saves, but goals. Pags gives our defense the confidence when she is back there, but sometimes we rely on her too much.” Washington pulled a goal back in the 35th minute with a little help from the Spirit. Hamm sent a corner kick to the far post which substitute Amanda Cromwell did well to get a head on, sending the ball off the crossbar. The ball rebounded right to Fan, hitting her in the head as she tried to control it, but instead sent it bouncing over the goal line for the Spirit’s first own goal of the season. Hamm put a header over the top in the 44th minute and the Spirit went into halftime with a 3-1 lead, but would have to endure an intense 45 minutes to clinch the victory. D.C. out-shot the Spirit 13-0 in the second half as they came at San Diego in waves, but to the Spirit’s credit, the defense did a good job of keeping Hamm and Pretinha in front of them. In the 50th minute, Cromwell’s header skimmed off top of crossbar and then she scored her team’s second goal in the 74th minute. For the second game in a row, the Spirit’s opponent scored a goal off a throw-in from the left side as the ball bounced through the penalty box off Fan’s head and ran perfectly for Cromwell, who blasted her shot over Pagliarulo and under the crossbar to pull her team within one goal. Pagliarulo made solid saves on shots from Krista Davey in the 83rd minute and the 90th minute, but it was two near misses by Milburn that allowed the Spirit to escape with three points. Milburn out-muscled Fan in the 56th minute in the left side of the penalty area to go one-on-one with Pagliarulo, but couldn’t bend her shot into the far post. In the 89th minute, Hamm sent a free-kick into the box to Milburn, who was unmarked, but put her header wide of the right post, and for once, the Spirit were spared giving up a goal in the final 10 minutes. The Spirit played without starting defender Kim Pickup, who was resting a sore knee, but got a brilliant defensive effort from Boxx in her stead. June 21 in Washington, D.C. WASHINGTON 2 SAN DIEGO 3 Scoring Summary: SD – Shannon MacMillan (Mercy Akide, Jen Mascaro) 10. SD – Jen Mascaro (Julie Foudy) 12. SD – Jen Mascaro (Shannon MacMillan) 26. WAS – Own Goal (Fan Yunjie) 35. WAS – Amanda Cromwell 74. WASHINGTON — Siri Mullinix, Emmy Barr (Roseli, 79), Skylar Little (Amanda Cromwell, 33), Lindsay Stoecker, Jen Grubb, Michelle French, Bai Jie (Krista Davey, 57), Anne Makinen, Monica Gerardo (Justi Baumgardt, 63), Pretinha (Tracey Milburn, 54), Mia Hamm. CAUTIONS: None. EJECTIONS: None. SAN DIEGO — Jaime Pagliarulo, Fan Yunjie, Shannon Boxx, Rhiannon Tanaka, Erin Montoya, Traci Arkenberg, Sherrill Kester, Julie Foudy, Shannon MacMillan (Missy Wycinsky, 74), Jen Mascaro (Margaret Tietjen, 46, Karissa Hampton, 86), Mercy Akide (Tara Koleski, 72). CAUTIONS: Fan 81. EJECTIONS: None. Referee: Sandra Hunt. Attendance: 10,742. Weather: Partly cloudy – 84 degrees.