Bay FC, the Bay Area’s new professional women’s soccer team, lost the first home match of their inaugural season in heartbreaking fashion this weekend, falling 3-2 to the Houston Dash at PayPal Park in San Jose.

Playing in front of a sold-out crowd of 18,000 fans, Bay FC lost via a last-minute goal by Houston’s Havana Soulaun to break a 2-2 tie.

Team officials said Saturday’s match brought out the largest-ever crowd to see a women’s professional sporting event in the Bay Area, surpassing a previous women’s soccer event for the now-defunct Bay Area CyberRays team in July 2001.

Bay FC next plays on April 14 at home against the Seattle Reign.

Dan McMenamin is the managing editor at Bay City News, directing daily news coverage of the 12-county greater Bay Area. He has worked for BCN since 2008 and has been managing editor since 2014 after previously serving as BCN’s San Francisco bureau reporter. A UC Davis graduate, he came to BCN after working for a newspaper and nonprofit in the Davis area. He handles staffing, including coaching of our interns, day-to-day coverage decisions and management of the newswire.