The Houston Dash have fired head coach Fabrice Gautrat and technical director Twila Kilgore, the team announced on Sunday.
Jaime Frias will serve as interim head coach for the rest of the season.
Kilgore only joined the team in her new role in February.
Gautrat joined the team ahead of the 2025 season and had a contract that ran through the end of the season, with an option for next year.
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Houston currently sits in 12th place in the 16-team NWSL (7-5-12, 26 pts.) and 11 points out of playoff position after Saturday’s 1-0 home loss to the Utah Royals.
The Dash’s results have been inconsistent, but the team has one of the youngest rosters in the league with several promising players, including attacking midfielder Kat Rader, who has nine goals this season.
“Our conviction in this group has not wavered,” Houston Dash president of women‘s soccer Angela Hucles Mangano said in a statement. “We believe in the quality of this team and its ability to succeed both this season and beyond.
“We also have a responsibility to evaluate our trajectory and determine what is needed to achieve the ambitions we have for this team. Ultimately, this decision reflects our commitment to those ambitions and our determination to continue moving the club forward.”
Kilgore returned to the Dash earlier this year after first serving as an assistant coach in 2019.
Previously, she was an assistant coach for the USWNT and became the team’s interim coach following the 2023 World Cup. She continued that role into 2024 as U.S. Soccer awaited the arrival of head coach Emma Hayes.
After Hayes took over, she led the team to the 2024 Olympic gold medal in Paris.
