In front of 4,037 fans at Memorial Stadium, Seattle Reign FC earned a point against the Orlando Pride in a 1–1 draw. With the result, Reign FC have never lost to the Pride at Memorial Stadium, and extend their unbeaten streak at Memorial to ten matches.
The tie moves Reign FC’s (2–1–3, 9 pts) all-time record against the Pride to 1–1–1. Seattle have never shutout Orlando, but have scored in two consecutive matches against the expansion side.
“I thought we did some good stuff at times, and everything Orlando had in terms of chances came from us giving the ball away and that’s something we have to address,” said Seattle FC head coach and general manager Laura Harvey. “We’ve got to get back to learning how to win games 1-nil, because tonight’s a game we should have won 1-nil. I don’t think we were ruthless enough in their box. We had a lot of set piece opportunities and some passages of play where we could have been better up there.”
The first goal of the match came in the 40th minute, off a Megan Rapinoe corner kick. The initial cross was blocked, but Rapinoe sent another ball into the box that Caroline Stanley was unable to fully clear. Rachel Corsie then took a shot which deflected to the feet of Beverly Yanez, who was able to put it into the back of the net.
“I’m in the box and I’m like ‘get something on it, get it on frame’ because you never know what can happen,” said Yanez. “Rachel [Corsie] got something on it and I was lucky to be in a good spot to finish it.”
Orlando would score the equalizer in the 52nd minute of the match. Camila won the ball off a turnover in the attacking third, and slotted the ball to Marta who scored her second career NWSL goal.
In the waning minutes of stoppage time, Reign FC almost found the equalizer through Nahomi “Naho” Kawasumi. Second half substitute Katie Johnson won the ball off a defender in the attacking third, and sent a low driven cross into the box. Naho slid to get her foot on the ball and her shot bounced off the post before being cleared by the Pride defense.
Yanez was named Reign FC player of the match for her performance. The forward played 77 minutes in the match and had two shots to go with her goal.
Today’s result sees Reign FC points total for the season improve to nine, but they now sit in fourth place on the NWSL table. Other results today saw the Chicago Red Stars defeat first place North Carolina Courage.
Up next, Reign FC kickoff a three game roadtrip against the Houston Dash on May 27th. This is the second meeting between the two teams this season, with kickoff set for 1:00pm PT in the NWSL Game of the Week on Lifetime. The last meeting between these two teams was April 22nd, with Seattle earning a 5–1 victory at Memorial Stadium.
