Match Forecast: OL Reign Set to Play Last Regular Season Home Match vs. Washington

OL Reign are set to play their final home match of the regular season against the Washington Spirit on Saturday night. This match is OL Reign’s annual Fan Appreciation match. OL Reign will be looking to earn three points and secure a top two finish. 

WHEN AND WHERE: Kickoff is at 7:00 p.m. PT on Saturday, October 16 at Cheney Stadium in Tacoma, Washington 

WHERE TO WATCH: The match will be available on Paramount+ in the U.S. and Twitch internationally. Get tickets to attend the game in person here. 

2021 RECORDS AND STANDINGS (W-L-D): OL Reign: 12-7-3 (39 points, second place), Washington Spirit: 9-7-6 (33 points, third place) 

Key Points Ahead of the Match: 

1. LAST MEETING – The last time that OL Reign and the Washington Spirit met was May 30, 2021, at Cheney Stadium in Tacoma. The match was OL Reign’s first loss of the 2021 NWSL season, as Washington came out with a 1-0 win. The teams were scheduled to meet on September 12, but Washington had to forfeit the match resulting in a 3-0 win for OL Reign. 

In May, the lone goal of the match came in the 52nd minute. The visiting team took full advantage of a crowded OL Reign 18-yard box. In all the chaos, the ball was bouncing around and last went off an OL Reign player into the back of the net. The Reign increased their pressure, picking up the intensity to look for an equalizer. The game became increasingly physical as the two teams battled it out, but neither team found the back of the net again. In the 83rd minute of the match, goalkeeper Karen Bardsley went down on a non-contact injury and had to be helped off the field and replaced by rookie Ella Dederick. Despite the team effort, OL Reign did not find an equalizer and dropped three points at home. 

2. SCOUTING WASHINGTON – The Spirit are currently in third place in the NWSL after beating North Carolina 2-1 on Wednesday. Trinity Rodman scored the lone goal of the first half in the 40th minute of the match. Tara McKeown started the play and found Ashley Hatch, who took a shot. The shot was deflected but the rebound fell to Rodman who finished the shot. 

In the second half, North Carolina found an equalizer thanks to a Meredith Speck goal in the 60th minute. Not long after, Dorian Bailey served a corner kick into the box and the ball found its way out to Julia Roddar at the top of the 18-yard box, who took the chance and scored her first career NWSL goal in the 70th minute of the match and secured the win for Washington. 

Including playoffs and forfeits, OL Reign has 13 wins against the Spirit since the teams first met in 2013. The only fixture that has seen more wins for one club in NWSL regular season and playoffs is the Reign with its 15 wins over Houston. 

3. START STRONG– In their last two matches, OL Reign has conceded an early goal and will be looking to change that against Washington. Against the Chicago Red Stars, the Reign went down 1-0 in the 14th minute of the match when Mallory Pugh took a shot from the top of the 18-yard box and the deflected ball found the back of the net. On Wednesday against Portland, OL Reign conceded in the third minute of the match when Morgan Weaver took advantage of disorganization in the Reign box. 

To avoid giving up an early goal, OL Reign will need to focus on scoring first, as well being accurate with their passes, especially in their defensive half of the field. On Wednesday, the Thorns had several threatening attacks start from sloppy passing or easy giveaways from the Reign.  

“There were things we needed to get better at [against Portland] but we reduced them to limited chances and I think that was credit to the backline. They put in really good stops at times to reduce the number of chances that Portland created. They had a ton of times where they won the ball off us or we gave it away, but I think the resiliency of this group was that we came out in the second half and flipped the tide a little bit on them,” said OL Reign Head Coach Laura Harvey. 

4. THIRD GAME IN A WEEK – It has been a busy week for the Reign, as the game on Saturday against Washington will be their third game this week. They played Chicago at home last Sunday before travelling to Portland for the game on Wednesday, then back home for the match against Washington on Saturday. OL Reign players and coaches have said multiple times this season, that the focus is always on the game in front of them, not the games behind them or further in the future, so the team is coming into the match prepared mentally. 

With three games so close together, many players may get an opportunity to rotate through the lineup. The team has developed great chemistry throughout the season, so using their depth and adapting to any changes in the lineup should be achievable for the Reign. 

“I’ve said this for a long time – we have a lot of depth in this squad. You flick between wanting to rotate but without losing rhythm, especially at this point in the season. I think if you have three games in a week earlier in the season, you would want to rotate even more, but with where we are at in the season, we want to be hitting the ground running, and be in a good mental state going into the playoffs. We are sort of matching the physical demands with rotating where we need to,” said Harvey.  

“With everything that has been going on in the league, the players have carried a large emotional load, so we’ve had to be diligent in managing that. Our staff does a great job taking care of us physically, so we all feel ready to go and as primed as possible to play all of these matches in a short period of time,” said OL Reign defender Alana Cook. 

MultiCare Injury Report: 

OUT  

Rosie White – Excused Absence  

QUESTIONABLE  

None