Final Chance Woes Down Reign in First Round, 2025 Campaign Ends in Orlando
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Seattle Reign defender Lauren Barnes (left) and forward Maddie Dahlien (right) high-five as Dahlien replaces Barnes during an NWSL first-round playoff match against the Orlando Pride at Inter&Co Stadium in Orlando, Fla. (Andrea Vilchez / Reign FC Communications) [/caption]
The Seattle Reign, bound to the city of Orlando for over a week on account of playing the local Pride on Sunday and subsequently drawing them in the first round of the NWSL Playoffs on Friday night, had plenty of time to bond before a potential final battle.
The team played a popular game, "Code Names," to pass the time, stayed at Disney World, and got to know each other better in the unusual circumstances.
Perhaps it was better to save a week like that for the end, as the No. 5 Reign fell to No. 4 Pride 2-0 at Inter&Co Stadium. Despite generating an above-normal xG figure, Seattle found itself scoreless for the seventh time in 2025 as club legend Lauren “Lu” Barnes played her final game in the blue and gold.
Half Chances Galore Haunt Seattle Early
Scoring first in this matchup of solid defensive units was always going to be important, and the Pride came out with their most dynamic chance generator on the field, Brazilian legend Marta, with that in mind.
Both squads failed to string together passes long enough to truly threaten the opposing keepers, as nerves, heightened defensive acumen or perhaps a mixture of both led to a turnover fest in the early going. But Marta and the defending champs showed their class in the 21st minute, as she laid out a perfect through pass for Julie Doyle on the right side. Doyle then delivered a cross into the box for Haley McCutcheon, whose rolling ball to the left side of the net evaded Seattle keeper Claudia Dickey by inches for the game's opening goal.
Seattle had won just one game all season after conceding first, making this quarterfinal that much more of a demanding task.
A Better Second Half, But No Dice
The Pride were 4-0-0 on the season when leading at halftime, and the Reign countered by bringing on their veteran scorer in Jess Fishlock, to start the second half. Fishlock immediately changed the game with a spectacularly timed run to go 1-on-1 with the keeper, but missed slightly as the flag had gone up.
The Reign then brought on some of their young talent, Sally Menti and Maddie Dahlien, in the 62nd, and they put their fingerprints on the game immediately. The Reign had earned a free kick at the top of the 18 with their usual taker Sofia Huerta ready to deliver in the 63rd.
Instead, Menti came out of nowhere to strike it with her left foot. She got behind the ball well, but hit the top right corner's crossbar on her first touch of the night, spelling out another devastatingly close call for Seattle. As time grew into an issue, Dahlien's dribbling became a motif as the young forward kept trying to find her patented late goal to swing the result.
But the Pride seemed to have their scouting report serve them well, as they sat on Dahlien's right side and let her come to them, making life difficult and forcing her to make the extra passes that she wasn't seeing to others like Nerilia Mondesir in the box.
With Dahlien neutralized, Maddie Mercado, who had been solid all night in setting the table for teammates with great first touches, took matters into her own hands.
In the 76th, she generated two of the Reign's best shots of the night off dazzling spin moves in the box. Her final touches were decent as well, as she forced a kick save on the first attempt.
But that would prove Seattle's final solid chance of the night, as a late 70-yard run from Marta in response to Seattle playing all 11 forward resulted in a penalty-kick try that was nailed by Luana to put the finishing touches on Seattle's season.
Fishlock knew her team, complete with 17 players that hadn’t seen a playoff minute, left it all out on the pitch. But she understood her squad could have been far better in finding that equalizing strike.
“There were big parts of the game where we didn’t show the best of us, and I think that is harder to take,” Fishlock said after the game. “This is a tough lesson for us as a group about what the playoffs are and what they mean. … The best lessons you ever learn is when something doesn’t go your way, and something’s hard, and something hurts.”
Takeaways: The Reign Need a Go-To Striker
You can't deny that the Reign had chances to win this game.
1.2 xG was decently above Seattle's league-worst 1.0 mark for the season, and eight shots on target is certainly nothing to scoff at. But the quality of final touches was simply not there in the final third, as Mercado was the only consistent force on that end.
If you measure the Reign's first-half performance on the offensive end based on their first half from Sunday against Orlando, you could make the argument that what Seattle showed in the early going was above par.
After all, the Reign won xG (0.4-0.3), shots on goal (3-2) and out-possessed the Pride at a 55% clip.
While all that was much better than the disappearing act head coach Laura Harvey's team displayed in the first half on Sunday, the longtime Seattle skipper will be the first to tell you that won't cut it. Mercado set the table well all half, but poor final touches from the likes of Mondesir and Huerta made Orlando keeper Anna Moorhouse's job a relative breeze.
As you can deduce from the final xG mark, the Reign had a whole lot more to say once Fishlock subbed on at halftime, thanks to the savvy vet's well-timed runs into Orlando territory and the occasional steal in Pride territory. Still, the Reign never got that one chance that they could hang their hats on. Dahlien, ever the opportunistic dribbler, overthought a few attacks and dribbled into the help while young offensive spark plugs Emeri Adames and Mia Fishel weren't able to make an impact after subbing on in the 76th.
With all this in mind, given how Harvey's defense held opposing attacks to well below their xG marks after giving up a league-worst goal total in 2024, the final piece to this wildly accelerated rebuild seems to be a solid number nine that Seattle can rely on in these moments.
Jordyn Huitema has had far too many games, like Friday night, where she simply doesn't make a feasible impact on the team's offensive opportunities. Fishel is still a project by Harvey's account, though the Chelsea transfer has shown plenty of potential as a solution down the line. Then you have the 19-year-old Adames, who led this team in scoring and has plenty of potential to solve this issue in the coming years, but trailed off in her involvement as the year wore on. The only issue with banking on youth is that, with Fishlock down to what has all the makings of her final season in 2026, Seattle may be looking at a closing win-now window.
Harvey is feeling that pressure on the developmental side.
“My big takeaway is, you know, we’ve got a lot of young, inexperienced pros who have experienced a lot this year. We’re losing, obviously, someone really experienced in Lu,” Harvey said. “Our inexperienced pros need to learn real quick.”
What GM Lesle Gallimore and Harvey decide in the Winter transfer window could hint at their expectations for 2026. But considering the individual stars that the league’s superpowers have — think Temwa Chaŵinga in KC and Trinity Rodman or Gift Monday in Washington — Seattle will need to find a scorer they can lean on for full 90-minute increments if they hope to contend.
Expect a fierce training camp as this team gears up for a promising future.
Up Next
The NWSL primary transfer window has opened on January 28 in the past two years, and will likely fall in that timeframe in 2026. Until then, the Reign will recharge and take stock of what was an undeniably solid turnaround of a season, having gone from 13th to fifth place in just a year.
“No one had us doing what we’ve done this year. No one. And to push ourselves to being a point away from a home playoff … it’s a phenomenal achievement for the group,” Harvey said.
