"That's growth": Reign Extend Late Lead Against Bay, Log Third Straight Clean Sheet

SEATTLE - For the first time since the 2023 playoff run, the Reign have won three straight games while keeping three straight clean sheets. The team is still in the last playoff spot in the table, but with a game in hand over each team above them and a momentum that stems from real development, it does seem like the team is turning its young core into a legitimate playoff threat.

Take Saturday's game for example, when Seattle overcame some points of shakiness to pull out a 2-0 victory. Instead of conceding late, as they have done at many points this year, Seattle instead was the one to strike in the final minutes.

After the game, Reign head coach Laura Harvey brought up a team meeting from earlier in the week, a meeting she had already noted as impactful before the game, and she expanded upon what struck her so much about the day.

We had a meeting like we always do after a game the first day back, and I tend to sit at the back of the room, when we're having those meetings, and there was just discussion happening between the group at a level that we wouldn't have been having six months ago, and it was driven by a lot of the younger players. It wasn't the the normal crew - Sofia (Huerta), Jess (Fishlock), Phoebe (McClernon) - it was more of the younger ones, and it was a a collective discussion on how we solve how who we want to be.

And I don't mind sharing this: Scott [head assistant coach Scott Parkinson] leant into me and went, "I'm getting emotional," and I was like, "me too, because that's growth."

You know, you guys see it on the field; we see it every day. And as long as we can continue to grow as a group, individually and collectively, I believe this group has a really high ceiling.

-Laura Harvey, Sept. 12, 2026

Despite the awful start Harvey's side had this year, they are now in a position where a couple more wins could all but punch their ticket to the postseason and where a few more after that could even get them a home playoff match.

Keeper Cassie Miller, who was filling in for Claudia Dickey due to an injury the latter sustained the week prior, noted that late in the year is the best time to catch a tailwind.

"At the end of the day, you wanna be zooming when playoffs hit, right?" said Miller.

Fishel started off the bench whereas Mondésir was in the starting XI.

With a Wednesday contest set soon after the Saturday game, Laura Harvey did a bit of rotation in her lineup against Bay, swapping Mia Fishel out of the starting XI and putting Nérilia Mondésir on the right wing while moving Maddie Mercado to the nine.

"I did think it was an opportunity to, one, see Maddie (Mercado) and Sally (Menti) together again, we haven't seen that in a while, and get Coco an opportunity to start," Harvey said. "It sets Mia up for success potentially throughout the next seven days."

The rest of the selection, however, was as it had been the previous week: Sally Menti as the 10 with Angharad James-Turner and Sam Meza behind her and a back line of Sofia Huerta, Jordyn Bugg, Phoebe McClernon, and Ryanne Brown.

Jess Fishlock and Maddy Curry began the game on the bench, as did Brittany Ratcliffe, who would prove vital at the end of the match.

The first half wasn't especially eventful on either side, though the Reign had to repel late Bay momentum.

Neither team had much of an upper hand during the first 30 minutes, with just one shot on target each and 13 total shots between Seattle and Bay. The Reign had more touches in the opposition box, but the crosses weren't accurate enough and the team had trouble finding other ways into dangerous spaces.

The Reign had a fair amount possession early in the game, with a fair amount of threatening looks towards the net, but they had issues putting together solid crosses and services to those in the box and, 20 minutes in, they had a grand total of 0.07 expected goals.

On the other side of the ball, Bay FC opted to avoid its midfield connection issues by playing mostly off the counterattack, with Racheal Kundananji in good position to intercept bad giveaway passes, but the visitors didn't bring anyone up in transition with her and the Reign back line was easily able to overcome the Zambian multiple times.

As the half wore on, the Reign began to create better opportunities in the box, but the touches they had up top weren't what they needed. The best chance of all was in the 24th as Coco brought the ball up into the right corner and passed back to Mercado in the box during transition, but the Reign striker shot it a couple feet outside the left post.

Further opportunities in the form of a Sally Menti free kick wound up dissipating too for Seattle, and Bay began to counter in the 29th as Kundananji drew a foul in Seattle territory to give the visitors a free kick. That particular set piece didn't result in much danger to the Reign, but it began a brief spell where Bay had the upper hand.

A deep pressure from Kundananji forced Brown to give it away close to the box, though only Cristiana Girelli was far enough along to get to the ball and she took a one-touch left-footer far over the crossbar. The Reign had trouble clearing the ball on the following goal kick, however, and Claire Hutton sent in a cross to the box that Girelli managed to get to Kundananji, but the latter faced serious pressure from Phoebe McClernon and the ball wound up floating into Miller's hands. Another dangerous moment followed in the 33rd as the visitors broke up the right side and Keira Barry sent one in for Kundananji, but McClernon again managed to bat it away and Seattle conceded a corner.

After a couple Reign missed half-chances in the last 15 minutes of the half, Seattle nearly gave up a goal in the first minute of stoppage as Kundananji whirled around Ryanne Brown deep in Seattle territory and had an open line on net for a potential left-footer, but she went leftward to Girelli as Phoebe McClernon occupied the open space in between the Zambian forward and Miller in net.

The Reign bookended the second half with goals.

Sofia Huerta noted after the game that the Reign have had trouble creating momentum when it's not there. But in keeping with the theme of Saturday's game - growth - it was something she observed that Seattle improved upon compared to earlier in the year.

Though the team's adjustments at halftime were meant to counter Bay's threats, perhaps the knowledge that they could tackle the problem bolstered enough confidence for Seattle that they managed to get some goal-scoring opportunities.

After all, sometimes it's a whole lot simpler than producing a series of pinpoint connections. In the 50th minute, Ryanne Brown found Coco with a long ball up the right side, and as the Haitian outran Jenna Nighswonger, the Reign had the upper hand on a play going into the box.

Her teammates rushed towards the box to provide opportunities for Mondésir to cross in, but so did the visitors to close off those avenues. Still, as it turned out, the game was between Nighswonger and Coco. As Nighswonger knocked Mondésir over in the penalty area, referee Lauren Aldrich quickly blew her whistle and called for a penalty. Huerta - who noted after the game that she had had a premonition about there being a penalty - stepped up to the spot and fired it past an outstretched Jordan Silkowitz to put the Reign up 1-0.

"Anything can happen," Huerta said of the PK. "A goalkeeper can make a good save, or I might not hit it well, so there's kind of a lot of anxiety going up to that moment. But I just didn't wanna let the team down."

Silkowitz, one of the best keepers in the league, guessed correctly on Huerta's penalty, something that apparently struck a bit of fear in the veteran left back.

"When it went in, I celebrated a little bit harder than I usually do, just because I wasn't quite sure if it was going in the back of the net," Huerta said.

Harvey's big note from that whole sequence was the connection between Brown and Mondésir on the right wing, as she attributed the chance creation there to the fruits of confidence among the group.

"I think that's something that earlier in the year, we were really reluctant to play, is just like a ball in behind an opponent and let our forwards go do the work," Harvey said. "And that's an example of why you should do that, because they have the ability 1-v-1 to hurt the opponent, and it's either Coco's gonna get past Jenna or Jenna's gonna have to do something about it."

And for a long time, it looked like that one run of brilliance was going to be the difference between an uneasy win and an unfulfilling tie.

Selkowitz turned Seattle away in the 66th with a jumping save to turn away a Sally Menti curler from inside the box, a play that was the culmination of a couple minutes of Reign attack around the penalty area. Once again, the ensuing corner didn't produce enough to find the back of the net, and the ball went back out the other way.

The Reign had a frightening moment in the 83rd minute as Karlie Lema rolled over Jordyn Bugg at the edge of the Seattle box and fired one into the net, but a foul was called on Lema and the clean sheet remained for the Reign.

By this point in the game, it looked like the Reign were on their way for another not-pretty 1-0 win; hardly anything to complain about but little in the way of improvement for a team heading on the road for a pair of big games against teams under them in the table.

Then Brittany Ratcliffe put in her two cents. Coming on in the 89th minute for Mondésir, she only needed one moment to land the dagger on the visitors. Mia Fishel (in for Menti in the 68th) sent her a ball up to contest with Joelle Anderson along the touchline in the second minute of stoppage - not unlike the pass Ryanne Brown delivered to Coco earlier in the half - and Ratcliffe left Anderson in the dust on her way to the net. Selkowitz lurched forward to block, but Ratcliffe simply sent it underneath the visiting keeper and Seattle took a 2-0 lead.

That was the score as the final whistle blew two minutes later.

Brittany Ratcliffe's "Closer" role shone through.

Depth on any team in any sport is a good thing to have. Angharad James-Turner, for example, isn't first in the chart in the midfield due to the skill that Sam Meza and Ainsley McCammon have shown, but she still put in a solid shift on Saturday with McCammon gone on international duty.

Ratcliffe, however, has a particular role to play even though she typically doesn't start, and Harvey had plenty to say about the way the nine-year NWSL veteran affects the team.

Seattle would probably still have won without Ratcliffe's goal, but the score utterly iced the game where a 1-0 lead would have still been vulnerable to a late equalizer. And with the Reign's tendency to concede late in the back of their heads, such a thing risked becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.

After all, Seattle had already had to clear away some deep Bay play earlier in second half stoppage and would go on to bring the ball into the final third once more after Ratcliffe's goal, though the final touch went awry for the visitors and Seattle got it back to close things out.

Huerta, who has been one of the Reign's team leaders for years, noted that Ratcliffe was another, and she praised her for bringing a new angle to such leadership.

"She (Ratcliffe) came onto this team and fit in seamlessly and brought this different kind of energy that we haven't had at the Reign for a long time," Huerta said. "She's like, intense, new jersey, just really direct, and a different kind of leader than we've had in past years. So we've really enjoyed having her on the team."

Like Harvey, Huerta noted the difficulties in being the closer, though she didn't use that term. But again like the coach, she had little but good things to say about Ratcliffe.

"Not playing is difficult and getting subbed in in the last five minutes is hard, it's not easy for anyone, and I think at times, you can feel like you're not contributing or affecting the game," Huerta said. "But that's obviously not true. And when you come in and score like that, that just gives you an extra boost of confidence and makes you feel like you're helping the team a lot. She didn't need to score that for any of us to think that, but I'm so happy that she did, because I know she's gonna be feeling good about that."

The advanced numbers tell a similar story. Despite usually playing between 15 and 20 minutes per game and only starting in two of her 21 appearances this year, she has 0.52 goals added (g+) according to American Soccer Analysis. On a per minute basis, Ratcliffe has the highest g+ of any Reign player with more than 100 minutes played this season.

Of course, this raises another question: should she continue being the closer, or should she move into a more central role? Going by just g+ by minute, she is theoretically Seattle's best field player, but this is also a factor of Ratcliffe being able to expend her energy over a shorter stretch of time and against more tired players - and this is why she's currently the closer.

And as they say: if it ain't broke, don't fix it. The Reign are 7-3-2 in the 12 post-World Cup matches they have played, a 1.92 point per game pace. Were they to keep it up for a full season, they would be on pace for second in the NWSL.

An evolving implementation of video has led to a more player-led development curve in 2026.

But this hasn't been a full season performance. Instead, the Reign have been spending much of their time developing the team in 2026, looking to turn an overperforming fifth place finish into a legitimate contender by the end of the year. The way the team has played over the summer has been that of such a contender, as unlike in 2025, it doesn't depend on an unwieldy difference between chance creation (as measured by xG or g+) and actual goals.

According to Harvey, a big part of this development has been the usage of video in a more interactive way, as the team had been searching for ways to make

Harvey clarified that the small group structure was a new addition compared to previous years.

"No, we'd just be very like, let's all just watch the film and and it would be, 'what do you think, Sally, and what do you think, Maddie, and what... ?' And so there would be like interaction, but we sort of tweaked it now where they lead it way more," Harvey said. "So it's less about my opinion and me solving it for them. They're solving it for themselves."

This intrinsic motivation, to borrow a term from my days studying second language acquisition, is evidently proving a powerful force among the team. Of course, all players at this level have an incredible amount of intrinsic motivation, but the ability to cultivate a general drive to compete into a particular impulse to search for answers on their own is a stark improvement in the Reign's game. The results are as clear as day: the team is completely different in the summer than they were in the spring. They may still be in eighth, but just two points separate Seattle from fifth place, and just three more sit between fifth and fourth.

Harvey saw this intrinsic motivation in the team's post-match meeting the previous Tuesday, as can be seen at the head of this article.

Cassie Miller excelled in net with Claudia Dickey's absence.

There was one important moment I didn't bring up earlier in this piece. In the 62nd minute, with her team moving players forward and a brief space opening up in front of the box, Hutton fired a curler between McClernon and James-Turner at some distance from the net. The strike nearly caught Miller off guard as it spun towards the right post (Miller's left) and it took every inch of a diving jump in that direction for Miller to deflect it off the post.

"That game changes if that ball goes in the back of the goal," Huerta said. "I don't know what the outcome is, but she saves it. She's the reason, big reason why we won today. So, as a teammate, I have full confidence in Cassie when she's back there."

Just as with Ratcliffe and James-Turner, Miller's presence on the team is an example of the virtue of depth.

There's a sense that Miller is playing for her absent GK1, and she said as much after the game.

Miller has expressed similar sentiments before, such as when she kept a clean sheet against the Portland Thorns in July, the game that began Seattle's summer surge in earnest.

There's a full week of fixtures ahead.

The Reign still have a game in hand over their competitors, and that game is coming midweek on the road against Angel City FC.

Last time these two sides met, the Reign went down early, took a midgame lead, and then conceded a late goal. Although Seattle is four points ahead of ninth place Angel City in the table and thus cannot lose their playoff spot in one game, there's no desire to let off the gas on the road.

And yet the short turnaround may summon exhaustion nonetheless. It's not as short of a rest for the hosts, who played on Friday instead of Saturday, and the reward for a win would be a leapfrog over the Current, Thorns, and Courage to move into fifth place.