Jess Fishlock Brace Moves Seattle Reign to 40 Points

SEATTLE - Ten minutes into the Reign's Friday night home game against the expansion Boston Legacy FC, things looked like they had when they lost back-to-back road contests against Angel City and Denver Summit the previous week. Seattle was losing contested balls all across the field, and although the visitors hadn't turned it into real danger yet, the signs were all there that it might be an ugly one.

But unlike in Denver, the Reign had a ready-to-pounce attitude about them. Their best chances all came when they found a weak spot in Boston's attack and aggressively sought to exploit it, and long before the final whistle, Jess Fishlock had become the team's top scorer of all time - first tying Megan Rapinoe's 51 goals for Seattle in the first half and then logging no. 52 in the second half.

Turning things around like that is not easy, Fishlock said, and that was the reason the Reign needed that outlook on the pitch.

When the final whistle blew, the 2-0 score attested to the validity of that approach - yet questions remain as the Reign go into their final four matches of the season.

Seattle started slow, but a strike in the first half set an early enough tone.

The number one thing the Reign needed to do on the heels of two slow starts - the second of which elicited some pretty strong reactions from Laura Harvey postgame - but as the first half began, the Reign didn't have much of an edge against Boston Legacy. The visitors were physically domineering over the Reign (a notable strength of theirs in spite of their record) over the first 10 minutes or so, with Seattle's touches being far too uneasy to create anything notable in the attacking zone, all while the Legacy managed a couple final third entries.

But as the first decade of minutes came to a close, the Reign pushed back on the visitors.

Seattle's first shot came in the 14th as Ainsley McCammon sent the ball into the forward line and Jess Fishlock came up with it around the edge of the box. The Welsh veteran saw an opening in Boston's defense and fired on the net, though her shot was within Casey Murphy's range and the visiting keeper knocked it away.

Another chance came in the 18th. After Maddie Dahlien took it away around midfield, she initiated a give-and-go with Mia Fishel on the right side and drew a foul just outside the box, setting up Seattle's first set piece of the game.

The defining connection of the game was between Dahlien and Fishlock, but on Seattle's first goal, Fishel played an important role, too. Pressing Anna Karich on the Reign's right touchline, the striker forced her to jettison the ball, and it went out into open space where Dahlien and Boston center back Jorelyn Carabalí both contested it. Dahlien poked the ball forward as she and her opponent collided, allowing Fishlock to grab it and dart forward with few defenders between her and the net.

Fishlock surged forth for a split second before letting her shot loose. Once it dawned on Murphy where the ball was going, it was too late - it caromed off the inside of the left post and into the back of the net. The Reign were up 1-0.

After the game, Harvey credited that goal to the defense's ability to find weaknesses in their opponents.

"I preach it, and I will preach it until the day I don't don't have a coaching job: if you can defend well, you give yourself a chance to score goals," Harvey said. "And that that chance purely comes off Mia's initial press, Maddie Dahlien's winning the ball, and then Mia making a run that opens space up for Jess."

There have been times that the Reign have over-focused on defense to Harvey's chagrin, but the dividing line appears to be whether the team's defensive focus overrides their hunt for chances. If the team plays too conservatively even when their opponents give them openings, they won't have any chances; if the team becomes too reactive to their opponents' moves instead of looking at what they themselves can do, they let the other team set the tone.

The first goal is a good tone-setter, though. It meant that the first 15 minutes or so, when the Legacy bullied them around whenever there was contested play and the Reign couldn't string passes together, wasn't going to become the 50-minute nap they took in Denver. Goals, as Harvey is so fond of saying, change games.

It was an example of that ready-to-pounce attitude that Fishlock talked about.

Huerta nearly doubled up the lead in the 43rd as Mercado sent a cross into the box and Huerta headed it towards the lower right corner. Casey Murphy stuck her foot out and repelled the shot, however, preventing Seattle from getting a 2-0 lead before halftime.

But Seattle still hadn't dominated the game in a sense of creating truly excellent opportunities again and again. As it turned out, little of the game went that way; both plays that FotMob rated as "big chances" across the 90 minutes didn't end up becoming goals for Seattle. They didn't allow the Legacy to create any "big chances" on the other end, however, a result of the defensive solidness that Harvey praised.

Jess Fishlock turned one into two in the second half, cementing the final score of the match.

The Reign nearly went up by two in the first minute of the second half as Deja Davis' backfield pass intended for Carabalí wound up going too far forward, allowing Dahlien to nab the ball with nobody but Murphy between her and net.

Once again, however, Murphy made her reaction just in time, deflecting the ball over the beam and keeping the visitors within one.

Another opportunity arose for the Reign when, again, they pounced on a Legacy error made with Seattle on the back foot. In the 57th, visiting midfielder Alba Caño found a brief window on net and tried to take a mid-range shot, but she didn't get enough power on the ball and Dickey was easily able to nab it. The Reign keeper promptly hurled it to McCammon in the midfield, who found Dahlien on the run. The winger surged up the left touchline, beat Bianca St-Georges to knock a pinpoint cross in for Fishel, but the striker's header went wide of the right post.

Although Boston's opportunities (as the "big chance" stat - perhaps the most your mileage may vary of all the stats - indicates) were few and far between, this didn't mean that Dickey didn't have any work to do. A 59th minute chance gathered as Sammy Smith got a pass from the backfield and sent it leftward for Aïssata Traoré, who had a fairly open line on the net. Phoebe McClernon's pressure shrunk Traoré's window and the Malian sent it directly into Dickey's mitts.

By this point in the game, the Reign were effectively using the Legacy's physicality against them, getting some promising set pieces as they worked fouls and corners from opponents who were beginning to show desperation.

But Fishlock's second goal wasn't off a set piece. Rather, the momentum that gathered was another example of Seattle quickly turning things around and catching the visitors off guard. McCammon took the ball away in the 64th minute and quickly distributed it to Dahlien on the left. Once Dahlien had drawn both St-Georges and Carabalí towards her, she tapped it to Fishlock, who sent another roaring missile past Murphy.

Fishlock tried for a hat trick in the 66th, but she seemed to begin walking gingerly (appearing to have an uncomfortable right hamstring) and opted to leave the game soon after; Sally Menti came on to replace her.

"I'm good," Fishlock clarified after the game. "I just was feeling a little something ... and the beauty of our group is, I'm not going to push myself into an injury when I know the talent that we have to come on."

The Welsh midfielder looked like she knew she had to come off at that point, though it's unclear what the status going forward will be. Fishlock and Harvey exchanged a big hug as the former left the pitch.

Once Seattle had their two-goal lead, the Legacy began running out of juice, allowing the Reign to finally put together some real threats on net. This culminated at the end of the 71st as Mia Fishel took a high curler towards the top right corner of the box, but it bounced off the top of the crossbar to deny the striker another goal.

Boston did manage to revert the momentum once more, with plenty of final third entries in the final 15 minutes of the game. Even though the Reign were largely on the defensive, however, they nearly always stopped the Legacy before they managed to get a dangerous look on net. After a pair of Boston corners around the 85th minute, the Reign had a clean hold on the game until the final whistle.

Move over, Megan: another longtime legend took the scoring crown.

When Fishlock announced that the 2026 season would be her final one way back in April, she had already scored one goal and was therefore just two off from the Reign record.

Then she suffered what a potentially disastrous injury in the non-Spokane home opener, a scoreless loss situated during an 11-half scoreless streak that made for a bleak early stretch to 2026.

Seattle still certainly has its issues, but the dynamism inherent in breaking a record is symbolic of the life that the team has after the World Cup. Fishlock, too, bounced back remarkably; what had initially looked to be a perhaps career-ending knock turned out to be a three-month injury, and she scored in her second game back from injury - only to suffer another (much more minor) knock later in that Aug. 1 game.

Fishlock returned on Aug. 30 with three minutes against the Dash at home. She came on as a second-half sub in each fixture until Sept. 16 on the road against Angel City, a 71-minute showing Harvey said sharpened the Welsh midfielder.

Playing against a quite physical side in Boston, Harvey looked to Fishlock as a weapon to match that gritty edge.

"I knew that we needed our press to be spot-on, and she's just really smart," Harvey said of Fishlock's addition to the XI. "She's a bit of a conductor, even if she's not the one necessarily pressing, the others around her trust that if she's telling them to go, they should go."

Fishlock, even at 39, is still very valuable on a per-minute basis. Of all field players with 500 or more minutes, she has the 23rd-most goals added (g+) per 96 minutes, and of every non-keeper on the Reign, she has the third-most (0.59) behind Dahlien (1.34) and Maddie Mercado (1.21).

Harvey has talked about closers and game-changers as part of her game plan before, and she did so again on Friday.

"I think it's a role you don't really want, right?" Harvey said. "Like, and I find this like role clarity stuff really interesting as a coach, because if I tell you that that's what you are, you're not going to be very happy about it. But if you commit to it and you're good at it, it can be so valuable."

Both of Fishlock's shots were impeccable strikes from outside the box. In a sense, they papered over a lack of direct in-box chance creation (the Reign only generated 0.98 xG), but that quality and decisiveness is something any team will welcome with open arms.

For Fishlock, who hadn't scored from outside the box since 2021, it was a bit of a blast from the past.

"Perhaps when I was a little bit younger, I shot from distance more than I do now, I have to check that my hips can get the range these days," Fishlock said. "No, look, it was just, I was in the positions, and I just identified what was the best thing to do in that moment, and that best thing to do in that moment was to shoot. And I'm always going to back myself."

Both Fishlock and Harvey compared Maddie Dahlien to Megan Rapinoe.

There was plenty of praise for Dahlien on Friday. From the g+, it's clear that she has become a big piece of the Reign's offense, and that's also clear from regular stat sheet, too: she now has three goals and four assists on the year, similar to her four-goal, four-assist tally in 2025.

Perhaps fitting for the game when Fishlock passed Rapinoe's record, both Harvey and Fishlock noted similarities between Dahlien and Rapinoe's abilities.

What Fishlock noted more than anything was the similarity in the connection she once had with Rapinoe and now has with Dahlien. Asked about Dahlien postgame, the Welsh international spoke at length about that chemistry and her belief in Dahlien's future.

I've played with many people. I've played with one of the best players in the world, let's be clear, on the left wing, and I get a similar feeling of excitement playing with Pinoe as I do playing with Maddie. This is not just now, it's not just today, it's since the moment since she's come into the club, right? Obviously, she's a lot younger, and there's a lot more time for her to grow into who she can be. But what is there, like the raw talent of it, is so exciting to me, you know. And even today, for the second goal, I get the ball in the pocket, and I'm immediately looking for Maddie Dahlien - which is very similar to when I was playing with Megan, right?

[...]

And then it's like, how can I help, right? What does she need from me in that moment? Does she need me at all? Mostly no, she never does. But that doesn't mean that I'm not going to stop being there and being available for her.

I think the sky is the limit for Maddie Dahlien. She's incredible, she really is. And the thing that I love the most is her mentality: she knows that the sky is the limit and she wants to reach it every single day. And so that's how I know that she will.

And it's like I said, I love being able to speak to her, we speak together in training all the time. I love trying to help her to be able to reach that, but also give her the freedom to be exactly who she is, because she's incredible. She's dangerous, she's going to create something, she's going to score, she's going to be a nuisance.

And it's truly a career that I that I cannot wait to continue to watch. And not only playing alongside her now, but when I'm done, I know that I'm going to be watching her, probably texting her, probably being on her ass, to ensure and help as much as I can.

-Jess Fishlock, Sept. 25, 2026

The two of them were sitting next to each other in the postgame press conference - I noted that Dahlien suppressed some smiles as Fishlock's praise continued - and I figured the obvious follow-up question was to ask Dahlien what such praise meant to her.

"I don't get emotional often, but I'll get emotional about this one," Dahlien said. "I mean, I talked about it earlier, but just the honor of playing with a player like her, She's single-handedly helped me develop so much at this club, and I'll really value our relationship throughout the rest of my career. I'm really sad to lose her, honestly."

The connection is a hopeful one for the future, but it is also a transitional one: come 2027, Dahlien will not have Fishlock as her connection point at the 10. That leaves pressure on Sally Menti next year, but it also means that players like Dahlien will have to carry more of the leadership role that Fishlock has for at least a few more games with the team.

It is symbolic, probably, of the nature of the 2024-2026 stretch of seasons for the Reign. Once Rapinoe retired and Rose Lavelle left for Gotham, these three years have been a test of how the Reign can perform as their longtime stalwarts go off into the sunset. Going out of the World Cup break, it appeared that the team had failed that test; now, there's an opportunity to build a resounding success led by the youngsters.

There is a resolute belief within the Reign that the 21-year-old Dahlien has the potential to even outclass what Rapinoe has done. Harvey, in talking about the bond between Dahlien and Fishlock, said as much.

That physical tool - speed - is evident; some of the best players in the NWSL are some of the fastest, the ones who can create near-open chances by utterly wasting their defenders.

Dahlien's skillset is different to Rapinoe's, of course. The present version of the Reign winger is more adept at speedy runs above all else, compared to Rapinoe's all-around greatness. But her pass to Fishlock on Friday that assisted the second goal was the kind of astute split-second decision that turns a good player into a great one.

What kind of team will the 2026 Reign be in the end?

Like Dahlien, the young Seattle team's underlying abilities are evident. There are plenty of evidently strong players and even more who have that visible (yet to this point largely untapped) potential. The team's summer has been what the Reign hoped their entire year to be, but the old saying goes that you're never as good as you look when you win and you're never as bad as you look when you lose. Having control over momentum - sustaining good momentum and stemming bad momentum - has been the dividing line between winning and losing this year.

The difference, Harvey said, is in the fundamentals.

Of course, the questions undergirding everything going into the final four games are how and why: why do the fundamentals slip so badly at times and how do you keep a high baseline for those things?

Perhaps a lot of it is not letting the momentum get to the players, in a sense. Winning first and second balls, after all, requires keeping a level head and being proactive instead of reactive; that is to say, embodying that defensive yet ready-to-pounce mindset.

With four games left for everyone to play, Seattle is still on the edge of the playoff picture with 40 points. Unless the Summit go on a run, it's likely there are nine teams with a good chance of making the playoffs, and the eighth and ninth teams face off against each other on Friday.

Eight points separate the second-place Wave and the eighth-place Reign. Five points stand between Seattle and a home playoff game. At this point in the season, however, matching the Royals' pace would require a 4-0-0 finish. Keeping above water, in the abstract, means getting six points out of the next two games.

But Seattle has a much better opportunity than simply going 2-1-0 or 2-1-1. Win on Friday against the Courage, and not only is an immediate jump to sixth place possible, it creates needed breathing room in the standings.