Shutout beside Disney World: Reign Season Ends in Orlando

ORLANDO — The Seattle Reign's 2025 season spanned around 2,500 minutes, and the last 202 of those minutes were spent in Inter&Co Stadium in Orlando, Florida. The last match of the regular season ended in a 1-1 draw, with Jordyn Bugg scoring an equalizer three minutes after the Pride's Carson Pickett drew first blood in the 76th.

But the first round of the playoffs ended up being the last stop on the 2025 Reign's journey. Orlando keeper Anna Moorhouse kept Seattle off the board completely for all 90 minutes of regulation and 12 combined minutes of stoppage, and on the other side, Julie Doyle and Haley McCutcheon caught Bugg and Phoebe McClernon off-guard in the 21st minute to produce a go-ahead goal that would prove the difference. Claudia Dickey made a valiant effort as she dove to her right to try and reach McCutcheon's shot, but it slid a quarter foot away from her outstretched hand.

Still, Seattle had 70 minutes and change to strike back. A flurry of attacks came between the 30th and 37th, but Seattle never found the killer touch and the equalizer eluded them through the half.

The Reign put some more pressure on their opponents throughout the back 45. Jess Fishlock, who hadn't started the game, came on for Jordyn Huitema at the beginning of the second half, while Sally Menti and Maddie Dahlien joined the fray in the 61st. Dickey, meanwhile, kept the deficit at one goal with an incredible diving catch to rob Ally Lemos of a highlight-reel strike in the 46th.

"I think we stretched them more, I think we forced them back toward their own goal," Reign head coach Laura Harvey said about the team's play in the second half. "Obviously, when Maddie Dahlien came on, they tried to double down on her because she's such a threat."

Equalizers came agonizingly close. Seattle won a 62nd minute free kick deep in Pride territory and Menti, fresh off the bench, took the ball over the crowd towards the upper left corner of the net. She ever so slightly leaned backwards a hair too early, however, and the ball bounced off the crossbar, though Moorhouse had tracked it well in any case and shrunk Menti's window to just a needle's eye. The ball bounced off the ground too high for Bugg or Dahlien to do anything with the rebound, and Seattle's best chance yet slipped through their fingers. Orlando's extra protection against Dahlien proved vital in the 73rd as she tried to cut back and shoot on a breakaway but found the shot blocked at the start.

The frenzy increased and the time remaining dwindled, and half-chances aplenty failed to materialize.

"As the game went on, some of our decision-making in those moments just wasn't quite there," Harvey lamented. "Playing straight passes, not putting the ball in the box when we've put a lot of people forward to cause havoc."

Dahlien rattled off a 90th minute cross towards Menti, far up in the box, but Menti was unable to get a good touch on it. Moorhouse, for her part, kept her eyes on everything Seattle put forward, saving that shot and another one from Emeri Adames in the fourth minute of second half stoppage. But it was Marta who drove the dagger into the heart of Seattle's season, drawing a penalty late in stoppage that Luana drove into the net to complete the game's 2-0 final score.

"Marta was the best player on the pitch. Marta's the hardest one to deal with. Her ability to come get it, switch the point of attack, is still world-class," Harvey said. "And then, obviously, the run she had at the end to create the penalty."

Ultimately, despite all the improvements that were clear to see over the course of the 2025 season, it wasn't the year. There are still things to be ironed out and development to be had as a team.

"In the big moments, when we needed some quality, we just didn't have it," Harvey said about the game. "We weren't far away, I think we had enough shots and enough half-chances to at least get back in the game, but, yeah, obviously just disappointing for the team."

For Lu Barnes, however, Friday night was the last ride. Having announced her retirement earlier in the season, the Reign original reflected on her time in professional soccer. Despite the loss, she held a tone of optimism over the future of the team and the remembrance of her career.

"I don't know how I'm feeling yet. I'm proud, it's been a long 13 years. I'm excited for the future of the Reign. We're super young and this is a big lesson to learn for them, but I'm excited to see what that looks like in growth. I'm fulfilled, I'm happy, I've walked away with so many memories and friends and love and support. I truly couldn't have asked for a better career."

Harvey, meanwhile, expressed a million things with her eyes—sadness, exhaustion, wonderment, anticipation—but phrases escaped her when the subject of Barnes came up.

"I don't really have the words, honestly," Harvey said.

For the Reign as a whole, it was a big improvement on their previous season, with the core of a serious contender coming into clearer view. That doesn't mean that the end didn't sting, however, but it does build a story of growth that means that the team knows where it is for 2026.

"If you look at this squad, you've got 15 players that this was their first playoff game, 17 players that hadn't played a playoff minute," Fishlock said. "Of course, we're disappointed and this hurts like hell, but as a club, as you want to look bigger and you want to look moving forward, you also can go, 'this is a huge learning curve for us as a group' ... [the young players] are only going to get better, and they're good already."