Match Forecast: OL Reign Travels to San Diego for Second Consecutive Road Match
OL Reign is set to take on San Diego Wave FC in their second consecutive match on the road. After facing the heat and humidity in Houston, the team is prepared to go head-to-head with the Wave for the third time across all competitions this year, but the second time in the regular season.
WHEN AND WHERE: OL Reign kicks off at 7:00 p.m. PT at Snapdragon Stadium in San Diego, CA
WHERE TO WATCH: Fans can tune in on Paramount+ in the U.S. or at NWSLsoccer.com for fans abroad. The local watch party will be at Rough & Tumble Pub in Ballard.
2023 NWSL REGULAR SEASON RECORDS AND STANDINGS (W-L-D): OL Reign: 6-4-2 (20 points, 4th place), San Diego Wave FC: 6-4-2 (20 points, 5th place)
Key Points Ahead of the Match:
1. LAST MEETING – OL Reign and San Diego Wave FC last met in a UKG NWSL Challenge Cup game on May 31st of this year at Snapdragon Stadium in San Diego. This midweek match up ended in a solid 3-0 victory for OL Reign. In goal, Claudia Dickey tallied two saves to preserve the clean sheet in the match, while defender Ryanne Brown, midfielder Olivia Athens and forward Jordyn Huitema went all out to get the ball into the back of the net to serve San Diego with their biggest loss to date.
OL Reign and San Diego are entering this match with the same record one the season (6-4-2). However, OL Reign sits ahead of San Diego in the standings with a goal differential of 14 compared to San Diego’s 13.
"Everyone wants to stay atop the table before leaving or near the top of the table before leaving for the international break or World Cup. I think the Wave, it's always a good game, so I think tactics, how willing the players are to work, sticking to our game plan and being able to achieve that is going to make a great game for the weekend," said OL Reign defender Emily Sonnett.
2. SCOUTING SAN DIEGO – Most recently, played fellow California-based side Angel City FC at Snapdragon Stadium. The first half of the match went scoreless before the Wave broke the deadlock in the 57th minute, thanks to a stunner from midfielder Kristen McNabb. However, Angel City began their comeback in the 69th minute when defender Paige Nielsen found an equalizer. In the final minutes of the match, it was defender M.A. Vignola who found the back of the net and stole the three points for Angel City FC.
In the head-to-head series between OL Reign and San Diego Wave FC, the Reign are undefeated, with four wins and two draws in all competitions. The Reign have scored ten goals in the series, scored by ten different goal scorers, while the Wave have added three goals, all scored by forward Alex Morgan.
"Obviously, tough opponent, tough place to come. It was a tough start to the week for us after our game in Houston, we had a lot of players that were struggling after the amount of heat that we had to deal with. The back end of the week has been really good. We obviously have got a few people with little niggles and knocks, so we've got ourselves in a good position to be prepared for what we need to take on [today]," said OL Reign head coach Laura Harvey.
3. ROAD TRIP – For OL Reign, it’s important to stay solid on the road during this road trip and find a way to take control of the match while battling against San Diego.
"For us, it's always about what we need to do to sort of stamp our authority on a game and that can change tactically, game to game. I think, honestly, every game we've played against San Diego has been a little bit different, all six of them - all of them that we've played up until this date have been a little bit different, for different reasons - we played them last year in the Challenge Cup, we were 3-nil up after 11 minutes with a really rotated team and then we played them down here recently, again, rotated team, probably put one of our best performances of the season as a collective together that night. But you know with San Diego that they have threats going forward that, you can feel like you have control of the game and they can just suddenly get an opportunity to score. So, we've spoken a lot as a group about being hard to beat and about picking up points on the road because that's a difficult thing to do in this league and we need to make sure that we execute on the things that we believe we need to do tomorrow to have success and if we do that, we stand ourselves a great chance of coming away here with points."
MultiCare Availability Report:
OUT
Angelina (knee)
Jess Fishlock (leg)
Rose Lavelle (leg)
Phoebe McClernon (D45 - back)
Megan Rapinoe (leg)
QUESTIONABLE
None