The Orlando Pride kicked off the 2026 season with a 2-1 loss to Seattle Reign FC. Both sides looked sloppy at times after a two-and-a-half-hour weather delay at halftime, but the visitors found enough to take down the Pride.<\/p>\n
\u201cDisappointing result as always, obviously tough as well, when you go so long for a break, but I didn\u2019t feel like we started the game too well,\u201d said Orlando coach Seb Hines. \u201cI thought we allowed Seattle to get on top in the first 15 minutes, and then we got back into the game with some really good opportunities to score.\u201d<\/p>\n
Seattle opened the scoring in the 24th minute thanks to a goal from Jess Fishlock. The Welsh forward made the most of a defensive miscue by Orlando\u2019s Hailie Mace to get into optimal scoring position. Anna Moorhouse got a hand to it but was unable to keep it out as the Reign went up 1-0.<\/p>\n
Barbra Banda scored in the 51st minute to even the score at 1-1. Haley McCutcheon\u2019s through ball allowed Banda to break through Seattle\u2019s defense and coolly place it past Claudia Dickey for a goal in her first game back after missing the second half of 2025 due to an injury.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt feels good being out for a long time, and my first game, scoring in the first game,\u201d Banda said. \u201cI missed scoring, so I should keep up scoring.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Reign retook the lead in the 83rd minute, this time thanks to Brittany Ratcliffe. Orlando struggled to clear the ball after a corner kick, and the ball was recycled back to N\u00e9rilia Mond\u00e9sir, who chipped it up for Ratcliffe to head home for the 2-1 victory.<\/p>\n
Orlando is back in action on Friday night against expansion side Denver Summit FC.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Orlando Pride kicked off the 2026 season with a 2-1 loss to Seattle Reign FC. Both sides…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":192955,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[28,1335,139,141,140,3968,2062,76046,110],"class_list":["post-192954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-florida","tag-orange-county","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-orlando-pride","tag-soccer","tag-social-sports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192954\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}