The Orlando Pride entered Sunday\u2019s match against Seattle Reign FC needing a win or positive results elsewhere to guarantee a top-four seed.<\/p>\n
Both sides looked sloppy at times, with two quick goals in the second half sealing a 1-1 draw. Results elsewhere mean Orlando will finish the season in fourth place and face Seattle again at home in the quarterfinals next weekend.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was, for the most part, a pretty even game. I felt our defending, our press in the first half was really, really good,\u201d said Orlando defender Carson Pickett. \u201c[In the] second half, I think we pressed them more and got more chances and were obviously able to finish. But yeah, think overall, pretty good game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Neither team looked particularly impressive in the opening 45 minutes, but Orlando did dominate possession 60%-40%. Julie Doyle came into the starting lineup in place of Ally Watt after Watt was injured in the warmup, leaving Orlando without one of its prime attackers.<\/p>\n
Orlando opened the scoring in the 76th minute thanks to second-half substitute Pickett. Jacquie Ovalle had the cross into an unmarked Pickett, who had time to settle the ball and smash it into the net to put the Pride up 1-0.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve said this a million times. I think [Ovalle] is one of the best servers in the league, so every single time she hits the ball, I\u2019m trying to get to the box,\u201d Pickett added. \u201cI honestly saw both of their defenders go for the same ball, so I just backed out, waited, and then it came to me, and luckily I took a pretty good first touch and was able to half-volley it.\u201d<\/p>\n
It didn\u2019t take long for Seattle to hit back, leveling the game at 1-1 in the 79th minute. Orlando\u2019s defense could not clear the ball, allowing defender Jordyn Bugg to fire the ball near post past Orlando goalkeeper Anna Moorhouse.<\/p>\n
Now the Pride must regroup for a rematch as they look to defend their status as reigning champions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Orlando Pride entered Sunday\u2019s match against Seattle Reign FC needing a win or positive results elsewhere to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30744,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[28,1335,139,141,140,3968,2062,110],"class_list":{"0":"post-30743","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-orlando","8":"tag-florida","9":"tag-orange-county","10":"tag-orlando","11":"tag-orlando-headlines","12":"tag-orlando-news","13":"tag-orlando-pride","14":"tag-soccer","15":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30743","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=30743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30743\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}