Lumen Field | Seattle, Washington – Saturday, July 1 at 3:30 PM ET
Players to watch:
OL Reign forward Bethany Balcer scored twice against San Diego in OL Reign’s last regular season game, her second game this season with multiple goals after having no such games last year. The only other player with more than one multi-goal game in regular season NWSL play this year is Portland’s Sophia Smith.
Racing Louisville midfielder Savannah DeMelo has continued to demonstrate why she is one of the league’s greatest threats, leading her team in goals (5), shots on target (10), total shots (25), assists (2), dribbles attempted (39), and fouls won (39). DeMelo and forward Kirsten Davis are the only players on Louisville’s roster who have scored more than one goal this season.
Match facts: OL Reign hosts Racing Louisville FC at Lumen Field on Saturday afternoon to kick off a full six-game slate across the league to open the month of July. The Reign can add to a three-game unbeaten streak with a positive result, while Louisville will look to start fresh after a loss last weekend that snapped a three-game unbeaten run of their own.
Currently, OL Reign sit 3rd in the standings with 23 points, level with both North Carolina and Washington on points but sandwiched between them on goal differential. Meanwhile, just a few places down is Racing Louisville FC, who holds 8th place with 15 points from 13 games played.
The Reign’s 2—1 win over Kansas City in Seattle was their fifth regular-season win at home this season, the most in NWSL. In fact, no team has had more home wins than OL Reign over the last three seasons in league play (19).
Racing Louisville lost its last match, 1—0, away to North Carolina, Louisville’s seventh time being held scoreless over its last 12 away matches since mid-July last year. The only team with more scoreless road matches in NWSL in that time is the Orlando Pride (nine games). In addition, In its loss to the Courage, Racing Louisville created 0.6 expected goals from 10 total shots, seven of which were in the box. The only game this season Louisville created a lower xG figure was against San Diego (0.55), a game in which the team took 10 shots with only five coming from inside the box, its season low.
OL Reign and Racing Louisville have drawn in each of their last four matches. It is OL Reign’s second-longest run of consecutive draws against a single opponent in league play, behind a six-match draw streak against Orlando from May 2017 to April 2019, the longest such streak in NWSL history.
