OL Reign and Houston Dash slog to 0-0 draw

Extreme heat and humidity made for a challenging game.

OL Reign began a three-game road trip with a stop in hot and muggy Houston on Saturday evening to finish their season-series with the Houston Dash. Despite playing up a player for over 50 minutes, the Reign struggled to connect passes and settled for a 0-0 draw.

WHAT WORKED: DEFENSE COMING UP BIG

Houston had several dangerous looks in the game which required Phallon Tullis-Joyce to be at the top of her game to keep the score at zero. In the 22nd minute, a Maria Sanchez free kick snuck over the wall and was headed for the near corner, but Tullis-Joyce made a diving save to punch it wide. In the 54th minute, she was asked to come up huge again, this time scrambling to deny Joelle Anderson from close range after a cross went all the way through the box.

Tullis-Joyce wasn’t alone in working hard to keep the clean sheet — second-half substitute Ryanne Brown had a massive goal-line clearance of her own on a scramble in stoppage time.

WHAT WORKED: ALANA COOK’S 50th REGULAR-SEASON START

Since joining OL Reign permanently ahead of the 2021 season, defender Alana Cook has made 50 starts for the club, and played the full 90 in every one of them. She’s been a stalwart on the backline for the Reign and has become a USWNT regular thanks to her contributions on defense, and appears very likely to be punching her ticket to Australia/NZ when USWNT head coach Vlatko Andonovski announces his final roster later this week.

WHAT DIDN’T WORK: PLAYING A QUALITY MATCH

Conditions were brutal and neither side could play to their full potential, but the Reign in particular struggled to find quality in the final third, especially after going up a player following Natalie Jacobs’ late first-half red. The Reign ended the game with only one shot on goal compared to six for the Dash, and will be lamenting the sloppy passing and extra touches that took away potential scoring opportunities.

The team started out with a promising and aggressive high press, looking to score early and force the Dash to chase the game, and had a good opportunity early when Jordyn Huitema was sprung behind the defense, but her attempt went slightly wide of Jane Campbell’s goal. Gradually the Reign started dropping off as fatigue set in. As the game progressed, runs progressively got a step slower, passes were struck with the wrong weight more often, and decision-making slowed down, allowing defenders to get into position to block shots and challenge for loose balls. Head coach Laura Harvey was proactive with making early subs, but ultimately it was Houston who had the better chances in the second half.

“The quality wasn’t there.”

It was ridiculously hot,” head coach Laura Harvey said in opening her post-game remarks. “Really proud of the players for digging in, but the difference between us coming out with a point and maybe getting three was just our quality on the ball — it wasn’t there when we needed it to be. We gave the ball away in patches, which meant [Houston] got some momentum, too. We just couldn’t quite show quality when we really needed it to put the ball in the back of the net and create good quality chances.”

“We’re lucky to have her.”

Harvey also reflected briefly on Cook’s milestone of 50 regular-season appearances for the Reign, saying “She’s world-class. She allows us to play in a way that’s aggressive because she’s so athletic… She’s super young, she’s got a huge future and I can’t wait to watch her keep developing because she’s got a huge career ahead of her.”

The draw puts OL Reign at 20 points through 12 games and moves them to second place on tiebreakers pending the results of other matches this weekend. Next up is a return to Snapdragon Stadium in San Diego, where they will face San Diego Wave in a regular-season matchup. That game kicks off at 7 PM PT on Saturday, June 24 and will be available to US fans on Paramount+ while international viewers can watch on the NWSL website.