Seattle looks to start a new streak and clinch a trip to the postseason, while Chicago, Portland and Washington continue battling it out for the final playoff spot.
We are in that time now, inevitable maybe, where the chance at the undefeated season has finally gone, the Reign losing for the first time in 2014 a week ago. But as the undefeated season goes, new opportunities arise. The Reign, second-to-last place finishers a year ago, can clinch a playoff spot with a win or draw this weekend - albeit through a rematch with the Red Stars team that was the one that brought that perfect season to an end. There is last season's last place team there too, with the Spirit leading the pack in a four-team, three-point race for the final two of those ever-more coveted postseason spots. Among those chasing the team that once lived life only from the bottom looking up, last year's champions and runner's up - the Thorns hanging on, but barely to fourth, and Flash, now way down in sixth and already squandering its chance in week 15 with a 1-1 draw with Kansas City on Friday night.
Portland Thorns FC vs. Boston Breakers
Providence Park, Sunday 5:00 PM ET (ESPN2)
Portland, if Portland can be one thing, is not afraid to make the other team look silly. Not quite a month ago, Paul Riley's band of big names was running over Washington to the tune of 6-1. A week ago, The Thorns put up seven to previously unbeaten-in-nine-FC Kansas City's one. But for each of those, Portland has also found itself on the wrong side of some pretty silly-looking scorelines too, and perhaps none more so than 2014's original silly scoreline, a 4-1 loss for the Thorns to... Boston. A Boston side that was, at the time, in the midst a very special kind of crisis among an entire season that is itself one giant crisis.
On that late-May Wednesday at Harvard, Tom Durkin sat most of his usual starters in favor of some Breakers utility players, who promptly went on to beat Portland 4-1, with Jazmine Reeves scoring three of Boston's four goals. The only positive for Portland then was that Christine Sinclair finally managed to get on the scoresheet. That night still stands as the only meeting of the two teams so far this season. Since then, the Thorns have climbed back into a playoff spot, at least for the time being, though it's a precarious one, with just three points separating third-place Washington from Western NY in sixth. And the Breakers? Well, the in the league's release about how one would figure out when a team is eliminated from playoff contention, they used the Breakers as the example.
Sky Blue FC vs. Washington Spirit
Yurcak Field, Sunday 6:00 PM ET
Not in last place thanks solely to the fact that the Breakers continue to have games on the schedule, Sky Blue FC returns to action after a week off in which they presumably had plenty of time to think up ways to lose even more spectacularly than in the pre-bye week 5-0 drubbing against FC Kansas City. Sky Blue and Washington have met once previously this season, a 3-3 draw that ended that way thanks to Diana Matheson converting a stoppage time PK for the Spirit.
The Spirit is currently in third, but just a point ahead of both Portland and Chicago. A win for Washington on Sunday would bring the Spirit within four points of second-place FC Kansas City. Sky Blue FC is currently ten points out of a playoff spot.
Seattle Reign FC vs. Chicago Red Stars
Moda Pitch Memorial Stadium, Sunday 7:00 PM ET
What better way for Seattle to start the post-undefeated part of the season than against the very team that that took away the un and left the Reign just defeated a week ago? The Red Stars have spent the week since becoming the first - and only - team to beat the Reign this season playing to a 1-1 draw with the Thorns, the third quarter of a strange double-decker Pacific Northwest schedule sandwich that included four alternating games with Portland and Seattle and that concludes with Sunday's bottom-bread rematch with the Reign. Despite suffering that loss last week, the Reign are still very comfortably at the top of the table and a win or draw on Sunday - or a combination of other results - would clinch a postseason spot for Seattle. With six games to still to play
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