The North Carolina Courage took down Sky Blue FC 3-2 and after the match captain Abby Erceg and the team hoisted the NWSL Shield for the third time in as many seasons.
“It’s taken a long time,” said NC Courage head coach Paul Riley. “The foundation of the team is strong. We built it brick by brick. A lot of times the bricks that have been thrown at us we have used to build the foundation over the last four years. I think we are a better team now than we were a year ago. Definitely a better team than we were three years ago or four years ago… It is a great milestone to win it three times. I think the players deserve to celebrate and enjoy it. Hats off to them. And obviously the fans who came out tonight, it was a great crowd again tonight.”
The Courage clinched the regular season title back on Sept. 21 and finished the season with 52 points from a possible 72. The team has won the regular season title every season since moving to Cary.
While the game was not a by any means a vintage performance by the Courage, they did not start a number of big players in key positions such as Crystal Dunn, Stephanie Labbé, Denise O’Sullivan and Samantha Mewis. Mewis did appear as a substitute and played the final 25 minutes of the match following an injury to Erceg.
“It wasn’t a great game for us, it wasn’t an entertaining game I don’t think,” Riley said. “It wasn’t one of our better performances. As I said to them, ‘We don’t talk about results too much,’ but this was a quarter-final game. It was about the result tonight. Even with ten, fifteen to go we wanted to play like we would play next week in preparation and that’s what we did.”
The appearance was Mewis’s first since Sept. 21 where she played a full 90 against Utah and scored. With the playoffs coming up next getting Mewis back in the squad will be a big boost for Riley’s team.
“We took some players rest today,” Riley said. “Labbé was tired coming from Japan, so we rested her. We rested Sullivan, she just got back Thursday so we wanted to give her a rest. One of Sullivan or Debinha had to play so we went with Debinha in the end and she did 80 minutes. Crystal [Dunn] only just came back yesterday too so we wanted to give her a bit more rest. We wanted Sam to play 30. We wanted Sully to play 20, which we did… Having Sam back for next week is gonna be massive. We have had to manage them a lot over the last two or three months to be honest with you, from the World Cup.”
The first half of the match could only be described with the age-old adage: when it rains, it pours. While the beginning and ending thirds of the half were not without their moments, the majority of the action fell in the middle third as the Courage took the lead, lost it and then took it back again all in the span of 12 minutes.
Jessica McDonald opened the scoring in the 16th minute with a goal that took a bit of persistence as it took the forward two attempts to get the shot away, but once she did there was no doubt that it was headed toward the back of the net.
McDonald’s USWNT teammate Carli Lloyd answered ten minutes later with a brilliant shot from outside the box which was aided by some lax Courage defending.
“In all fairness, Carli Lloyd was out of her mind tonight,” Riley said. “Holy moly. I gotta take my hat off to Carli. I’ve known Carli for a long time. Seen her play for a long long time and she was unbelievable tonight. What a performance. What a year she has had…. She was almost unmarkable tonight. She was taking players on … her own and I thought without her it would have been a different game.”
It took Debinha just two minutes to give the lead back to the Courage as the Brazilian put a delicate chip over Sky Blue keeper Kailen Sheridan’s head. The chip was a thing of beauty but there was some controversy as to whether McDonald touched it before it crossed the line.
It took the Courage until the 82nd minute to grab the insurance goal it was looking for despite a host of opportunities during the half. Debinha took a shot but she mis-hit it, luckily the ball fell right to McDonald who slid it into an open net.
The goal was the Courage’s 54th of the season and broke the NWSL record for goals in the regular season, a record the Courage set last season with 53.
The record-breaking insurance goals turned out to be a necessary one as the visitors put the pressure on late as Domi Richardson scored from distance in the 86th minute. The Courage held strong for the final four minutes plus stoppage time however and won its final game of the regular season.
The Courage’s next match will be a playoff semi-final as they host Reign FC on Sunday, Oct. 20. The Courage and Reign faced off three times this season and the Courage won both of the matches which they hosted.
“Every game in the NWSL, no matter if you are at the bottom of the table or the top of the table, it is always going to be a challenge,” McDonald said. “And that is what makes this league absolutely incredible. We are gonna look to have a very difficult game next weekend. We look forward to teams giving their all against us. That is what we want. That is what each team wants. We not it is not gonna be easy.”
