The Seattle Reign will play their final home game of the 2015 NWSL regular season this Saturday night when they play host to Sky Blue FC. The Reign are ten points clear of second place Chicago Red Stars and FC Kansas City and clinched their second straight NWSL Shield with their 3-1 victory over the Boston Breakers this past Wednesday night. Sky Blue is sitting in sixth place of the standings with no chance of reaching the postseason.

Sky Blue doesn’t really have anything to play for except the possibility of ending the Reign’s unbeaten streak at Memorial Stadium. Since Seattle moved to Memorial Stadium prior to the beginning of the 2014 season, they are 17-0-5 (win-loss-tie) which includes a record of 8-0-1 this season. For whatever reason, Memorial Stadium has become a fortress for the Reign and they are looking to keep that unbeaten streak going.

Sky Blue is led by Katy Freels and Nadia Nadim with five goals each. Kelly O’Hara leads the team with four assists. Their goalkeeper, Brittany Cameron, has a record of 5-7-6 with four shutouts. She has a goal against average of 1.278 and has stopped one penalty, most recently in their last game when she stopped Alex Morgan’s penalty in the dying moments of the match.

For most of the year, Seattle has been led in goals by Beverly Yanez. Well, there is a new leader at the top of the list and her name is Kim Little. The reigning NWSL Player of the Week has scored four goals in her last two games and six in her last six matches played. She trails the league leader, Crystal Dunn, by three. Little leads the team, and the league, in assists with six. Megan Rapinoe is just one behind her with five.

Seattle has used three different goalkeepers this year for various reasons such as international duty and injuries. The ‘keeper that has the best record, save percentage and goals against average will not be the one starting this game barring injury. Haley Kopmeyer has started 11 games for Seattle and has a record of 7-1-3 with four shutouts. The nod will be given to Hope Solo this Saturday night unless Head Coach Laura Harvey decides to rest her. Solo has a record of 4-2-0 and is 3-0-0 since she took back over as the starting ‘keeper on August 12th against the Houston Dash.

KEYS TO THE GAME

As always, the major key for Sky Blue is to control Seattle’s midfield. Seattle likes to control the game with possession and use their forwards, Merritt Mathias and Katrine Veje, to hold up the ball and wait for the midfield to join in on the attack. Veje got the start Wednesday night and was very effective against the Breakers back line with her darting runs in the box and to the sidelines. In doing so, it spreads the defense out wider than they like and allows for Jess Fishlock, Rapinoe and Little to make their runs at the top of the box.

Seattle will want to do better in keeping the ball and holding possession than they were in their last match. That was one thing Harvey, as well as Little and Rapinoe, mentioned in their postgame press conferences. They all felt they could have done better and that was a major reason they lost their clean sheet in the final minutes of the game. Sky Blue will need to press the Reign when they try to maintain possession in hopes of creating a turnover.

This is the third and final meeting between the two teams. Seattle and the New Jersey based Sky Blue tied 1-1 back on May 9th at Yurcak Field. In their next match on May 30th in Seattle, the Reign dominated the match and won 3-0.

PREDICTION

It’s tough to play in Seattle and Sky Blue will suffer yet another loss to Seattle at Memorial Stadium.

Seattle Reign 4, Sky Blue FC 1