Seattle Reign showcase team's grit, resiliency with late comeback to steal road point at Chicago Stars

Despite trailing 2-0 late on the road at the Chicago Stars on Saturday, it felt more like a “when” and less like an “if” that the Seattle Reign would level the match. The Reign dominated possession in the second half, pinning Chicago deep in its own end and creating chance after chance, peppering goalkeeper Halle Mackiewicz until the dam finally broke.

Lynn Biyendolo struck first in the 87th minute when she collected the ball at the top of the box and coolly deposited a left-footed strike into the far corner. Jordyn Bugg delivered the equalizer just two minutes later when an ostensible cross from the right side went untouched through traffic and somehow trickled in at the back post.

“[I’m proud of] our mentality going into each game,” said defender Madison Curry. “We started this game on the front foot, but we got countered on a couple of times and were able to respond. That proves our point that our mentality this year is full of resilience and grit and digging things out when things don’t necessarily go the way that we want.

“In the second half, our ability to keep the ball in their final third was a lot better…We all stepped together and formed a cohesive attack that led to quality chances and two goals.”

The Reign weren’t done either. Maddie Mercado made a marauding run down the left flank shortly after Bugg’s leveler and nearly gave Seattle a miraculous late lead. Mercado forced Mackiewicz into a difficult save after a laser of a hit from the left side of the box.

“If we scored a goal in the first half, we would have won the game,” said Head Coach Laura Harvey. “You saw who we want to be in the second half.”

Given the circumstances, Seattle will feel pleased to escape Soldier Field with a point after a 2-2 draw, though it was just two moments of individual brilliance from Chicago that put the Reign into that position. Ludmila opened the scoring for the Stars in the 11th minute after a 60-yard solo run before she won a foot race on a counterattack two minutes later to double the Stars’ lead.

“I think we can be disappointed not to come away with more, we can feel that,” said Harvey. “But we need to be really proud of our resiliency and our mentality. The players at halftime led that.

Defender Shae Holmes echoed Harvey’s sentiments.

“We’re not happy with just the point…but getting the point after being down 2-0 was a huge small victory for us that we’ll take on for the next week,” Holmes said. “We’re proud of that for now, but definitely still a lot to learn going into [next week’s match against] Utah.

“We knew this month was gonna be hard,” Holmes added. “We prepped for this month knowing that we’d be on the road every week. ‘Resilient’ is the word I’m going to use today.”

The Reign finish the weekend fifth in the NWSL table with 18 points from 12 matches (5-4-3). Seattle will visit the Utah Royals next Saturday, their third of three consecutive road matches, before a lengthy international break for the 2025 UEFA Women’s Euros and will be hoping to take some more positive momentum into their time off. 

“When you’re going into three road games, you probably look at it and go out of nine points, if you can come away with six, you’d be really happy,” Harvey continued. “We’ve given ourselves a chance to get a little bit better than that next week now with this point. If we can come out of June undefeated, I think we’ll be really happy with ourselves.”