The Portland Thorns suffered their worst loss in club history at the hands of their NWSL Shield rivals the North Carolina Courage, sending them all but out of the race for first place for the 2019 season.
The Thorns are not mathematically out of the Shield race but they require a big drop off from the Courage for the rest of the season to get back into pole position. With this result but the Courage went up one point in the table with two games in hand and seized firm control of the tiebreaker. Three goals in just 24 minutes of play, all from right hand crosses, put the Thorns behind early and they never recovered.