The second half of the season as about to begin, so we should get on with looking at the first half performance of the LAST group of Thorns we haven’t evaluated; the defenders and goalkeepers.
One measure of the turbulence that has roiled the Thorns’ backline this season is that over the first eleven matches the back four that made up 2017’s best defense - Kat Reynolds, Emily Sonnett, Emily Menges, and Meghan Klingenberg - played together only once, in the away win over Washington on Matchday 9.
We’ll talk about that in a bit, after looking at the individual defenders and handing out some grades.