Quarterly Hype Report: Better Things?

Had I written this post as initially planned, after the sixth match, it might have a more somber tone. There was sadly little to be hype about. The Reign kept losing matches they could've won. We kept losing matches we should've at least drawn. We kept wasting good play and giving up something incomprehensible to pick up yet another L.

We assembled the second-longest losing streak in Reign history, and while the fight and the energy was always there, the team seemed fragile, prone to breaking under pressure, and ill-equipped to actually claw themselves out of a hole once something did go wrong.

Then, Danielle Chesky showed Tziarra King a red card nine minutes in. The San Diego Wave scored on a recycled ball two minutes later. The Reign looked shell shocked, rattled, and well on the road to extending their losing streak to six. But instead, they dug deep, fought back, and stole three points in a thumping 2-1 come from behind win, playing down a woman for better than 100 minutes and refusing to quit, refusing to lie down, refusing to lose.

This team has heart. This team has fight. This team laid it all out on the pitch for us. With any hope of salvaging the season hanging on the edge of a knife, down a goal, down a player, and down the field from Chesky's rapid-fire cardzooka, they fucking did it. That dawg just has the Seattle Reign in 'em.

And that, my friends? That is what THE HYPE is all about.

WHAT'S HYPE

• That Fucking Win. Maybe it turns our season around, maybe it doesn't. None of us can know. But when they were up against it, the Reign dug in and made their own luck. We're going to remember Bethany Balcer taking the game on her back and demanding the ball from Kailen Sheridan. We're going to remember Ji So-yun finding Veronica Latsko for that moment of magic. We're going to remember the triumphs and defeats, the epic lows and highs. We're going to remember Danielle Chesky breaking, nay, shattering her own league record for most cards shown in a match. It's the sort of win that stories are made of. It's the sort of deep lore that will stand in the club's history for generations to come. Anyway here's that game-winning goal again.

• Bangers For Zee. In a match without a lot else to remember, Tziarra King, in desperate need of a moment to show she belonged on the pitch, scored that goal. She also got sent off 9 minutes in a couple matches later, but we're not going to focus on that, we're going to focus on how freaking insane that strike was. Here it is again. Enjoy it. Revel in it. Watch it again.

• Ji So-yun Forever. Even in the midst of a brutal and frustrating string of winnable matches turning out nothing, we've seen the sort of casual brilliance that made Ji So-yun an unstoppable force at Chelsea for so long. If we can make better use of it, if we can capitalize on the incisive, creative, devastating play she's brought out nearly every time she's hit the pitch, we can take points from anybody, anywhere, at any time. The connection hasn't always been there, but the quality is undeniable. Also, she did this.

WHAT'S NOT

• Losing Matches. No way around it. Losing sucks. Losing five matches in a row really sucks. Writing about losing five matches in a row is a special sort of misery, especially when the team was playing better than their record and throwing points away with inexplicable mental lapses and absolutely infuriating breakdowns. We've broken the streak, and there's 17 games left for us to make our mark on the league, but... whoo. Five matches in a row. We're not accustomed to that sort of slide from the Reign, even in their most frustrating stretches. We hadn't seen such a futile run of form since the inaugural season of 2013 – which, as we all know, never actually happened.
• Losing Players. The soccer gods, the injury demons, or the cruel tides of fate, call it what you will – the Reign have lost a ton of minutes from key players to injury and absence this year. Jordyn Huitema, Quinn, Alana Cook, Claudia Dickey, Veronica Latsko, Jess Fishlock, and Sam Meza have all missed at least one match due to injury, illness, or personal excused absences, and most have missed substantially more than that. Injuries come for every team, and life happens, but the Reign have really struggled to find a consistent lineup and the unavailability of key players up the spine of the field has frequently loomed large on gameday.

WHAT'S NEXT

It's not an easy road ahead. We play the Kansas City Current – likely the best, most complete team in the league – at home on Wednesday, and then head away for a rivalry match against the Portland Thorns on short rest. We host the Orlando Pride, riding high on "Hat Trick" Barbra Banda's brilliance. We visit the Washington Spirit, where Michelle Kang's visionary strategy of buying up what other teams were already building and then taking credit for it has them playing some admittedly pretty good soccer.

It's a brutal four match stretch, and the Reign need points from it. Twelve points, ideally, but we'll settle for 10.

It won't be easy. But you know what else wasn't easy? Coming back to win down a goal, down a player, and downfield from Danielle Chesky's rapid-fire cardzooka. The season is still ours for the taking. It's time to take it. Stem and redirect the Current. Paint the roses blue. I don't have anything mean to say about the Pride but we should beat them anyway. Show up the billionaire vanity purchase that threw us into chaos midstream last year.

Take everything and leave them searching for answers to us for a change.

It's time to get HYPE.