Match Recap: Ordoñez Nets Second Straight Brace in Courage Draw at Portland
PORTLAND, OR (Aug. 5, 2022) — The North Carolina Courage drew 3-3 against the Portland Thorns on Friday night at Providence Park in Portland, OR. The match featured Courage goals from Diana Ordoñez and Jaelene Daniels, while Sophia Smith and Morgan Weaver scored for the Thorns.
The Thorns got off to a fast start Friday with Smith and Weaver scoring in the 8th and 24th minutes, with their 2-0 lead holding through halftime. Courage rookie Diana Ordoñez saw her first opportunity to strike back in the 61st minute, sending a header to the back of the net off a corner kick from Carson Pickett. Just 11 minutes later, Ordoñez would tally another with another header, this time scoring off a ball in from Ryan Williams. “I had a fire in my belly after those first two [Portland] goals,” Ordoñez said. “This team is very motivated by seeing each other work hard – they make it really easy for me to score goals when they put them up on a platter the way that they do. When we all band together and feel that sense of togetherness when we’re playing, it just helps us come out stronger and perform better as a team. … We knew we could get ourselves out of the situation we’d put ourselves in in the second half. That’ll be huge for us moving forward.” While Sophia Smith tallied one more goal for the Portland side in the 77th minute, Jaelene Daniels came through for the Courage with the third goal of the evening. In her first goal since 2019, Daniels kept her cool as a ball found its way to her possession from the right side of the pitch, sending it home to tie the game up in the 85th minute. “Portland is obviously an extremely challenging place to come play,” Carson Pickett said. “You can’t hear much, it’s a bit chaotic. In the beginning of the game, we gave them all their chances. I don’t think they technically earned any of their chances, they were just kind of silly giveaways from us. In the second half we came out and absolutely dominated. We had a lot of attack, we were defending well.”
Up Next: The North Carolina Courage head home to take on the Kansas City Current for the first time this regular season on Saturday, August 13 at 8 p.m. ET. Tickets can be found here and the match will be streamed on Paramount+ and Twitch.
Match Notes:
- Casey Murphy played her 50th regular-season NWSL match.
- Diana Ordoñez netted her second consecutive brace. She also leads all NWSL rookies in goals this season (7) and is tied for the all-time NWSL rookie goal record.
- Jaelene Daniels scored her first regular-season goal since 2019.
Box Score:
NC: Casey Murphy, Carson Pickett, Abby Erceg ©, Kaleigh Kurtz, Ryan Williams, Denise O’Sullivan, Malia Berkely (Meredith Speck — 46’), Brianna Pinto, Debinha, Brittany Ratcliffe (Jaelene Daniels — 73’), Diana Ordoñez
POR: Bella Bixby, Tegan McGrady (Natalia Kuikka — 46’), Becky Sauerbrunn, Kelli Hubly, Meaghan Nally, Samantha Coffey, Morgan Weaver (Yazmeen Ryan — 73’), Christine Sinclair © (Olivia Moultrie — 73’), Raquel Rodríguez (Janine Beckie — 65’), Hina Sugita, Sophia Smith
Score:
NC: 3 POR: 3
Goals:
NC: Diana Ordoñez — 61’, 72’; Jaelene Daniels — 85’ POR: Sophia Smith — 8’, 77’; Morgan Weaver — 24’
Cautions:
NC: — POR: —
Ejections:
NC: — POR: —
