Rain-ing goals, Portland Rain storm past Seattle, 4-0

The Portland Rain have been winless in their W-1 league games so far this season. But you'd have a hard time convincing Seattle of that as the Rain opened up a tight match with 3 goals in the second half, on their way to a 4-0 blowout of the PCSL's Seattle Hibernian Lady Saints in an exhibition played in front of about 150 people at PGE Park. Mimi Osei-Agyemang scored twice for the Rain, while Laura Schott added a goal and an assist, and Emma Smith scored as well.

Both teams played a very possessive style of moving the ball forward, with slow buildups that resulted in relatively few shots on goal. The first good chance at goal came in the 12th minute when Seattle's Dana Kimble made a good strike on a free kick 30 yards out, but the shot did not dip quite enough, going a foot over the bar into the top netting. In the 14th minute, the Rain made their first good run at goal when a Denise Cooke cross found Laura Schott in the box, but her shot was stopped by a good diving save by Seattle goalkeeper Meghan Miller.

In the 17th minute, Seattle's Amy Sprague found herself in against Rain goalkeeper Ruth Montgomery on a one-on-one, but Sprague's shot was tipped wide by the Rain keeper for a corner kick. On the resulting corner, Sprague once again got her foot to the ball, but her attempted shot was deflected over the bar by a Rain defender, who partially blocked her shot.

In the 20th minute, a through ball from near midfield found Seattle's Brenda Mueller making a good run from the right side, but her shot from five yards out hit the right goalpost and went out of bounds for the goal kick. Seven minutes later, Portland's Mimi Osei-Agyemang made a good diagonal run, but her attempt to pull the Seattle goalkeeper out position ended up causing her to loose the dribble, and her attempted shot from an extreme angle to the right had no pace, and the shot was saved easily.

In the 30th minute, Portland put a goal on the board first, on a play that appeared at first to be a harmless shot wide. The Rain's Noelle Miller played a ball from near midfield that Schott turned on, then shot towards the left side of the goal off her left foot. The shot appeared to be going wide as the Seattle keeper was not able to get to the shot, but the ball had more spin on it than anyone had expected, and it curved in and hit off the left post, directly to Osei-Agyemang, who controlled the ball and easily tapped the ball past the Saints keeper to put the Rain up 1-0, a lead that held up to halftime as neither team seriously threatened again for the remainder of the half.

The momentum the home side had gained in the first half carried over into the second half, and it didn't take long for it to pay off. The Rain played a free kick from 30 yards out into the box, and at attempted clearance by the Seattle defense instead went to Osei-Agyemang, who once again found herself with the ball directly in front of the Saints net, and again easily tapped in, this time putting the Rain up 2-0.

Ten minutes later, the Rain found the net again when Schott made a long angled run from near midfield. It appeared she had run too far, taking herself out of position for a good shot, but a hard right-footed shot squeaked past the Saints goalkeeper and went just inside the right post to give the home team a 3-0 lead.

In the 70th minute, Seattle had one of their best chances to score when Janelle Munnis received a pass into the box, and from 15 yards out, she turned and put a hard shot towards the left side of the net, but Montgomery got her fingers to the ball, tipping it barely wide for a corner kick. Just four minutes later, the Rain put their final goal of the match into the net when a cross from Miller from the left side appeared at first to be too far for forward Emma Smith to control, but Smith stretched out to control the ball near the top of the box, and was able to beat Saints keeper Sarah Peters, who was charging out from the line, but was unable to stop Smith's shot, putting the Rain up 4-0.

In the 77th minute, the Saints had another good chance to score when a hard shot came in from 15 yards out which Julie Woodward attempted to deflect, but Montgomery was in good position to play the deflection, and made an easy save. A late chance for Seattle was negated with a Saints forward well offside before shooting the ball into the Rain net, and the match ended with the Rain soundly defeating their former opponents from the Pacific Coast Soccer League by a convincing 4-0 score.